Tag Archives: psychology

Mom Wisdom: See, I wouldn’t like that

My mom has much wisdom, and it is often compressed into a succinct statement. One such statement is the beautifully versatile, “See, I wouldn’t like that.”

It is a thoughtful, personally disclosing and completely nonjudgmental response to all sorts of statements and behaviors. 

A distant relative has gotten an uncomfortable looking piercing. See, I wouldn’t like that, having a hole in my lip. But it’s not my lip.

Another family member is an avid hunter, while she is a vegetarian. See, I wouldn’t like that. But I’m sure it’s good to save money on food and of course the poor animal had at least a better quality of life while it lasted than those poor animals trapped in commercial stalls.

An elderly family member is planning a hiking and camping trip in the mountains. Well, good for her, but I wouldn’t like that. I’m sure she’ll have fun.

She will not pretend to agree with an opinion to keep the peace; she will not be abrasive or confrontational about it, either. She will not pretend that she, too, would want to skydive or travel someplace with large insects or otherwise engage in activities that she finds unappealing. She will listen, ask lots of questions, show genuine interest in the topic, seek to understand the other person’s enthusiasm, be encouraging and may also remark, well, see, I wouldn’t like that.

We have, to some extent, adopted this expression. Even when making an observation about something, such whether to go to the local First-Friday concert when the music is not a genre we enjoy, no criticism is necessary, just the agreement that lots of people will really enjoy it but, see, we wouldn’t like that.

I wonder what changes would ripple out if more people, instead of criticizing others for thinking or doing differently, the first stance was that respectful curiosity followed by a personal reflection that has nothing to do with whether the other party is “right” or “wrong.”  The alternative is a world where people fight or even cut one another out of their lives for matters that are more personal opinions than principles and too often, too little effort is made to find some common ground. And, see, I wouldn’t like that.

Why Ask Me That? Third in a series on questions in the therapy room

Someone who is struggling with anxiety just wants to feel better. It’s understandable; anxiety feels awful. The physical symptoms, so often hovering just below full-blown fight-or-flight; a mind that won’t rest, a brain that hops from topic to topic like a rabbit in a vegetable garden. Add to this the fear that so many people have when they come to therapy:  will the therapist tell me I’m crazy?

No; no, I won’t tell you that, but I am probably going to annoy you with a lot of questions that may seem to be irrelevant to your suffering. My paperwork asks about your history, decade by decade; your losses; job satisfaction; health issues; your alcohol and drug use; your prescribed medications; your exercise and sleep patterns. I ask about screen time, social memberships, supportive relationships. I ask a lot of questions, and I can tell who thinks those questions are irrelevant by who leaves them unanswered, handing me incomplete paperwork and acting surprised when I follow up on the many blank places.

All these questions are important, and here’s a short discussion on just a few aspects and the explanation.

Your sleep patterns, and any difficulties, can both contribute to, and be worsened by, anxiety, stress and depression. If you need more, or better sleep (and most people do), figuring some ways to improve your quality and quantity of sleep can help across many categories of your life: focus, memory, energy, stress level, and mood. When these improve, relationships can often improve, as you might expect when you can pay attention and be less cranky.

If you have major health conditions that are not properly managed, these may contribute to problems with sleep, anxiety, or mood. For example, poorly managed diabetes, besides being physically very dangerous, impacts focus and mood. I would refer you to your physician to see if there are problems that require medical attention.

Social isolation is a recipe for loneliness and depression. Social media use tends to make this worse – something that seems weirdly contradictory. Lonely people eventually withdraw, and this creates more loneliness, isolation and possibly anxiety and depression. We need to explore ways to enter back into activities with others.  From my guidance counselor days: children who are isolated suffer. If you ask a child if s/he has friends, and then ask him/her to name those friends, and there is a flash of hesitation, you know you are dealing with a child suffering social isolation. Just so, adults who cannot identify some supportive relationships and what is good about those relationships is an adult who is emotionally isolated.

I ask questions that make sense to me; if they don’t make sense to you, please ask why I’m asking. Thanks!

