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So You Think You Should Talk to Someone? Let's Find the Right Therapist
“Your familiar memories related to your known world “re-mind” you to reproduce the same experiences.”
-Joe Dispenza
As we all continue to be bombarded with stressors and general unrest, now more than ever, it’s important to assess how we’re coping individually and realize when it’s time to reach out for professional help in order to properly care for ourselves.
Between the COVID-19 pandemic and recent protests, it’s easy to see how stress and anxiety can build to extreme levels. But in order to navigate emotional distress, we can’t simply regurgitate past trauma and dysfunction and ignore the path for a new tomorrow.
I believe one of the greatest tools for working through your past, avoiding burnout, and embracing true transformation is psychotherapy. It is incredibly powerful for anyone seeking a deeper sense of understanding and wholeness.
Good therapists most definitely hold space to unpack the often-brutal stories of our past. Yes, to write a compelling story with you playing the hero instead of the victim, it’s necessary to unearth expired lies and lay them to rest. However, good therapists won’t leave you there.
I’ve been a student of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work for a while now. He explores this topic neurologically and absolutely nails it. Check this out:
“The stronger the emotion that we feel from some external event in our life, the more altered we feel inside of us as a result of that condition outside of us and the more we pay attention to the cause. The challenge is, every time we think about that trauma, we’re producing the same chemistry in the brain and body as if it was happening again. What that does is it activates a survival gene. And when you’re in survival, what you want to do is make sure that that doesn’t happen again. “
When we lock into this type of survival mode, we often forecast worst-case scenarios. Guess what? Our brain doesn’t know the difference between the imagined state we create and reality. Therefore, we stay trapped in that old victim mentality and it tends to play out over and over again moving forward.
Here’s my point: therapy often doesn’t work because we spend so much time talking about our past to the point we are literally reliving it. Where focus goes, energy flows, therefore creating a habit of attention so strong and involuntary, it becomes nearly impossible to create new life-giving possibilities and successes in our lives. How could we? All our energy is being funneled into past emotions of survival long after the immediate threat is gone.
My approach is different. I’m convinced if we’re interested in creating lasting change, we need an experience to support us as a whole person, not just a cognitive one, from the neck up.
Yes, we need a safe space to tell our stories—100%. Yet we also need an experience of transformation as opposed to a conversation. I believe this happens through daily practices and community.
If you’re ready to dive right in, I’d love to support you in finding tangible breakthroughs. I’m also cooking up some resources that will be available this fall and will support your everyday experience.
Drop me a line. I always love hearing from you.
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
Great Expectations (or not)
Expectations are resentments waiting to happen.
-Anne Lamott
Here we are.
This is not a throw away sentence. It’s perhaps the most profound reminder we’ve got.
We will never ever experience the present moment ever again. It’s gone in a heartbeat and yet is the only sure thing we ever really touch—presence, being, the here and now.
If you’re like me, presence becomes harder and harder to fully grasp in seasons of waiting and anticipation. At nearly eight months pregnant, I’m struggling to stay in the moment and soak up these final days of life as a non-parent (read: sleep).
I’ve always felt summer can be a bit like the Holidays as it kicks up a whole host of unique demands and expectations, leaving me often anxious if not resentful. It’s tempting to compare my life to others I see magically splattered all over social media cavorting around far away places by fake looking bodies of water with glamorous wardrobes to boot. Hell, I haven’t even gotten in a pool all year long and feel more like a weary beached whale than an energetic summer explorer.
Where do these expectations even come from? My hunch is, they come from the stories we make up in our heads. Ah, those glorious narratives of certainty, guarantees, entitlement, essentially—suffering.
Last week we unpacked this idea that pain is inevitable while suffering is optional.
Why? Because suffering is the story we make up about our pain. “I should have a better job that lets me travel more.” “I should have a partner that enjoys doing the same things I do.” “I shouldn’t have to work so hard. After all, it’s summer and I deserve to relax and enjoy my time.”
Whereas these may be true, I don’t know how much progress we make changing our reality by playing the victim. In fact, there are no guarantees in this life. That said, keeping unrealistic expectations flush in our back pocket is a fast way to prevent abundance in our everyday experience.
As an Enneagram type four, I often struggle with this pervasive longing for what’s missing in the moment. For example, “Ah, the sunset is beautiful, but I wish it were a bit cooler so I could really enjoy it more.” I know. Gross.
This dangerous habit creates a crusty resentment which in turn drives away joy.
