imposter syndrome
Anxiety, Managing emotions

Feel like you’re never enough? Here’s 5 ways to combat imposter syndrome

Written by herecounseling

Are you good enough? 

Have you ever felt like no matter how hard you’ve worked, someone will discover that you’re a phony? You don’t really know what you’re doing, but somehow you’ve convinced everyone that you deserve to be in the room. You don’t feel like you belong and, eventually, someone will realize that you don’t.

For someone who really appreciates authenticity and prides herself on her integrity, it was difficult to come to terms with my fear of getting discovered as a “fraud” or a “phony.” For every area of life that I was qualified in, there were recurring feelings of inadequacy, which ultimately lead to anxiety, self-doubt, and frustration. There was a period of my life where I couldn’t be confident in my hard work, experience, and skill, but rather only felt shame and fear with all of my accomplishments. 

I found myself striving to prove to myself and others that I was competent and capable. I was frustrated when I felt like I didn’t do enough in the roles I played in my life. But the string of thoughts convincing me that I wasn’t enough were never  true. The lies I believed about myself crippled me from being fully myself in every aspect in my life. It wasn’t that I acted like someone I wasn’t, but rather, I held myself back from being who I fully was. 

What is imposter syndrome? 

In 1978, Dr. Pauline Clance and Dr. Suzanne Imes defined the imposter phenomenon as an individual’s belief that they aren’t really intelligent, but are “convinced that they have fooled anyone who thinks otherwise.” According to Clance and Imes, who studied a sample of 150 successful women, the reported clinical symptoms of imposter syndrome were “generalized anxiety, lack of self-confidence, depression, and frustration related to inability to meet self-imposed standards of achievement.” 

Clance and Imes discovered that this belief was mainly attributed to early family roles and societal gender stereotyping. They explained that when a woman in their study experienced success, she would often filter that through either “societal expectations” or her own “internalized self-evaluations.” In other words, the women in the study’s sample needed to find explanations for their accomplishments rather than their own intelligence, which includes managing to fool others. This study took place in 1978, but it’s still just as, if not more, prominent today and needs to be talked about.

Stop feeling like an imposter in your own life. 

I realized that the first step to defeating my imposter syndrome was to name it and the main weapon I recently came into possession of is this ability to be vulnerable about it so that we as a society can acknowledge that imposter syndrome is a real thing and there is no need for shame. Valerie Young, Ed.D., an internationally-recognized expert on imposter syndrome gave a Ted Talk with  steps to overcome imposter syndrome:

  • Break the silence. Shame keeps a lot of people from “fessing up” about their fraudulent feelings. Knowing there’s a name for these feelings and that you are not alone can be tremendously freeing. 
  • Separate feelings from fact. There are times you’ll feel stupid. It happens to everyone from time to time. Realize that just because you may feel incapable, doesn’t mean you are.
  • Recognize when you should feel fraudulent. If you’re one of the first or the few women or a minority in your field or work place, it’s only natural you’d sometimes feel like you don’t totally fit in. Instead of taking your self-doubt as a sign of your ineptness, recognize that it might be a normal response to being an outsider. 
  • Develop a new script. Your script is that automatic mental tape that starts playing in situations that trigger your Impostor feelings. When you start a new job or project instead of thinking for example, “Wait till they find out I have no idea what I’m doing,” try thinking, “Everyone who starts something new feels off-base in the beginning. I may not know all the answers but I’m smart enough to find them out.” 
  • Fake it ‘til you make it. Now and then we all have to fly by the seat of our pants. Instead of considering “winging it” as proof of your ineptness, learn to do what many high achievers do and view it as a skill. The point of the worn out phrase, fake it til you make it, still stands: Don’t wait until you feel confident to start putting yourself out there. Courage comes from taking risks. Change your behavior first and allow your confidence to build. 

Let me help you. 

You deserve to be in the spaces that you take up, and whether you are accepted by everybody, you have the power and ability to stay true to your authentic self. Let me help you acknowledge your strengths and identify any lies that you or others have been telling yourself. You are enough. 

Victoria Ing, ACSW
Victoria Ing, ACSW

I empower young adults to live authentically as they journey towards wholeness.