Why Ask Me That? Part 2 of a series on questions in the therapy room

Very often, as a therapist, I observe to couples or family members in the therapy room that they are having separate conversations. They think they’re having one conversation, but they are not; the communication wires are crossed and each is addressing what they think the other means, and not what the person actually means. This happens, too, in clinical settings.

Take, for example, my friend “Anna,” (not a client), in her 70s, long-married, who very precisely answered her long-time physician’s query about her sexual preferences with, “Paul Newman, James Garner, and Errol Flynn.”  Hilarious – but not the answer anticipated for the question being asked of her.  Anna discussed this with friends and family later, and wondered, “Why ask me that?”

Her question has merit for two reasons. First, simply because time is scarce. Many people complain about the lack of time with their doctor to discuss their concerns, their symptoms, the confusing test results, the sometimes scary, “What’s next?” (I don’t; I have a great primary care physician.) In Anna’s case, a long-time patient is asked what seems obvious to her and not given an explanation of why it is being asked, while other people feel shortchanged at the time available to discuss the growth on their thyroid or the troubling change in their bloodwork.

Second, her question reinforces how important it is for all of us in the health-related fields to explain why we ask the things we do.  I ask, in the initial paperwork, about friendships, sleep, health problems, job satisfaction, etc.  – things clients sometimes think are irrelevant to what brings them to counseling. I don’t think they are irrelevant; I think that these are essential aspects of well-being, and understanding more about the client’s world helps me to help the client. I state this in the paperwork, with a brief explanation about how understanding a client’s habits, strengths and support systems gives us information to build solutions that fit that particular client.

So perhaps the moral to the story is for healthcare providers to explain why we ask the questions we ask.

And perhaps another moral to the story is, ask those questions very precisely. Because sometimes people will answer exactly the question we asked, and not the one we intended to ask.

Why Ask Me That? Part 1 of a Series on Questions in the Therapy Room

“It’s a lot of paperwork.” 

Yes, I agree, it is. And all that information is helpful and useful for me in what I presume is a shared project: making positive change in some aspect – or many aspects – of that client’s life. 

The number of people who simply skip sections, as if they were optional, or not relevant, is significant. This gives the opportunity to have some conversations about those questions, and their relevance.

For example:

If someone routinely shortchanges their sleep, health problems will develop. In the short term, irritability (which tends to mess up personal and work relationships), less efficient short-term memory (ditto), distractibility (ditto) and impulsivity (mega-ditto) are possible contributors to whatever the primary complaint may be.  So maybe we should address that, too!

If you are extremely extroverted and are working remotely and living alone, you have created a perfect petri dish for restlessness, depression, and dissatisfaction. Those are psychological and emotional factors that create problems across domains. Deliberately arranging adequate real interactions with others will be essential to meeting that basic need.

If you don’t have five or six people who you can identify as part of your social support system, such as friends, family, a mentoring colleague, etc., there may be a heightened risk for depression and anxiety.  That doesn’t mean you confide personal problems with all those folks; you might have someone who provides support and encouragement in career-related areas, some people you can pray with, people who you play sports or exercise with and enjoy lighter conversations.

There are no questions on my paperwork that are not rooted in helping the client and me have a grounded understanding of the client’s strengths, struggles, and emotional resources for making positive change. Just ask me.

Detour Ahead. There. And there.

Look carefully. Yep, that’s a detour sign, pointing to the right at the T-intersection. And yes, across the street is another detour sign, pointing left. There are, as it happens, only two ways to choose here – right or left. Both appear to be detours. To where? From where?

A quarter-mile away, the road crews who neglected to pack up these signs (months have passed) also left behind a Detour sign with an arrow pointed up, as in, go straight ahead. That particular sign has been moved back and forth, one day pointed north, then south, and, most recently, either whimsically or horribly, as if the detour was to crash through someone’s side fence into their backyard.

Pity the unsuspecting rideshare driver who has to figure all this out. Eventually, there will be road work in our area again and we’ll all stupidly ignore the first detour signs, because we’ve learned to regard orange signs with arrows as signifying nothing.