Because the struggle is so real for me, I created a little Expectation Inventory to keep me in check a few years back. I’ve come to wholeheartedly believe the pivotal moment in every unrealistic expectation is simple: gratitude. It tethers us in the here and now. It gently leads us back home to presence. Gratitude changes everything in an instant.
Today, I’m sharing my inventory with you. Keep it close and use like guard rails when you start to slip into resentment. Maybe, like me, they will keep you on track and reminded of what you do have as opposed to what you lack.
Expectation Inventory:
How do I feel right now?
What unrealistic expectations am I feeding into?
What is the payoff for having these expectations of myself or others?
What would it feel like if I were able to let go of these?
What do I need in order to let these expectations go?
What am I grateful for?
Enjoy…truly!
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
Extreme much? Here's another way...
"Our Western dualistic minds do not process paradoxes very well. Without a contemplative mind, we do not know how to hold creative tensions. We are better at rushing to judgment and demanding a complete resolution to things before we have learned what they have to teach us."
- Richard Rohr
I remember sitting in my therapist’s office several years ago (probably twelve). Gail was her name and she’s everything a brilliant therapist is in my mind: accepting, compassionate, wise, firm, seasoned by her own broken story, and the kind of listener that makes you feel like you’re the only soul on the planet.
I was in the chapter of my life I refer to as the “falling” stage. Everything around me seemed to be crumbling and my job was to let it do so against every ounce of my will. She held the sacred space for that painful season to unfold. At every break, she simply wanted to better understand me, not try to fix me. Gail saw me.
Have you ever been in that frustrating place where the best and safest thing to do is NOT break the fall? I’ve often heard this with surfing and skydiving, for example (two pastimes I have zero experience with). In my understanding, there are actual ways we must learn to fall—to lean into the plummet.
Resisting with tension, grit, and that secret stash of Xanax bars you snaked from your mama’s medicine cabinet aren’t included.
Gail patiently taught me how to fall, over time. Something she said to me one day, in the vortex of my despair was, “Katie, it doesn’t have to look a certain way. You get to choose.”
Those words stuck with me perhaps more than anything else she ever said. Funny how that works isn’t it? We usually remember much more poignantly how people make us feel, not necessarily what they say. However, these are some of the few words still glued on.
Much of my struggle was existing in a world of extremes—all-or-nothing thinking—you know, “either-or.” Either I would be alone and depressed my whole life with little hope for anything or I’d be Miss Perfect: married with kids, a clear cut path forward, an enviable career, oh, and liked by all.
Looking back, I’m so grateful that zipped up idea of success stayed just that, an idea.
Falling for me meant moving from this dualistic, binary brand of extremes and living into the open relief that life, in fact, didn’t have to look a certain way. It could be the messy middle, or, the “both-and.”
I could feel striking depression and understand that hope was available. I could feel lonely, longing for relationship and community and know that it very well may look different in several weeks time. I could long for certainty and lean into the unknown. Richard Rohr calls it “holding creative tensions.”
Holding the tension between a longing and its unmet fulfillment is indeed a creative, tight space. It looks a whole lot like faith.
Does your extreme thinking feel exhausting? Do you find yourself awfulizing situations by projecting worst-case scenarios onto perfectly neutral possibilities? If so, I feel you. It’s a relentless crapshoot.
I believe that old way of “either-or” is how we learned as kids to make sense of the world growing up. However, as adults that rigid mindset needs some revising. What if we could practice a softer, more curious approach?
Next time you get stuck in either-or thinking, simply notice it, honor it, and let it be. Then ask yourself what you’re needing in the moment. Is it hope, acceptance, a friend, time, or provision?
Find the space in that very moment that allows for the lack as well as the possibility. “I’m overwhelmed with deadlines, and, I know there is light at the end of the tunnel.” Or “I’m so angry with my friend and how she’s treating me, and, she may be really struggling right now.”
Let’s lean into the contemplative, creative space that invites more possibility, yes?
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
Ritual - The Secret Sauce for Success
“Love and magic have a great deal in common. They enrich the soul, delight the heart, and they both take practice.”
-Nora Roberts
I remember watching the Grammy’s on TV one year. Gosh, it must have been over a decade ago. I’d always had this magical view of artists who’d “made it” and somehow found themselves on stage at the Staples Center performing at music’s biggest night. That year, for whatever reason, this delusional veil lifted as I realized these superstars weren’t born overnight—they worked their asses off to get there.
