Every family experiences some form of hardship. Have you ever noticed how some families seem to bounce back, perhaps even using their trials for good; while others never quite seem to recover? What makes some families more resilient?
Family resilience is the ability to “withstand and rebound from disruptive life challenges, strengthened and more resourceful” (Walsh, 2011). While it may seem that some families are ”born” with an inherent ability to withstand difficulty, the good news is than any family can grow their resilience (Pogosayan, 2017).
Dr. Froma Walsh is a family therapist and leading expert on family resilience. She has identified nine main ingredients for family resilience, divided into three categories: belief systems (what the family thinks and believes); organizational patterns (how the family acts and relates to one another), and communication patterns (how the family speaks and communicates). Any family can mix together these nine ingredients to make their own, unique family resilience “recipe.”
Beliefsystems
Resilient families…
Are able to make meaning of the adversity, perhaps by normalizing the hardship or viewing it as an opportunity for growth.
Have a hopeful and positive outlook. They seize opportunities and persevere.
Have a sense of purpose, larger values or some form of spirituality/faith to lean on.
Organizational patterns
Resilient families…
Are flexible and able to adapt to new circumstances while also maintaining some stability (rituals, routines, strong leadership).
Are connected and supportive of one another. They respect each other as individuals.
Have social and economic resources by mobilizing the support of kin, social and community networks.
Communicationpatterns
Resilient families…
Have clear communication. They seek and speak truth.
They are open with their emotions and willing to share a range of feelings without blaming or “lashing out”.
Are able to tap into their inner resourcefulness and collaborate to problem solve.
At Fuller Life, we believe there is hope for all families to thrive after a hardship. We are here to walk alongside as you do. ResourcesPogosayan, M. (2017). What Makes Families Resilient?https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/between-cultures/201710/what-makes-families-resilientWalsh, F. (2011). Family resilience: a collaborative approach in response to stressful life challenges. Resilience and mental health: Challenges across the lifespan, 149-161.
“Food, glorious food!” wrote Lionel Bart, lyricist of this song from Oliver!, the British musical based on the Charles Dickens’ novel, Oliver Twist. Mr. Bart knew what he was talking about.
Think of your favorite comfort food, snack, or sweet treat. What kinds of feelings arise when you think of your favorite dish? Are there feelings of comfort or safety? Maybe feelings of satisfaction or nostalgia? There are many emotions that present themselves when we eat. There may even be feelings of shame or defeat that can manifest as we eat the last chip from a newly-opened family-sized bag that we finished in one sitting.
What does all this mean? It means our emotions play an important role as we eat—whether we like it or not. From emotions of guilt when we cheated on our diet (again) to that first satisfying and indulgent bite of our favorite pasta or donut, we can pay attention to our emotions to better understand how we feel, think, and believe about what we eat. With this understanding of ourselves, we can start being mindful of what our body needs without sacrificing the foods we love.
What we’re told about what to eat
We’ve all heard it before. Carbs are bad for you. Sugar is bad for you. Wheat is bad for you. Grains are bad for you. Meat is bad for you. Processed foods are bad for you. Eggs are bad for you. Dairy is bad for you. Non-organic foods are bad for you. Too much fruit is bad for you. Certain vegetables are bad for you.
If all these things are true, what’s left to eat? If we believed that all the above were true, then to stay healthy, we all need to start on a diet of eating plain kale…but not too much, of course. How does it make sense for all these things to be bad for our health?
We see in the media how different research studies on the same topic draw entirely different conclusions. One day eggs are bad for you and increase cardiac disease, and the next day, eggs aren’t so bad for you because they contain a different type of cholesterol that isn’t bad for you.
If the science on food is so contradictory, why do we constantly make decisions to change what we eat based off them?
The body knows
This may come as a surprise, but the body actually knows which foods it needs and how much it needs. Babies know how much milk they need to feel content and stop eating when their hunger is satisfied. So, what happens to us that we lose this ability to know what we need and when we’ve had enough? We start learning to go against our body’s intuition in being told to finish our plate, told to only eat certain foods, or being shamed by parents or caregivers.