There you go: life with crazy detours and places where there seems to be no right answer. At least, there seems to be no easy answer. It can be hard to know if a detour indicates something to be avoided or a relic or even a ruse.

Anyone new to the neighborhood would be stymied by the mixed messages, while the people who know the origin of the dueling detours shrug and ignore them – or, in some cases, get annoyed and move signs across the street.  There’s a clue: when a detour arises, ask questions; see how other people are responding to the apparent detour, and why.  On occasion, I see, in stores, the relics of the social distancing recommendations of 2020, those half-peeled away stickers on terrazzo floors. Like the road-sign-weary denizens of my area, shoppers ignore signs that used to be treated as if they’d come down from Mount Sinai.

There are detours that make sense, like when there’s a big hole in the road. No doubt you’ve gotten your share of detour signs from life. I’ve had mine. Some have kept me from disaster, and some turned out to be less about danger and more about someone else’s fears or agendas.  I’ve heard about many – and about so many people who figured out which detours were legitimate, and which were either relics or ruses.

Wishing you good adventures, and the wisdom to know relics from ruses, as well as to never be the person who puts up fake detour signs for others.

To Ink or Not to Ink

To ink or not to ink: that is the question.

Not my question, but a lot of people debate this. Perhaps they are considering the latest news: the research showing a significant increase in the risk of blood cancers with just one tattoo. That seems worth attention.

Sometimes, people planning a tattoo want to talk about it, the image and the expected arguments from friends or family. We might discuss the option of wearing a piece of jewelry with the same design for a year straight – no exceptions – or the benefit of a trial run with temporary tattoos for a few months.  Perhaps pulling out a particularly unflattering photo, with a hairstyle and clothing you thought looked great at the time, and facing it every day for a year or so would provide a tap to the brakes. Most often in these conversations, I simply listen, ask a lot of questions, and offer my personal explanation as to “why not.” There are three significant reasons.

On my phone, I have a photo of memorial bricks that rest in Europe, with the names and deportation dates of family members who died in Auschwitz in 1944.  They would have been tattooed by the Nazis, each with a unique number, for the obsessive record-keeping for which the Third Reich was known. Out of respect to their memories, no ink.

I can’t think of any sort of decoration I wouldn’t tire of, sooner, probably, rather than later. A look at my hair and fashion choices in old photos makes that spectacularly clear. Due to the likelihood that I will someday find my décor of the day regrettable, no ink.

Finally, the two most significant factors in my life, my faith and my marriage, are too important to me for tattoos. Both deserve a deliberate, mindful choice – every day, every moment. The crucifix I wear is by choice, never mindlessly or without reverence for its meaning and the demand placed upon me, however poorly I may live out that demand. The wedding ring is deliberate, a clear statement of, I love you, I choose you, each day. Never indifferent, never nonchalant: to wear these things is a daily action verb.

Now, those reasons may make no sense to you. Maybe they seem silly or irrelevant to your situation. Perhaps they do; but perhaps they are worth a conversation with someone as you, or they, make decisions about permanent records of this particular spot in place and time.  

Social Contagion

(This post mentions eating disorders, self-harm, substance abuse and suicide. Please reach out to your local emergency services if you or someone you know is struggling with any of these!)

When I was in 9th grade, I unwillingly, and briefly, attended our parish’s very small Catholic Youth Organization meetings (CYO.  The group comprised mostly boys, all altar servers, who played ping pong and pool with our associate pastor, a well-meaning middle-aged priest from Poland. The only other girls were the type of enmeshed best friends that are normal at that stage of life. Their shared passion was Bay City Rollers. They put together, in that era of typewriters with ribbons and no internet, a monthly fan newsletter with some success.  Life would have been oh, so easy, if only I could have mustered enthusiasm for the boys from Edinburgh.  I tried. But, despite the social costs, a Dylan fan I remained.