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Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions, Neurology

Listening is “fixing”: how to help your partner when they’re sad or scared

Written by Connor McClenahan

“I don’t want you to just fix the situation – can’t you just hear me?” 

For many couples this is a familiar rough spot. Maybe one partner is overwhelmed by something difficult, and the other partner – often well intentioned – responds by finding solutions to the pain. This can be a place of contention and can escalate quickly. Each partner can be frustrated. One feels unheard and dismissed, the other feels helpless.

Yet there’s a way both partners can learn to navigate these difficult moments to create deeper connection. To start, we need to ask an important question:

Why do we share emotions?

This may seem like a silly question, but let’s think about this for a minute. What is the function of sharing an emotion with another person? Why do we do it? Why, in this imagined scenario, does one partner want to be “heard” and share their feeling? 

Emotions are at the core of our daily lived experience of the world. Before we think or act, we feel. A feeling is a potentiality toward a certain action. Just like hunger is a potentiality that is satisfied by eating (think of the cathartic relief of a large dinner after a day of fasting!), emotions are potentialities that are satisfied by… well, that’s a bit more unclear isn’t it? 

Let’s think about this:

When we’re feeling sad, for example, what is the sadness needing?

When we’re feeling scared, what is the anxiety needing?

It’s needing to be shared.

This is what neuropsychologists call “attunement” – it’s the way our brains tune-in, just like a radio, to another person’s feeling. By tuning in and sharing the feeling together, something really remarkable happens: the feeling starts to recede. Sharing emotions is about inviting another person to experience our emotions with us so we can feel safe again. 

Once we’re safe, it becomes much easier to think together about solutions.

Our frontal lobes, responsible for planning and strategic thinking, go offline when we’re overwhelmed, but do a much better job when we feel safe and understood.

This is a process that happens naturally for all of us. When we watch someone get tackled in a football game, our minds naturally share his emotional experience. When we watch a contestant win a sing-off, we find ourselves tearing up with them. Our anterior cingulate cortex is responsible for simulating another’s experience in our own minds. We are built to naturally do this – to deeply share and tune-in to the emotional experiences of others. This is such a powerful and constant experience, that it’s more accurate to say emotions happen BETWEEN people, rather than “within” a person. 

So if this is so natural, why do we have such a hard time doing it with those closest to us?

Here’s the short answer: when we can’t attune to a certain feeling our partner is having, it’s because this feeling wasn’t attuned to well in our own histories. For some of us, we’ve learned that our own cries for help when we’re scared, or our own cries of sadness when we’re hurt actually drove our parents farther away from us. Or possibly, no one heard our cries at all. There can be an eerie sense that as you start to share that same emotion with someone today, that you’ll be left in the same bad place you were before: alone and maybe even ashamed. Tuning out of that emotion can be this way that you’re saying to yourself and your partner: “don’t cry out like that, I’ve known what it’s like and it doesn’t end well.” 

These kinds of experiences – where we find ourselves pulling away instead of tuning in – can be powerful to share with our partners.

Sharing the ways our own anxiety or sadness or anger was dismissed can be an important step toward learning to tune in better together. It might be best to pick a moment when your partner and you have cooled down. 

Therapy helps us grow in awareness about how our own histories of connection contribute to our experience of our current relationships. Growing in empathy and understanding for our own cries, our own ways of surviving, can help us see ourselves and others more clearly, and experience a more satisfying connection with others. 

So next time a conversation comes up around a strong feeling, know that the best way to fix it is actually to tune in, share the emotional experience with your partner, and together feel safe and connected again.

Connor McClenahan, PsyD
Connor McClenahan, PsyD

I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotions and experience meaning and purpose in their lives.

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group of friends
Anxiety, Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions

Difficulty Trusting Others? Here’s how you can feel safe again

Written by Here Counseling

Once, exhausted after a long day, I let my body droop from the edge of my couch to lay next to my dog on the floor. Hoping I could live the comfortable life that my dog does without a worry in the world, I stared into my dog’s innocent eyes and sought comfort – the comfort of her gentle, furry touch, her warmth and a beating heart, her loyal love, and encouragement to get up another day to take care of her. In our silent exchange of emotions, as I lay quietly wiping my tears, I was in disbelief. Though my feelings may have been precipitated by my rough day and already heightened emotions, they were indisputable: I was finally feeling what it feels like to trust another being.