I think it was an interview I read with John Mayer, who won Best Pop Vocal Album for Continuum that year. He described basically locking himself up with his guitar for an entire year in order to master the instrument and craft that gave him entry into such grand rooms throughout his impressive career.
His charge to aspiring musicians was simple: practice and then practice some more. Become so good they can’t ignore you.
As a follow up to last week’s blog post, Why Therapy hasn’t Worked for You, I want to explore the power of ritual, or practice, as a way to tangibly see the desired outcomes you’ve dreamed of for awhile now.
Just like physical fitness, creative mastery, financial success, and other goals you’ve set your sight on, emotionally thriving takes practice. We don’t show up to the gym twice a month and expect to see dramatic results. There are several variables to consider: diet, metabolism, sleep, hydration, mindset, and most of all, consistency.
So why do we expect to show up to therapy a couple times a month and see transformation take place? Not to be a buzz kill, but we simply won’t. If we want results, sure, talking about what’s not working is a good place to start. Yet we must also start practicing a new way of living in order to experience a new way of being.
Again, the operative word here being “practice.”
I like to use the word ritual because it’s prettier and has this spiritual sheen to it. In many spiritual traditions, rituals are used to create order and accentuate the sacred nature of that which is worshiped.
Not to get too woo woo, but we are in fact soulful creatures with unique callings to inhabit while here on the planet. That said, I believe we must treat each day as sacred, intentionally creating structure and reminders around the things that help us thrive.
The first step in personal transformation is simple: wake up! We must consciously show up each day in our lives and challenge the sleepy trance of forgetfulness. After all, we make really bad decisions when we forget the truth of who we are.
I want to support you as you create rituals in your daily experience that will help you unearth your deepest desires. However first, you must know where you’re going.
I’ll leave you with this simple question as a navigation tool: what do you want?
That’s your ticket, my friend. The answer to this question determines where you spend your precious time and energy. It also gives you a prescription for what and how to practice.
So go dream—big and wild. Give your fear a well-deserved day off. You can have her back tomorrow. For now though, sky’s the limit.
Love & Gratitude,
Katie
Why Therapy Hasn't Worked for You
“Your familiar memories related to your known world “re-mind” you to reproduce the same experiences.”
-Joe Dispenza
I hear it all the time. “Yeah, I spent five years in therapy with not much to show for it but a lot less time and money!”
This fires me up. It also makes me sad for those unwilling to try a different approach.
I believe psychotherapy is incredibly powerful for anyone wanting a deeper sense of wholeness and belonging. Yet oftentimes it serves more as a regurgitation of past trauma and dysfunction instead of a place to gain tools of empowerment for a new tomorrow. That said, we tend to learn the wrong skill set in therapy: how to play the victim.
Good therapists most definitely hold space to unpack the often brutal stories of our past. In order to write a compelling story with you playing the hero instead of the victim, it’s necessary to unearth expired lies and lay them to rest. However, good therapists won’t leave you back there.
I’ve been a student of Dr. Joe Dispenza’s work as of late. He explores this topic neurologically and absolutely nails it. Check this out:
“The stronger the emotion that we feel from some external event in our life, the more altered we feel inside of us as a result of that condition outside of us and the more we pay attention to the cause. The challenge is, every time we think about that trauma, we’re producing the same chemistry in the brain and body as if it was happening again. What that does is it activates a survival gene. And when you’re in survival, what you want to do is make sure that that doesn’t happen again. “
When we lock into this type of survival mode, we often forecast worst-case scenarios. Guess what? Our brain doesn’t know the difference between the imagined state we create and reality. Therefore we stay trapped in that old victim mentality and it tends to play out over and over again moving forward.
Here’s my point: therapy often doesn’t work because we spend so much time talking about our past to the point we are literally reliving it. Where focus goes, energy flows, therefore creating a habit of attention so strong and involuntary, it becomes nearly impossible to create new life-giving possibilities and successes in our lives. How could we? All our energy is being funneled into past emotions of survival long after the immediate threat is gone.
My approach is different. I’m convinced if we’re interested in creating lasting change, we need an experience to support us as a whole person, not just a cognitive one, from the neck up.
Yes, we need a safe space to tell our stories—100%. Yet we also need an experience of transformation as opposed to a conversation. I believe this happens through daily practices and community, or the group process.
If this peaks your interest, amazing. You’re in the right place. I’ll be bringing you a bit more on the specifics of this over the next few weeks.
If you’re ready to dive right in, simply hit reply and drop me a line. I always love hearing from you.
Love & Gratitude,
Katie