Go ahead, laugh. But you have faced the challenge of social contagion, too. You may even now be wearing a style of clothing you don’t actually even like. It’s just what’s “in.” As a teenager, you wore the right clothes, or pined after them; you strove for the right hair style. You wore the trendy colors even if they made you look ill, and were anxious for the approval of your peers.  It’s not just kids who follow the crowd; every married person knows that when your spouse’s friend circle comprises mostly divorced people, there may well be trouble ahead.

Over the years, we’ve seen waves of societal concern about the risks of contagion. Were young people teaching each other to cut or burn themselves (1990s), how to purge or starve themselves (ongoing since at least the 90s), how to get a so-called “high” from household items? Could a teen’s suicide lead to copycat attempts?  The answer to all of these is, yes.

Children now are not gifted with preternaturally adult-style brain development. The ability to sound sophisticated by parroting what you’ve read or heard is not the same as an adult brain with a well-developed executive function – something that takes into the early to mid-20s to acquire.  Your kid is not any more resistant to peer pressures of even the subtle type than you were when you were screaming in excitement over a band because all your friends were.  As it happens, they are more vulnerable, because peer pressure can surround them wherever their cell phone works. Odds are, you were free – as soon as you were off the school bus, there was some space for other influences to counterbalance the noise of adolescents striving to show their individuality by being as much like their desired group as possible.

Notice the vagaries of the teenage years: they move from music star to music star, aesthetic nomads in lockstep. No one wears jeans; then they all wear jeans. The games, the accessories, even the car you drive falls under the anxious eye of a child who wants to fit in.  It’s important for all of us to be attuned to the various social pressures to conform, because we want our young people to survive, and thrive, throughout these very turbulent times.

What’s in your backpack?

I was speaking with someone reluctant to make any sort of commitment to a small change in the routine. Things were not going well for my friend, and the future seemed murky. With no clear picture of “where the journey is heading,” taking any first step seemed imprudent, my partner in conversation asserted; it would be better to wait until the “where” is sorted out in life before making a concerted effort in any direction.

One reasonable response to that is, there is no “standing still” in life: attempting to stand still just means things around you will change while you pretend you can hold your position.  See how that works for you standing in the ocean. Maybe that seems trite; the whole “you never step into the same river twice” trope that is, as it happens, absolutely true.

Another way of looking at my friend’s dilemma is this: no matter where my journey is going, some items always go in the backpack. I may not always need the water purification straws, or the sleeping bag rated for freezing weather, but I always need underwear and socks. I always need a spare pair of contact lenses and sunscreen. I always need a small Bible. I always need chocolate and my thyroid medicine. Even without knowing where, or when, I’m going, some things can go into the backpack.

No matter where your life journey is taking you, wouldn’t it be helpful to have a better quality of sleep? More physical energy?  A firmer sense of what your values are, and why, and what the implications are for daily life? A little less messiness in the closet or refrigerator or your car? Less weird clutter and mysterious crumpled papers in that one drawer? Some better thinking habits, whether it’s taking on a phobia or developing your capacity for focused attention?

Even if you’re feeling really stuck – a lot of pressures, an unhappy job situation, the first year or so into significant grief – perhaps there is one small thing you can do first– something you can “put into the backpack” – without a clear picture of where you hope to be heading. And, as you’re putting those essentials into your pack, perhaps the mystery of the next few steps on the journey will begin to come into focus.

Happy trails –

Life-Changing Hacks

Confession: I really dislike the term “hack.” It sounds awful, like a data breach somewhere, drenching the dark web with the personal info of thousands of people. It also used to mean someone whose work was poorly done and usually rushed, or the work itself. Somehow it became slang for “something you can do to make things easier/simpler/better.”

So be it, then.  In the spirit of openness (in which I score extremely high in personality tests), here are seven “hacks” for a happier life:

  1. Spend at least 15 minutes a day sitting in silence. For me, it is prayer time. This is a powerful early-day practice. If you are religious, this is a good time to sit with Scripture, a devotional book if you use one, and a small notebook in which to write a brief response as part of your prayer. For some people of faith, opening with a short Scripture reading and sitting silently in a contemplative mode of prayer is better.