Trust is a funny thing. Trust may build quickly or slowly, but it often catches me off guard with its presence. And when trust is broken, the feeling of betrayal has so many facets and phases – anger, sadness, feeling lost, unsafe and unloved. 

Is it even possible to figure out what it means to trust?

Is it possible to manage my emotions after betrayal, and by learning to cope, make the whole painful process worthwhile?

How did I, on this random night, experience a whole new level of trust with my dog I adopted a year ago of all living creatures on this earth, including the ones that gave birth to me and raised me?

Trust is learned in our earliest relationships, but no parent in this world is perfect. 

I would go as far as to say that to be a responsible parent, you must not be 100% attentive to your child’s needs all the time. Children need to be encouraged to do things on their own without the help of their parents. Children need to learn to be self-sufficient and to self-soothe at times because parents can’t realistically be there for the child to save them every time they desire assistance. 

Some parents, however, with or without faults of their own, are busier, less affectionate physically or verbally, or have their own mental health issues ranging from depression to maladaptive communication skills to intergenerational trauma that may get in the way of being present and caring for their child. And unfortunately, some parents even pass away unexpectedly early and leave their children behind too soon.

So how are we supposed to trust, when even our own parents neglect, betray, or abandon us?

What should I do with this need to trust, to be comforted, to be held?

Learning to hold oneself, balancing to stay afloat, protecting ourselves from the pain of betrayal, resisting the urge to just collapse onto any stranger that provides the slightest glimpse of comfort, feels so exhausting at times. When am I going to fall?

No matter how independent and strong we want to be, we can’t avoid the act of trusting others at some point in our lives. 

And, as hard as it is to say, we have to deal with the pain that may or may not follow. The Chinese character “ren (人)” which means “person” or “people” is made of two human stick figures that are leaning on one another for support. Humans are social creatures, and we cannot survive alone. We must trust others with our feelings, hearts, and even lives. So how do we encourage ourselves to trust well in this seemingly hopeless world?

Even when we have trauma around trust, a part of us, like a seed in the ground, is waiting to trust someone.

You don’t have to tell your body to try to trust, but you can listen to the ways it’s trying to trust. It might look like sharing something small, inviting another’s interest, or expressing frustration. Like a person who will put a few pounds of weight on a bridge to see if it is safe to walk across, we do things to ensure ourselves in order to trust. We hope that the few pounds of weight on the bridge will give us the courage to walk across. Leaning on someone, letting go of our fears, taking a step not knowing if we will fall – trusting is hard work. Realistically, the best that we can do when it comes to trusting is to take that step forward while acknowledging the potential consequences of it. This sounds scary, I know. The word, consequences, does not do justice to describe the potential agony we might be putting ourselves through.

But, I’ve come to find that the following things are within our control and can make this situation less hopeless. 
  • We can try our best to discern whom to trust and how much to trust at what pace. 
  • We can learn to regulate our emotions before, during, and after we choose to trust no matter what the outcome is. 
  • We can learn to appreciate the worth in our choices to trust, and value our bravery in choosing to live fully. 
  • We can learn to comfort ourselves when things don’t go as we had hoped. 
  • We can also learn to ask for help to be comforted from those around us. 
  • Most importantly, we can respect and love the choices we make, and be okay with falling, even if it hurts. 

In the end, the goal is to survive the sometimes painful consequences of life events. We can’t give up on trusting others because we’ve been hurt before or because no one has taught us how to. We can’t give up because we depend on one another for survival. All we can do is to take care of ourselves as best as we can so that we can get up again even if someone intentionally has pulled the rug out from under our feet. We will learn to trust by first trusting ourselves that we will catch ourselves when we fall, even if that means, on some nights, I’m ugly-crying on the floor with my dog. 

Seohyun Joo, MA
Seohyun Joo, MA

I help people learn to resolve their anxiety and express their needs.

