How Are You?

The holiday season is approaching, for many people this is a fun, joyful, and exciting time. For many others, it’s a stressful, uncomfortable, and overwhelming time. For some, it’s a combination of both. Please know that during this time of year, many people are just not ok. If that person is you, it’s ok not only to not be ok, but to talk about it if needed.

I wanted to write this blog at this time as many people I work with have shared feelings of simply not being ok this time of year. Others have shared feelings of not knowing how to be there for others they care about who are struggling, how to support those who are just not ok. Hopefully some aspects of this post can help with both circumstances to allow grace both for yourself if you are struggling, or for others in your life who may be struggling during this time of year.

In general, when someone asks, “how are you?” do you answer this question honestly? Do you take a moment to truly consider how you are actually doing in this moment? Or, do you resort to the standard, “fine” “doing ok” “hanging in there” despite what you are actually feeling internally? While it’s important to protect ourselves and have boundaries, it’s also important to normalize and share the experience of our struggles, our emotional pain, and our challenges. The truth is, sometimes we really are just ok, sometimes we’re better than ok, we’re great, however, other times we are struggling, experiencing significant pain, and feeling the weight of our challenges. In these moments, it really is ok to speak your truth to the question, “how are you?” — especially with those you trust. 

Leaning into emotional vulnerability can be really difficult. We live in a performance and productivity driven society, and we don’t always make time for our own feelings, much less the feelings of others. We often work in groups and encounter people daily, and yet we have a projected mask that keeps our inner experience well concealed deep within ourselves. Being vulnerable is about being honest, both with ourselves, as well as with others. When you can lean into the reality of the truth to the question “how are you?” with a pause, and an ability to check in and be open with how you are truly feeling in that moment, you are leaning into the experience of being vulnerable. When you consider what you are experiencing internally, and express it out loud to another person, you allow them the opportunity to lean into holding space for your emotions, your honesty, and your vulnerability. 

During this season, it’s ok to be honest, to honor your boundaries, and to be prepared for others to potentially hold space for you. In an effort to be more open and vulnerable, you may also encounter experiences of others who are uncomfortable with your vulnerability. If that describes you, someone who struggles with how to be present with someone else’s discomfort, know that there is another side of vulnerability as well. This other side is about how to fully show up and be there for someone when they offer their inner feelings and experiences to you. 

Does it cause discomfort for you when someone tells you that they aren’t doing so great? Do you often jump into problem solving mode when someone tells you about a challenge they are enduring, even if they haven’t asked for your advice? Do you remain quiet, brush past it, and change the subject? Do you resort to any other kind of avoidance when someone tells you about their emotional pain or struggles due to your own discomfort? 

These are challenging interpersonal experiences and typically we are not given great models or taught lessons about how to have healthy, open, vulnerable, and honest communication. It’s tough to know how to express ourselves, or how to be there for someone else who is expressing emotional pain in a vulnerable way. It can also be difficult to share our pain because we don’t want to emotionally dump onto others, or be a burden. For others it may not feel safe or comfortable to not seem ok. Many people feel like they have to show up as always fine and project that they are fine—even if they in fact internally are not.

The key with leaning into vulnerability and speaking your truth is to practice with someone you trust. You want to have positive experiences sharing and practicing becoming more emotionally open, honest, and vulnerable. Consider someone you believe would be willing to listen to you, to be there for you, and offer space for your honesty and openness. Consider someone you trust to hold this space for you—even if it feels uncomfortable—and begin there. Imagine what it would be like for this person to ask you the standard, “how are you?” and you taking a moment to pause, and consider the question honestly within yourself. Then imagine going into a sense of vulnerable openness, sharing honestly what you are actually feeling and experiencing in that moment. Does this stir anxiety, worry, or any other feelings of discomfort for you? If so, that is completely normal. Being vulnerable is hard, but holding everything in, and not creating authentic connections is ultimately even harder in the long run. Accessing support when you are struggling with anything challenging is tremendously valuable.

Once you begin to become more open with someone you trust, notice the impact, notice how it feels to be honest, to confront the anxiety or worry or any other discomfort that comes up for you. When asked this seemingly simple question, “how are you?” practice saying something such as one the following:

• “Thank you for asking, I actually have been struggling with _________ (name your struggle).” 

• “Things feel really challenging for me right now, can I talk with you about it?”

• “I’ve been feeling ______________ (down, low, anxious…) recently, I could really use a friend right now.”

• “I appreciate your kindness in asking, I’m actually going through a really difficult time.”

• “I’m feeling lost and unsure of what to do with these feelings, thank you for asking, it means a lot to me.”

What does it bring up for you to imagine saying one of these vulnerable statements to someone when you are struggling? Usually, after the initial fear or discomfort of being vulnerable, it makes us feel heard, more connected, lighter, and helps to release some of the suppressed stress and discomfort. While it can be hard to do, it’s worth moving through the discomfort and allowing yourself to practice being vulnerable and open.