If you are not religious, use it as quiet meditation time, focusing on breathing in a way that feeds relaxation and focus.

Why it works:  The research on the benefits of such a meditative practice is robust: brain health, heart health, reduced depression and anxiety symptoms. For people of faith, it becomes an opportunity to listen and reflect on God’s presence in their lives and how they are called to live. Taking a few moments to formulate your thoughts and write to God can help anchor you into the experience. The act of writing – words of gratitude, questions, fears – helps with focus and invites you to be in dialogue.

  • Go on a news fast.  If something horrible that actually requires your attention happens or is imminent, like a hurricane or other disaster, you’ll find out about it. Otherwise, just skip the news for a week, or two, or more. Then titrate your dosage:  15 minutes a day, checking into two or three varied sources.

Why it works:  repeated exposure to what are often the same events, or people discussing those events, has the neurological effect of repeated distressing experiences and amplifies your stress level. By quickly reading, rather than watching and listening, you will be better able to glean information without being overly stimulated emotionally.

  • Once a week, avoid all electronics except:
    • Live interaction with loved ones at a distance
    • Shared experiences with family or friends such as watching a movie together, which you can then discuss over a meal.

Why it works:  you will necessarily be spending more time in the real world, either resting, being creative, or otherwise having your life rather than passively observing others’ lives.

  • Go outdoors every day, preferably in the morning.

Why it works:  Morning daylight helps with brain chemistry; it contributes to a better mood and improved sleep by getting your melatonin system set properly.  It is also a good time of day to get your beneficial Vitamin D exposure (check with your physician) and to take in the benefits of exposure to nature: the sky, the sights, sounds and smells of plants, the sight and sounds of animals.

  • Clean up your diet.  Experiment with giving up highly processed junk foods. If you are a “one toe in the water” type, pick one change at a time and stick with it. Add a small change a week. If you are a “cannonball into the pool” type, go all in: get rid of the chips, the fast foods, the super-sweetened snacks.  See how you feel after a couple of weeks, after the worst of the withdrawal has passed and your tastebuds start to recover.

Why it works:  junk food is addictive, hijacking your dopamine system; it leads to erratic moods both because of the direct up and down of dopamine and the very complex relationship between the gut and the brain. The research here is abundant and easy to find; simply put, you’ll feel better. Your energy level should be more stable, helping you feel more energetic and, without that brain/body overstimulation from processed snacks in the evening, you may even sleep better, which leads to number 6:

  • Be religious about sleep.  If you are a 7-hour-a-night person, get those 7 hours; if you are a 9-hour person, get the 9.  Since you will be consuming less electronic media you should be able to squeeze out the time.

Why it works:  Sleep is essential. It is when your brain, and the rest of your body, does a lot of its clean-up and repair work. Your brain uses sleep to sort out information, store memories, and do important work such as using your new, improved, healthier diet to rebuild your stress-and-junk-damaged hippocampi, amygdala, etc.  Try to go to bed and get up at around the same time every day. If you are skeptical, then be scientific about it: do this as a four-week experiment and then assess the outcome.

  • Be committed to a daily exercise routine appropriate to your health requirements.  Your physician can give you info on recommended guidelines and any limitations or considerations you need to bear in mind.  There is no one routine for everyone, but unless you are on doctor’s orders to remain resting and sedentary, there is something you could do in this area. You may have to start slow; you may have to scale back because you are burning out; you may need to add variety so you are addressing cardiovascular health, strength, flexibility and balance.

Why it works:  Well, look at the data!  We are engineered to move, not to sit for hours.  Regular exercise is good for physical and mental health, can help with social well-being for those who exercise with or around others, afford time in nature, and help with sleep and digestion. 

So, there you go.  Seven simple hacks for a happier life.  Most of them cost nothing; even healthier eating could start with a money-saving switch of water in lieu of sugar- or artificially-sweetened prepared beverages. So – all simple, all potentially free. Since it doesn’t cost anything – what’s the harm in giving it a one-month trial run?  If one month of free, simple changes could mean more well-being in multiple areas of life, that seems like a great bargain – cheaper than coming to therapy and paying me, or someone else, to tell you the same thing.