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Managing emotions

One key to a more empowered life: Take time to look up

Written by Kristi Wollbrink

I remember one of my professors in graduate school once giving the assignment to take time in our week to look up and notice the treetops.  It seemed like such a simple assignment, but little did I know how difficult, but also how effective this assignment would be!

It took such intentional effort to slow myself enough from my day full of meetings and other commitments and to stop to look up – and notice.  My gaze moved from my usual view of sidewalks and pavement to the beautiful palm tree that stood high above all that I usually saw.  I couldn’t help but stop, and hold my gaze for a moment, taking in the tops of all the trees in view. 

How had I walked by these trees so often and never taken a moment to look up?

Isn’t this how it can often feel? The never ending to do list, the rush to try to make it to your meeting on time, or just feeling overwhelmed, wondering how you will ever get it all done.  

This feeling of anxiousness, worry, and stress can begin to take a toll not only on our mental health, but also can often begin to affect our work, our physical well-being, and even our relationships.  You may notice that you are more irritable or lose your temper over the littlest things; or maybe you begin to feel like you just don’t care and start to try to find ways to “escape” or distract yourself.  You may even begin to find yourself having difficulty falling asleep or waking up feeling worried or anxious.

 

3 Things that Keep Us from Looking Up

  1. Feeling too overwhelmed with the daily to-dos.
  2. Fear that you may miss something important.
  3. Not wanting to disappoint others.

Maybe you can relate with one of these.  I think many of us can.  Which can then make the practice of slowing down seem almost impossible. It is often hard to even imagine being able to take a break from the daily hustle, but sometimes it can be more simple than you may think.

So what does this look like? 

Breathing

Take 1-2 minutes to do some simple breathing in your day: maybe in the morning before you even start your day, or at the stoplight while you are driving.  Simply relax your shoulders and take a deep breath in through your nose, and slowly release the air all the way out, repeating a few times.

Slowing to notice 

It may be just noticing the tops of the trees, or the beauty of a flower, or even savoring a cup of coffee or tea as you sip it, but finding time in your day to slow enough to be present to your surroundings and to let yourself be in the present moment.

Writing in a gratitude journal

Noting the things that you feel thankful for and are grateful for in your day or week and letting yourself have a moment to reflect and delight in these things.

I loved this challenge that my professor gave that day in graduate school to look at the treetops as it propelled me to begin to incorporate this very simple act of noticing and slowing into my weekly routine. 

The act of taking a moment to let yourself shift your view away from the worries and angst that sometimes feels overbearing could create just the space you need to begin to feel a bit more empowered for what it is that seems  stress filled and overwhelming.  If you allow yourself to slow for even just a few minutes, you may begin to reconnect with the beauty that surrounds you; and even may begin to feel that the daily to-dos feel just a little bit lighter.

Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT
Kristi Wollbrink, AMFT

I help individuals and couples decrease anxiety in order to find meaning and connection.

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Healthy Relationships, Managing emotions

One Reason a Break-up Hurts More than it Needs to

Written by Jeff Creely

Of course it hurts to lose someone you love. Loving and being loved is at the center of being human. Whether a loss is a a break-up or a death, loss is loss. And we feel pain in the center of ourselves when someone we love is gone forever.

But there is a story we tell ourselves that makes the end so much worse.
Something that haunts us. One belief that leads to months, or years, of agony.

“I can make you stay….I can make you love me.”

Most of us live with the fiction that we can earn someones love. That if we just work hard, if we mold ourselves to their desires, we can keep them. 

It’s so seductive. That we have the power to get what we want. That we have the power to keep who we want close to us.

The idea that we could be safe from loss if we just do everything right is comforting.

But it’s a lie. And at the end of a relationship that comfort turns to anguish.

“What did I do wrong? Why don’t they love me anymore? Why did they leave me?”

We pour over our memories…trying to find the thing that went awry. What misstep, what mistake we made that turned them from us. Was there something we could’ve done? Could we have been easier to get along with? Lost weight? Made more money?

Our thoughts are consumed by trying to find what we did, what we said.

Because if we have the power to make them stay, then it’s our fault when they leave.

But we don’t have that power. We never did.

And that hurts in its own way. To accept that we can’t earn someones love is to accept that there are times when we won’t feel loved. We can’t make love happen. When love feels far from us that truth is so heavy.