If you find yourself on the receiving end of this vulnerability, consider how you might show up for someone else in pain, someone you care about, expressing to you that they are struggling. Most of us struggle with sharing due to perfectionism or people pleasing tendencies, however, we also usually struggle with how to respond when someone is actually open and vulnerable with us. Here are some examples for how to show up, hold space, and be there for someone in pain. If someone says something to you similar to one of the above statements, you might respond by saying:

• “That sounds really challenging, (or difficult, hard, painful…) if you want to talk about, I’m here to listen.” 

• “I’m so sorry you are feeling this way, I’m here for you in any way that would be supportive for you.”

• “Let me know if you need for me to listen, or if you would like some supportive advice”

• “I’m so glad you shared this with me, how can I help?”

• “I’m here for you, I hope you know that you are not alone.”

Imagine how it would feel for you to say one of the above statements to someone, even if, or especially if, it feels out of your comfort zone. Offering support can help someone more than you may even know.

Sometimes people hesitate to ask how someone is doing when they know that person is struggling because they are afraid the person may not want to talk about it. They worry they will bring it up and it will be too painful for that person. The reality is, that person may not want to talk about it, and that’s totally ok. However, acknowledging the other person’s pain, and being willing to listen if they do want to talk is tremendously powerful. Everyone wants to feel like they matter to others, that they are cared for, and when you ask someone how they are, and can show up for them in moments of their pain, you are creating an opening for deep and meaningful connections. It’s even ok to express your own vulnerability and say what you are honestly feeling and experiencing. You can say something as simple as, “I don’t even know what to say but I want you to know that I am here for you.” Vulnerability is hard, but it is worth the effort.

One of the most valuable ways to support someone once you’ve been there for them is to follow up. If you know someone is struggling, reach out, be present, and offer your support and kindness. Compassion literally means to suffer together. Being compassionate does not mean taking on the suffering of others, but to acknowledge, be present with, and offer space for the suffering to be understood and heard. Your presence for someone can be tremendously powerful. We all go through challenges, it’s simply a part of the human experience. Allowing yourself to be honest with your struggles, and allowing others to be honest with you about their struggles can be a valuable conduit to healing. Remember to take care of yourself this season, and maybe practice being more vulnerable and open and let yourself be honest about how you are feeling — how you are actually feeling.

Compassionate Eating: How to Be Kind to Yourself Through Emotional Eating Struggles

The Merriam-Webster dictionary defines compassion as, “sympathetic consciousness of others’ distress together with a desire to alleviate it.” Being compassionate means to suffer along with someone, to understand it, and to offer support to help release the suffering.

When talking about compassionate eating as a concept, I am not asking you to suffer with your food, or to feel any sort of distress about food or eating. Compassionate eating is more about how to be with yourself if you struggle with emotional eating, and the ways that compassion can offer relief from some of the suffering you may experience as a result of emotional eating patterns. If you struggle with negative self-talk, or if you experience any other internal distress as it relates to the process of eating and food choices you make, engaging with compassionate eating as a practice may help to alleviate some of the internal suffering that you experience.

Many who struggle with emotional eating, or any sort of disordered eating pattern, often feel a sense of persistent guilt and shame based on their food choices. The negative self-talk can be a precursor to eating, something said while eating, and most certainly following a food choice that is eaten out of emotional distress and not deemed “the right choice” or “perfect.” For example, prior to eating, negative self-talk might sound something like, “I shouldn’t eat this.” Negative self-talk during the process of eating might sound like, “I shouldn’t be eating this,” and after eating it might sound like, “I shouldn’t have eaten that…” 

There is a lot of overlap with each of these negative self-talk circumstances—and it all comes down to the shoulds. When we Should ourselves, we are immediately putting ourselves into a place where we are subjected to experiencing guilt and shame. The message of the emotion guilt signals to us is, I did something wrong, where as the message of the emotion shame signals, I am something wrong. If I tell myself, I shouldn’t be____________ (fill in the blank with anything) I am signaling through emotion (guilt/shame) inherent internal distress.

If I’m saying to myself “I shouldn’t be doing this,” no matter what “this” is, it signals that it must be wrong, bad, shameful, embarrassing, or I’m weak, and so on. The emotional discomfort that follows can lead to painful and really cruel thoughts about ourselves including not being good enough, not in control enough, not perfect enough, not enough just as I am. These feelings can trigger a negative thought loop and an internal shame spiral that may trigger more emotional eating, or any other negative self-soothing behaviors out of this feeling of deep internal suffering that something is wrong with me.

This is where compassionate eating steps in to help alleviate this pattern of deep internal suffering. Internal negativity and shame, inducing negative self-talk, is a form of suffering. The negative beliefs (e.g. I’m not good enough) that are internalized and reinforced become a pattern of low self-worth due to feeling not good enough, or feeling like a failure, or any other negative internalized belief. Self-compassion is the ability to suffer with oneself in a hope to relieve the suffering in a way that neutralizes the negative self-talk. When you offer yourself true self-compassion, you are allowing yourself to hold space for your feelings and experiences in a non-judgmental way. This can have a neutralizing or releasing impact on the discomfort you are experiencing. Giving yourself compassion allows the experience of becoming sympathetic towards yourself—with a desire to alleviate that suffering. 