When a child is told to finish all their food because there are starving children in other countries, the shame the child experiences from their caregiver can push the decision to eat past the full point and ignore the body’s indicator of being satisfied. For this person, eating may now be associated with shame. So how does someone who’s been taught to ignore their body’s natural signals of hunger and being full start to recognize these signals again?
Mindful eating
Remember the above example of eating a family-sized bag of chips in one sitting?
Think about your favorite snack that you usually power through. Think of where you are as you are wolfing down this favorite snack. Now, consider if you took a bite every 15 seconds or so. Imagine how much slower you would eat. Then, notice what the texture of your snack is like. Is it light and crisp as you take a bite? Is it soft and chewy? Notice the flavor. Is it salty? Is it sweet? Is it salty, then sweet? As you’re continuing to take slow bites, bring awareness of where you usually feel hunger in your stomach. Notice how hunger pangs fade and fullness starts to set in.
This is mindful eating. Many of us eat in front of our tv, computer, smartphone, or even while driving. We shovel food into our mouths while binge-watching, playing a game, or working. Our minds aren’t on what we’re eating. Our minds are on our screens. We’re practicing mindless eating. Mindful eating challenges us to stop multi-tasking and solely focus on what we’re eating while noticing the entire experience of enjoying a meal or snack. This can be challenging, but a way to start is to practice slowing down when we eat.
Enjoy!
The main purpose of mindful eating is to bring us back to paying attention to our body, knowing what we need or don’t need. When we start to practice paying attention to our bodies and our experience of eating, we may not feel the need to power through that family size bag chips. Rather, we can take a handful out of the bag and practice eating them mindfully one by one. Another purpose of mindful eating is to enjoy what we eat and the experience of eating. If we take time to pay attention to eating an apple with curiosity and wonder, imagine the world of flavor that awaits! Food is glorious and meant to be enjoyed for its taste and for our health. Imagine the world that awaits when we stop listening to other people about what to eat and start listening to our own bodies. Bon Appetit!
For more in-depth information about mindful eating and food and health, please refer to the below resources:
In the first part of this blog series, we discussed some common misconceptions about discipline. We learned that discipline is not about punishment, demanding respect or shaming, but rather about teaching.
In this blog, we will go over five strategies to implement when disciplining your children.
1. Catch your kids doing good.
(Canadian PaediatricSociety, 2004; Byrne Biancardi, 2014) We all respond well to positive reinforcement. In the workplace you would probably have a hard time wanting to learn from a supervisor who was always scolding you about what you’re doing wrong and never encouraged you in the ways you were doing your job well. With your children, pay attention not only when things are not going well, but when they are. Be specific with what you observe.
2. Model how you would like your children to behave.
The old saying “do as I say, not as I do” is never effective. Your kids are watching you and learning from you, perhaps more than you’d like!
3. Connect with your child.
This simply means to empathize with and validate your child’s experience (i.e., “I see that you are very upset/angry/frustrated right now”). Connection helps to move your child’s brain from a “reactive” emotion-driven state to a more receptive state in which they are ready to learn. It can also help to shift your brain from a reactive state to a state where you are able to teach. Connection has the longer-term impacts of deepening your relationship with your children as well as helping to develop the connections in their brains between the lower, more primitive and reactive, parts of the brain to the higher parts of the brain capable of self-regulation (Siegel and Payne, 2014).
4. Address the behavior together.
Once you have connected with your child, talk with them about the impact of his or her behavior and ask him or her what they would like to do to make it better. Involve them in the process of being accountable for their actions. For example, if your daughter had broken one of her brother’s toys, she might suggest giving one of her toys to him.
5. Remind your child of your love for them.
At the end of the day, it is important to reinforce for your child, “Even at your absolute worst, I am still with you and still love you.” Just like you would like to be thought of as more than just the sum totalof your good or bad actions, so would your child. We can inadvertently send the message to our children that they are only loveable when they are behaving well as opposed to being loveable just for who they are.
We hope this series has been helpful for you as you do the hard, but rewarding, task of parenting your children well.
Siegel, D. J., & Bryson, T. P. (2014). No-drama discipline: The whole-brain way to calm the chaos and nurture your child’s developing mind (First edition.). New York: Bantam.