But there is freedom in accepting that sadness. Because if being loved by others is a gift we can’t blame ourselves when it’s is gone.

So when your mind turns to the false promise of deserving someone’s love…
Of scrutinizing, criticizing, and judging yourself for it’s absence…
Guide yourself away from that struggle.

Allow yourself to just accept the loss. Feel sad. Grieve with yourself.
And then remind yourself of what you can control.
Even in this pain, you can love others. To ask yourselves to be loving.

But not as a bargain, not in the expectation of love in kind.
Love comes to us as a gift until it doesn’t.

And that’s ok. Because it will come again.

Jeff Creely, PhD
Jeff Creely, PhD

I help people who struggle with anxiety and sexuality issues gain peace and freedom in their lives.

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Managing emotions

3 Patterns that keep you feeling depressed, and one step you can take today

Written by Rose So

Depression can be isolating and crippling. It keeps you in bed all day, it keeps you from getting your work done, it keeps you from being able to focus on anything, from getting your work done, from being able to concentrate. So you do all these things to not feel that way, to try to fix the problem. But instead, you’re finding that it’s perpetuating those feelings of hopelessness, of sadness, of loneliness.

The tools you’ve been using aren’t helping with depression

There are common things that people do to try to not feel that way, whether it’s engaging in addictive behaviors, downplaying your neediness to other people, or even using a lot of positive phrases and positive affirmations. So, I’m going to explore those things briefly in this video.

1. Addictive Behaviors

The first, addictive behaviors, might look like overeating, over-drinking, or even hurting yourself. And you do these things to not feel so lonely, to not feel so sad, but instead, you find yourself feeling really guilty afterwards and not feeling any better.

2. Downplaying your Neediness

Or maybe you try to downplay your neediness to others, which might look like not letting other people in on how you’re feeling so that you can try to save those relationships and keep them around. But instead, you’re finding yourself continuing to feel isolated, lonely, and depressed, even when you’re around those individuals.

3. “Positive” Thinking

Or maybe you’ve tried to think really positively – to have these phrases like “it’s all gonna be okay” or “what’s meant to be will be.” But you don’t find yourself believing in those things or feeling any better after you’ve told yourself those things.

You need a different tool for depression: a safe relationship.

What you’re really craving is a safe relationship where you can feel okay to be yourself, to be vulnerable. I don’t know who comes to mind for you when you think of just one safe relationship. Maybe that could be your mom, your dad, a sibling, a coworker, a friend. Or maybe you’re finding that no one comes to mind for you. And that’s okay.

That’s where therapy comes in. That’s where I come in. It’s a space where you can learn to feel safe, where you can learn to feel okay with how you feel, and to not feel so lonely or hopeless. So I’d encourage you today to either think of one person that you can start opening up to or to take a step forward to come in for therapy.

Rose So, MA
Rose So, MA

I help adolescents and young adults overcome life transitions and learn to thrive.

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Managing emotions

Am I depressed? One Quick Tip to Tell if You Have Depression

Written by Here Counseling

You know something feels off, you don’t feel like yourself. People closest to you say you’re moving a bit slower or smiling a bit less. You don’t have the same energy, you feel more irritable, or concentration is hard. You want to regain control of your life, to feel like you’re getting somewhere, but an unwelcome cloud in your mind is holding you back. So you’ve found yourself wondering: 

“Am I depressed?”

“How will I know if I’m depressed?”

“And what should I do about depression?”

We’re going to explore one method you can use to test if you’re suffering from depression. My hope is to help you take the first step in naming your experience so you can be empowered to decide what to do about it. 

Young worried woman thinking of something while calculating her home budget.

Testing for Depressed Mood

I invite you to think of the next five minutes as an opportunity to engage in a conversation with yourself. Listen to the categories we’re going to cover, ask yourself not only if you relate, but also how you feel about relating. 

The American Psychological Association counts out 9 potential symptoms of a major depressive episode. 