Cutting off Mom and Dad, Part 3



…and now we come to the final installment (so far) in my
wonderings about this strange phenomenon of parent rejection by adult children.
So far, I have tried to spread the responsibility around: the infantilization
of young adults by many institutions, the culture at large, and parents.  Now it is the young people’s turn.


It is my observation (granted, limited to some review of the
literature, professional trainings and clinical experience – over a quarter
century) that it is not usually the abused children who grow up and cut off
their parents. This seems odd, doesn’t it? If a child who was tortured decided
to cut off contact, we could understand, even support the healthy distancing.



It is much more typical for the young person who simply does
not want to be bothered to cut off the parent or parents. Quite often it seems
to be one parent; a widowed mother, typically, which makes me suspicious that
the possibility of some sort of responsibility drives the distancing.  I am sorry to be that cynical, but so it
sometimes seems.  Other themes seem to be
that the parent doesn’t just pat the child on the head for every decision, or
the parent has different political opinions, or religious beliefs.



If you are an adult, then surely you have developed the
capacity to tolerate the presence of people different than you; it appears to
be a matter of pride to young adults, especially, to be open-minded about
people’s differences, to refuse to allow even stunningly foundational
differences in values to be barriers to mutual respect. If that is the case, if
you think of yourself as tolerant, then surely you can tolerate the fact that
your parents, or grandparents, or aunts or uncles or other relatives, no doubt
have different ideas than you (and from one another). It may come as a surprise
to you that your parents, whom you may see as some monolith of monotony,
actually disagree with one another. A lot. The research indicates married
couples disagree on about two thirds of the stuff of life, or more; they just
have figured out, I hope, how to live and let live on these disagreements and
how to work with the few that are pretty significant areas. 



Are you afraid? Afraid that you cannot properly defend your
own positions, operationalizing your terms and pointing to data, rather than
feelings, and that interacting with your parent(s) will be an exercise in
losing an argument and feeling like a fool? 



Are you afraid to simply listen to try to understand more of
their opinion, meaning the information and experiences that support that
stance?



Are you afraid that staying close to aging parents will mean
being stuck with them, having to take care of them, when you are carefully
curating your life to minimize responsibility?



Are you afraid you will die of boredom if you have to listen
one more time to their ramblings about the events of their lives, which may
actually not be any more ennui-producing than your own (have you wasted a chunk
of your life bingeing a fictional series lately or playing video games?).



Are you afraid that they will keep trying to get you to
change and you are tired of explaining to them that your
job/partner/reproduction plans are not up for discussion?



Are you afraid to set boundaries, including the boundaries
of discretion? Surely you do not talk about everything with every friend; in
the same way, it can be very wise to discern what topics to discuss with whom.
If your definition of family means “people who have to accept and agree with
everything about me,” then even something as simple as dietary differences (the
omnivore and vegan siblings, for example) will necessitate cutting off a family
member when all you had to do was not rave on and on about the great steak you
grilled last weekend or stop talking about murder when you are sharing a meal.



Cutting off family without very strong grounds to do so is a
red flag. If your friends have done so, consider their reasons; if this is how
they treat the people who sacrificed for them in ways they may not yet
understand, exactly how solid is the rock you stand on with these friends? Can
you really count on them to be there, helping to clean up after you have
vomited, for the zillionth time, during chemo? To show up for you when there is
a death, or a birth, and in the long months of change and bewilderment
afterwards? To take a day off and drive you to and from having your wisdom
teeth out, or a colonoscopy, or whatever else has to happen – and the medical
office will not release you to a ride share service?



The family cut-off is a tragedy, under the best and most
reasonable of circumstances. The dangerous parents might need to be cut off,
for the sake of their children and grandchildren. It is heartbreaking that life
had to come to this, but it may be necessary. That is not something to be done
lightly, indifferently, or without serious reflection of how this decision will
play out in the decades to come.



Thanks for reading –