Everyday we can look around and see signs, commercials, and
ads for the latest fad diets, extreme workouts, and weight-loss quick fixes. These
diets label some specific food as “the fat maker”. The workouts make big promises
but are too extreme to stick with long term. The weight-loss quick fix guarantees
“this pill will melt fat away.” What are these ads really saying? They say that
we need to change ourselves to achieve the “perfect body”. These messages look
helpful from the outside. Yet, the more probable picture is not helpful at all.
How much harm are these messages doing, and what does it mean for you?
What’s really being
said?
On the surface, this message implies that we need to take
better care of our physical health to look better and feel better, but
sometimes that’s not all we receive. Sometimes we hear that we’re not good
enough as we are. We start to believe that we need that slim physique to be
happy and feel as though we’re worth something. Sometimes, we even start to
believe that we are shameful for not matching that ideal body seen in the
media. The danger of shame is the lengths we take to achieve the perfect body
and what it really means about the way we view ourselves.
What messages are you
receiving: motivation or shame?
You may be wondering what’s wrong with wanting to better
yourself? On the outside, someone may have started eating healthier foods and
working out every day, but what motivations lie underneath this lifestyle
change? Someone taking steps towards making better eating choices for a
healthier life is different from someone cutting out food groups out of fear
and shame for being the size they are. Someone going for a walk or run more
often to feel better is different from taking on an extreme workout program out
of a desire to hurt and tear down the body to force it to change.
Shame is not only
mentally and emotionally exhausting, but also physically taxing when it
manifests into the way we treat ourselves daily. For some, behaviors fueled by
shame can become unhealthy habits or obsessions attempting to achieve or
maintain the social construct of the “perfect” body. For others, the feelings
of worthlessness and shame can be so strong that they immobilize them from even
attempting to take care of themselves.
The weight of shame
In most experiences of shame, we isolate ourselves from
those around us. We feel disconnected from the people in our lives and
disconnected from ourselves. The weight of shame can be heavy and fuel our own
form of self-abuse as we try to change ourselves. This self-abusing cycle of
shame can lead to a deterioration of our mental, emotional, and physical health.
What is a healthier
approach?
We can start to uncover an expose our shame by becoming
aware of it. Taking a moment of pause and being curious about what is driving
us to change ourselves is a first step in becoming more aware. We notice our
motivations and what our inner voices are telling us about the changes we feel
we need to make to our bodies. When we become more aware, we give more power to
ourselves. In our awareness, we can start to show ourselves kindness and
compassion through the things we tell ourselves and combat the heaviness of
shame.
Beauty in diversity
If we all looked the same, the world would be a boring
place. We are all beautiful in our own way and change in various and unique
ways throughout our lives. Our differences make the world a more interesting
and beautiful place, so why are we fighting so hard to look the same? We are
all deserving of loving ourselves as we are. We are also deserving of wanting
to do better for ourselves, but where does your motivation come from? Is our
motivation a desire to be and feel healthier? Or is our need to change based on
fear and shame for being the way we are? Knowing what drives us gives us new
opportunities to show ourselves kindness.
Resources
Are you struggling with the weight of shame? Our therapists at Fuller Life Family Therapy provide a kind and compassionate space to help people work through shame, self-esteem, and a variety of other challenges. Call us today at (855) 245-5433 to schedule an appointment.
Since we can feel chemistry and passion so quickly and effortlessly for someone else, that means staying with that person should be easy, right? Except, most of us eventually feel a fading of that initial passion, chemistry, and excitement in a relationship. What do we have left after these feelings pass?
Happily ever after?
When the relationship hits trouble, we sometimes feel tricked, lied to, and wonder if we can make it work. We wonder if it will last. Then, we busy our minds with thoughts of what the other person is doing, why they do the things they do, and why they are the way they are. Our thoughts get us feeling stuck and defeated. We get so focused on the other person that we completely forget about ourselves. A great relationship with others starts with a great relationship with yourself.
When the relationship starts sinking
Having a relationship with yourself may sound like something that doesn’t make sense. In our culture, relationships carry so much weight and pressure that it sometimes feels as though we’re drowning in them. When we feel like we’re drowning, we look to our partner, our friend, or our family member to save us. Then, we get upset when they don’t save us. The difficult truth here is that they can’t. The people in our lives can support us, aid us, and love us. What they cannot do is save us…especially from ourselves. This is the terrifying part. If they can’t save us, who can?