I’m going to break down all 9 as you count how many apply to your experience: 

  1. Do you experience low mood most of the day on most days? This could feel like sadness, but it could also feel like emptiness or hopelessness. Some might feel numb or emotionless, others may burst into tears. In minors this can even look like irritation. 
  2. Do you experience a diminished interest or pleasure in things you feel you’d normally enjoy. Maybe the same pleasureful respites don’t cut it anymore, or maybe you’re finding yourself avoiding them altogether.
  3. Is your appetite more or less than it should be? This is one that can confuse people. Some experience an increase in appetite or weight gain during depressed mood. Others might experience a decrease in appetite or a decrease in weight.
  4. Are you sleeping less or more than you need? Similar to number 3, this is a time when either way isn’t helpful. Maybe you’re experiencing insomnia, which looks like either difficulty initiating sleep, difficulty sleeping in the middle of the night, or waking too early with an inability to go back to sleep. Or maybe you experience hypersomnia, defined as 10 hours or more of combined sleep in a 24 hr period. 
  5. Are your movements slower than usual? Or are they more restless and agitated than usual? What do your friends notice? 
  6. Do you experience fatigue or a loss of energy most days?
  7. Do you feel a sense of worthlessness or inappropriate guilt? 
  8. Is your concentration or decisiveness slowed?
  9. Do you find yourself thinking often of death or experiencing a wish to not be alive anymore?

If you have 5 or more symptoms, you may be experiencing a major depressive episode. For many, this is a hard truth to realize, but there’s no reason for you have to wrestle through this by yourself. And while no questionnaire or test is the same as a diagnosis, my hope for you is that you feel you have a starting point as you begin speaking with a therapist. 

But whether or not you came up with 5 depression symptoms, I’d invite you to ask yourself what this exercise brought up for you.

There’s no harm in asking a therapist for a free consultation to see if you might be a good candidate for a little extra help. All therapists at Here Counseling offer free consultations, and if we’re not the right therapist for you, we can help you find someone who is. 

Wherever you are, whatever your experience, take hold of the reins of your life once more, and watch the days get a little bit brighter. 

Am I Depressed? Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet
Gavin Cross
Gavin Cross

I help people make sense of their present to find hope for their future.

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Managing emotions

Helping Teenagers Sleep Better

Written by Connor McClenahan

Teenagers often struggle to get enough good sleep. It may take hours to fall asleep or they might wake up in a panic in the middle of the night. Sometimes they sleep ok but always feel tired. Teenagers still need 8-10 hours of sleep per night, even though their internal clocks have shifted to not get tired until later in the evening. Without enough sleep, school gets harder, focusing and memorizing are difficult and mental health is impacted. Not getting enough sleep can make all of us (adults and teens) more irritable, sad or anxious. 

If you are a teenager or the parent of a teenager who is struggling with sleep, here are a few things that you can do to help. 

Set a Sleep Schedule 

Going to bed at the same time every night and getting up at the same time every morning improves your sleep. Your body will get into the habit of falling asleep at that time and wake up feeling more refreshed in the morning. If you can, keep that schedule on the weekend as well (or sleep in no later than 1 hour), in order to help you get better sleep throughout the week. 

Start a Calming Bedtime Routine 

Your brain relies a lot on external cues to tell you when it is time to sleep. That is why you might feel tired earlier in the winter when it is dark so early. Our bodies use light to determine when we sleep but it can rely on other cues as well. So establishing a bedtime routine prepares your brain for sleep. Routines like putting on pjs and brushing your teeth help you start unwind and relax. But you may consider expanding your routine to include a few more things. 

Here are some ideas: 

  • Drink hot herbal tea
  • Journal 
  • Read a favorite book 
  • Listen to calming music 
  • Start a diffuser of essential oils 
  • Put on lotion 

Doing these activities consistently as part of your nightly routine communicates to your body that it is time to sleep and helps you fall asleep sooner. 

Reduce Screens 

The light from screens (including phone, TV etc.) mimics natural light and wakes up our brains. If you are having a hard time falling asleep, turning off all screens an hour before bedtime can make a big difference. 

Avoid Homework in Bed 

When you do school work, your brain becomes more alert, focused and possibly more stressed or frustrated. If you are doing school in the same place where you sleep (on or in your bed), your brain will associate your bed with school. As a result, when you lie down to sleep, you might start thinking about school or start feeling stressed and alert. Doing activities you enjoy on your bed, like talking to friends or watching TV can have a similar effect of keeping you awake as well because those activities make you excited and energized. As much as possible, only use your bed for sleep and relaxing activities. Anything that is stressful or exciting will keep you awake later on. 

Increase Physical Activity 

Being active and getting outside during the day can also help with sleep. Take a walk, go for a jog, jump on the trampoline, shoot hoops, chase your dog, dance! Anything that gets you moving during the day will help you sleep at night. Just avoid doing these things right before bed or in the evening, because that might wake you up more. 

Get support

If you are feeling a lot of stress, worry, sadness or loneliness, your mental health may also be impacting your sleep. If you try these things and are still struggling, reach out to a therapist for support. Learning to cope with whatever is going on for you can help you feel better and improve sleep. 

So I encourage you to try one or two of these strategies (or all of them! Why not?) and ask for help if you need more support. 

Help Your Teen Sleep Worksheet

Want these questions in an easy to use free downloadable worksheet? This worksheet will help you take steps forward in dealing with anxiety. You’ll also get access to all our worksheets in Here Counseling’s Resource Library!

Download Free Worksheet

 

Melissa Winfield, PsyD
Melissa Winfield, PsyD

I help children, teenagers and parents find hope and resilience through the tough times.

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COVID, Managing emotions

Why Depression May Feel Stronger this Season, and Two Ways to Increase Your Emotional Resilience

Written by Connor McClenahan

Depression can feel overwhelming during the holidays. There’s a few reasons for that. Our traditions and gatherings can usually remind us not only of the ways we are connected and grateful, but also the ways we can sometimes feel alone and isolated as well.

This holiday brings with it an uninvited guest: a recognition that for many of us, this year has been difficult, and at times has felt hopeless. On top of these kinds of economic and health realities, we can recognize that we’ve been lonely.

Our brains were meant for daily social connection

The largest part of our brains is the cortex. That’s the rich, folded external part of our brains responsible for all of our higher order planning, thinking, language, and visual-spacial awareness. The purpose of this part of the brain isn’t simply for accomplishing tasks.

The purpose of this important part of our brain is to keep us connected to a social group.

Our cortex is built for constant and intricate interactions with other people. Picture a 150 person closed-network group of people – similar to tribal cultures. Each person knows each other, each person has a role, a sense of how they belong and function together. Together they have some sense of their shared world and place in it. They have stories and myths, they have unfolding drama and conflict between members, and ways of moving through these conflicts toward resolutions.

Pre-COVID, our social environments tend to be more urban than tribal. The social connections that fed our cortexes came instead from affinity groups, churches, work environments, and gyms. These give our lives meaning, they give us purpose, and identity. When we feel we belong to a community, we know our role, we get clear signals about our identity within that group, and we feel we’re moving toward some shared purpose that’s larger than ourselves.

This season, our brains are starved for social connection, and it’s making us depressed.

While this seems an obvious connection, I believe we can also tend to dismiss the weight these social interactions hold for us.

When we don’t acknowledge the importance of our social groups, we tend to shame ourselves and others for missing friends. We can interpret these kinds of feelings or needs as a disregard for public health. However, it’s normal to be sad and crave things like dinner parties and baseball games, just like it’s normal to be thirsty or hungry.

Our hunger for social interactions is a survival instinct. It’s telling us that we’re vulnerable, that we’re alone in a threatening world.

Loneliness and Hopelessness Contribute to Depression

Depression is a clinical term that describes a certain prolonged experience of low energy, sadness, lack of pleasure and hope for the future. For some of us who have a tendency toward depression, there are some environmental pieces that will trigger a depressive episode.

The two factors that may especially contribute to triggering a depressive episode this season are isolation and hopelessness. We’ve already talked a bit about isolation, how our sense of belonging to a group of people can insulate us from depression and meaninglessness.

Hopelessness is the experience of not being able to imagine the end of suffering. Human beings can be incredibly resilient when we can envision an end to our suffering. When we can see a light at the end of the tunnel we can endure incredible challenges, just like a marathon runner can push toward the finish line because she can imagine a defined point at which the pain in her legs will stop.