Do you know how to swim?
We can expedite the destruction of our relationships by expecting that others will keep us from drowning when they may be drowning just like we are. Coming up for air starts with ourselves. It starts with knowing and loving ourselves enough to confront and realize that we’ve been drowning in the shallow end of a pool because we didn’t know we had feet. If we don’t see that we have feet, we can’t stand up and support ourselves. We may look to anyone and everyone else to pull us out of the water and save us when we feel like we’re drowning. Expecting others to save us can cripple and destroy relationships, and take a toll on those around us.
What does this mean? First and foremost, it means to begin by seeing that we may be drowning. We need to see that we’re in the shallow end of our own pool. Then, we need to look down, see we have feet, and then believe that those feet will support us when we stand up. For healthy relationships, we need to see that we can support ourselves, and choose to love ourselves while choosing to love others.
What about you?
So how are you loving yourself today? We are human. There will be mistakes and we will fall down. We worry and we expect. We have flaws and pitfalls, but we don’t have to become these things. As humans, we are more than the things we don’t like about ourselves. We are also our strengths, capabilities, and talents. We are all of these things combined and we are worth loving all of these things together; the good and the bad. While it may not be as easy as automatically loving ourselves, we can choose daily to be kind and open to who and where we are. We are worth being loved by others, and we are worth being loved by ourselves. In our worthiness, we can choose love daily.
For more content on relationships and self-love, follow the links below:
Bruce Moon, Art Therapist and educator, describes art therapy as “an effort to detect or discover the meaning of life by exploring the soul of what we invent in our creative work”. I recently had the honor of exploring this use of creativity with fellow clinician, Jennifer Christian. Maybe you’ve only thought of creating art as an enjoyable past-time. If you allow it, art can actually be used as a tool for personal discovery. Listen in to learn more about how making your own artwork can improve the way you live and move through challenges:
Imagine the days before the internet, before television, even before radio. Imagine a time when the senses were not constantly inundated with competing sources of sound and imagery. That, my friend, is quiet. Our world is bombarded with all kinds of sensory information—music, video, talking, billboards, the noise of the city, laughter, alarms. But our brains need a break from even the most enjoyable stimuli. Studies indicate that even low levels of constant noise increase stress levels and impair our ability to function properly. A growing body of research also highlights the impact that too much visual input from sources like the internet has on problems like anxiety. It also disrupts our attention and learning ability.
Finding quiet might seem impossible in a society where the advancement of sales, popularity and political agendas seems hinged on how much information can be pumped into our systems. But there are tools to help give your brain a break.
Plan and prioritize. Put quiet time in your schedule. Prioritize it as an appointment and do not allow others to intrude upon it. Would you brush off a doctor’s appointment to have a last-minute lunch date? Then try giving your personal time the same importance. It’s for your own good.
Do it naturally. Sometimes removing yourself from your typical environment surrounded by modern technology is your best bet. Reconnect with the outdoors. Head to a park or spend a little time in the backyard. Sit and focus on one leaf or close your eyes and listen to the simple sound around you.
Do it spiritually. Your quiet time is your sacred space. You can view as a time to just listen inwardly, contemplate and reconnect spiritually. Find that higher focus to help you stay in tune.
Take what you can get. Locate the unused moments in your life where you could be quiet. Use your ride to and from work to disconnect from the noise. Find an unoccupied space at work and sit for 5 minutes with your eyes closed. The little moments can add up.
Healthy Results
Getting the quiet that your brain craves is more about a change in perspective. Modern society can make you feel that every free moment must be occupied with getting or disseminating information. We think we will fall behind or miss the next important thing if we do not constantly stay connected.
Sometimes we can grow so used to the noise around us that we no longer realize what we are constantly taking in. Begin by changing your mind about the importance of quiet. Then shhhhhh….
If you find yourself guilty of engaging in harmful self-talk, do not fret, you are not alone. Many of us are guilty of using shaming or denigrating language to speak to ourselves on a daily basis. Our intimate thoughts can sometimes be a scary place, especially when they are riddled with negativity and self-hate. How often do we take time to notice the way we “talk dirty” to ourselves?