Because we don’t know when the pandemic will end, we can feel hopeless. When we don’t know how long to social distance for, or when we’ll be able to see family again, we can tend to be overwhelmed by depressive feelings.

Two Ways to Increase your Emotional Resilience

So what do we do? While no solution will bring back the social connections we’re craving, our best tool is to hold onto a few things that help us endure the pain of being apart.

First of all, it’s important to not throw out our normal traditions. Talk with friends and family and be creative with a socially-distanced version of your normal traditions. While there may be an element of sadness to not being together, practicing the tradition will help us to remember important moments of connection with those closest to us.

Second, talk with family and friends to plan a time in the future to celebrate once it’s safe. Just like a marathon runner needs a clear, defined end to their pain to keep going, we need to clearly imagine a point at which we can come back together and celebrate. Plan a trip or visit to reconnect with others in the future – talk about what kind of meal or activity you’ll do. The more clearly you can imagine and plan for this moment, the more it will increase your emotional resilience in this time.

What could this look like for your immediate family? For your friend group? For your work life?

In the meantime, if you’re struggling today with depressive feelings that are overwhelming, give us a call. Therapy can help you move through these feelings and recover a sense of hope and meaning.

Connor McClenahan, PsyD
Connor McClenahan, PsyD

I help lawyers and other professionals overcome difficult emotions and experience meaning and purpose in their lives.

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coping with grief
Managing emotions

Coping with Grief during the Holidays

Written by Connor McClenahan

You may be dreading the holidays this year, or just not as excited as usual. This is a normal response if you have lost a loved one or something important to you, whether it was this year or years ago. Anniversaries and holidays bring up memories and feelings that can be painful and hard to cope with. 

What to Expect from Grief 

Grief is a deeply individual experience based on your relationship with what or who you lost.  Grief looks different for everyone and is never easy or predictable. There is no timeline for grief or a time when you are “supposed” to be done grieving. Though there is no right or wrong way to grieve, there are some things that you can do to help in the healing process. 

5 Ways to Cope with Grief 

1) Recognize How Grief Impacts Other Emotions

When we are grieving, our emotions may be unpredictable. We may feel more sad, angry, fearful, or numb than usual. Things that usually do not bother us may feel like a big deal or cause more pain than usual. Acknowledging that our emotions are being triggered by grief and accepting that we are hurting is the first step in more effectively coping with grief. 

2) Get Support

Find support from people who care about you. It can be easy to isolate while you are grieving but is better to let others share the grief with you and be there for you. Talk about your loss if you need to or just enjoy spending time together. If you don’t have anyone who will be able to support you, consider joining a support group. 

3) Take Care of Yourself

Grief can take an emotional and physical toll. You may feel more exhausted, get a cold more easily or have difficulty sleeping. Allow yourself the time to do what you need to do to be ok, whether that is resting, journaling, faith practices or being physically active. Keep up regular routines as much as possible while also recognizing that simple things may be harder for a while. 

4) Honor their memory 

An important part of healing from grief is being able to identify new ways to relate to and remember the person you have lost. Honoring their memory may help you feel connected with them and able to integrate who they were into your life now. There are a lot of creative things you can do to honor their memory. 

Here are a few ideas: 

  • Create a journal or scrap book of memories
  • Start a tradition that brings family members together 
  • Do an activity that they loved (cooking, listen to their favorite music, decorating etc.) 
  • Do an art project that reminds you of them 
  • Donate to a charity or cause that they cared about 

5) Meet with a therapist 

Though grief is an expected and natural experience, sometimes the additional support from a therapist is needed. If you are having a hard time functioning and completing daily tasks, are feeling hopeless and not sure if life is worth living, or feel like there is no one you can trust after your loss, you may want to consider meeting with a therapist. 

Experience Joy Again

The pain of grief may feel overwhelming and endless. But getting the support you need and following these steps can help you find healing and hope. It is important to recognize the significance of the loss but also be able to live with joy and purpose again. Don’t suffer alone! Call us today if you need support from experienced therapists. 

Melissa Winfield, PsyD
Melissa Winfield, PsyD

I help children, teenagers and parents find hope and resilience through the tough times.

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