Better yet, how often do we take the time to reframe those negative thoughts into more compassionate musings? If you are like many individuals, it is likely that you have not taken the time to notice your negative self-talk, much less considered speaking more kindly to yourself. Here is a three-step process for identifying and reshaping damaging self-talk.
First Step: Notice our Dirty Talk
Where does our dirty talk come from? For most, it comes from a combination of experiences and interactions we have with others- parents, teachers, classmates or coworkers. Regardless of where your negative self-talk comes from, it is important to identify it and recognize how it infiltrates your day-to-day routine. Here are a few examples of distorted self-talk:
– I am not good at my job
– I’ll never be good at anything
– I am not smart enough
– If only I was thinner
– I’m so stupid
Second Step: Swap Your Dirty Talk
If you are able to identify your negative self-talk, then you are taking a step towards changing the way that you experience your world and the people in it. While identifying dirty talk is important, if what you want is to live a more growth promoting life then it is important make steps towards changing those self-damaging thoughts. One way to do this is by writing down your internal negative thoughts and reversing them. For example:
– I am not good at my job vs I work hard at my job
– I’ll never be good at anything vs I am good at several things
– I am not smart enough vs I work hard to learn new things
Third Step: Challenge Your Dirty Talk
The last step and possibly the most challenging, is to provide yourself with reasons why the reversed thought is true. Distorted self-talk is just that, distorted. Which means that the things you tell yourself are most likely untrue and there is evidence in your own experiences to prove this. For example:
– I am good at my job because I work hard to complete my tasks
– I am good at many things like reading, and helping around the house
– I am smart because I take time to learn new things
– I am not stupid because I am able to accomplish many tasks thought my day
Reframing your dirty talk may be a very challenging thing to do, especially when you are unaware that you are doing it to yourself. However, you can rise to the challenge. If you want to positively change the way you perceive yourself and your experiences, you can. Retraining yourself will take a conscious effort, but the outcome will be very rewarding. Change your negative self-talk step-by-step and leave the dirty talk for the bedroom.
The beginning of a relationship is filled with excitement and possibility. Getting to know a new person and allowing them to get to know you is thrilling and daunting at the same time. Passion, excitement and curiosity swirl at this stage. However, this period is unlikely to last very long. Slowly, as the relationship progresses, familiarity, routine and a sense of security begins to set in. Intimacy, often defined as knowing the other and being known, begins to grow.
Esther Perel, in her book, Mating in Captivity, suggests that what makes for good intimacy does not always make for good sex. Good intimacy often involves the feeling of being emotionally “close”, such as with deep conversations, growing familiarity, and self-disclosure. Emotional closeness and physical intimacy do not always directly correlate and may have a more complex relationship.
According to Perel, in order for connection to happen, there needs to be an implied separateness. We cannot move closer together if we are already wrapped up in one another. Eroticism is movement toward the other, but we often seek to eliminate otherness in our close relationships by focusing solely on how we are similar and involving each other in every aspect of our lives.
In other words, being separate is a requirement for actually being close. We are usually uncomfortable with this separateness and experience anxiety and insecurity. But this very discomfort is a what helps to maintain our interest and sexual desire. Fire needs air. Desire needs mystery.
So, how do you keep desire alive?
Develop and cultivate your own “secret garden”. Perel suggests that rather than considering separateness as pulling away from the other, consider it to be the development of personal intimacy. Get to know yourself, your unique interests, hobbies, talents and dreams and go after them!
Recognize and allow for the ways your partner remains mysterious to you. Instead of, at the end of the day, pressing for every detail that filled the preceding hours when you were apart, allow for the “space between” the two of you to exist. Additionally, appreciate the ways your partner, though he or she may be similar to you in some ways, thinks and acts and sees the world differently than you do.
Maintaining love and desire in committed relationships involves finding the balance between surrendering to the “other” and maintaining autonomy and a sense of self. This is both a challenging and exciting journey!
Perel, Esther. (2007). Mating in Captivity: Unlocking Erotic Intelligence.
Tamara Tatum, LMFT-Associate