Kristin Neff, who literally wrote the book on self-compassion, (which I highly recommend) breaks down the process of practicing self-compassion into these three elements:

1. Mindfulness

2. Self-kindness

3. Common humanity

The first is about how when we bring mindful awareness to a feeling or experience we are seeing it more broadly and without judgment, versus the felt state of over-identification with the suffering (e.g. I am not good enough, or I’m a failure) that triggers the negative self-talk. The second element of self-compassion is self-kindness. This process helps to release the self-judgement, I am ok versus I am a bad, weak, or a not a good enough person. The third element is creating a sense of common humanity, bringing in the awareness that the feelings and experiences are universal. This opens us to the understanding that suffering simply cannot be avoided if one is a human, and allows a feeling of not being alone in the suffering and discomfort of one’s own experiences, emotions, and behaviors.

Practicing self-compassion in a form of compassionate eating when struggling with emotional eating might look and sound something like this:

1. Mindful awareness of the feeling/experience: “I feel shame for eating something when I wasn’t hungry despite my attempts to be more mindful of my hunger and full cues, I want to change my emotional eating patterns and I feel really sad when I feel as though I’ve failed.”

2. Self-kindness is creating an opportunity to speak to yourself as you would a friend, loved one, or anyone you care about. Consider a good friend came to you with the same feeling or experience, you might say to them: “I understand why you feel so disappointed and down on yourself, you have been working really hard to eat more mindfully and intuitively, however, please know that no one is perfect and everyone struggles at times. What you are trying to accomplish is really challenging and takes time. I’m here for you and want to support you as you continue to heal, I believe in you.” Turn the same sentiment inward, say all of this to yourself. If you have a hard time being kind to yourself, imagine that it’s as if a friend, mentor, family member, or even your pet is saying it to you. Really let it sink in and offer you comfort. 

3. Common humanity is the ability to recognize the universality of the feeling, it might sound something like this: “I can recognize that this is a part of the human experience, at times everyone feels shame or disappointed in a choice they make.” This practice of self-compassion is asking yourself, can you be more gentle with yourself? Can you see that you were having a really bad day and struggling and the food felt like the only option you had to feel better at the time? Changing a pattern of behavior is really, really difficult. It takes so much time, effort, focus, intention, and practice to do. The process of self-compassion and being with yourself in this kinder, more gentle way allows you to heal some of the underlying negative mental and emotional patterns that are perpetuating the behavioral patterns. It all works together.

I recommend adding a daily self-compassion practice where you can check in with yourself consistently and begin to offer yourself this three step process. Go through the steps of offering yourself mindful awareness, self-kindness (just like you would to a friend) and giving yourself the opportunity to connect with the felt sense of the common humanity of your feelings and experiences. Remember that you get good at what you practice. This will feel hard at first. Remember that you most likely would never speak to someone else the way you speak to yourself in those negative self-talk moments. So why do you allow yourself to speak to yourself in this way? Most people don’t even notice the level of cruelty they inflict on themselves, and yet they feel the painful impact and discomfort that becomes self-created. Also, many people fear that being kind and gentle with themselves will make them feel like they get a pass, that they’ll never change if they aren’t uncomfortable or unkind to themselves. Maybe they received “tough love” or felt that they were shamed into doing things or being a certain way that was expected of them growing up and then they internalized this way of speaking to themselves. However, this cruelty never works in the long run. Unkindness, cruelty, and meanness lead to shame, pain, and suffering. These feelings usually lead to increased feeling of defeat, depression, anxiety, and fear. True change comes from encouragement, practice, self-awareness, empowerment, and more practice. Self-compassion offers a way of being with yourself that is more grounded, positive, and mindful. Compassionate eating offers of way of being with yourself and your experience with food and eating in a more kind, thoughtful, and empowered way.

The next time you find yourself in a negative thought loop, give the three step self-compassion practice a try and notice what happens for you. The next time you hear yourself saying “I should or shouldn’t be _____________, pause and try more compassionate self-talk instead and notice the outcome. Here’s to finding more inner peace, more peace with food, and more peace with your inner thoughts. Remember, you cannot heal your way out of being a human, but with practice you can love and accept yourself for exactly who you are in this moment.

What Exactly Is an EMDR Intensive?

Do you ever feel as though you are reliving the same patterns, or having the same recurring negative thoughts or experiences? Many of us are operating out of subconscious negative beliefs that are creating distressing patterns of thoughts, behaviors, and limiting our ability to feel worthy and deserving of the life we desire.

EMDR is a powerful therapeutic modality that helps to release these beliefs from our subconscious and unconscious minds, and allows us to live in a less uncomfortable, anxious, and fearful state of being. Through EMDR therapy we can release these limiting beliefs so that we can feel more empowered, confident, and safe in our daily lives.

One way to confront these limiting beliefs and negative cognitions is to do intensive EMDR therapy. This is where session times are extended so we can do a deep dive into releasing these beliefs about ourselves. Since I began offering EMDR intensives, I have had a lot of inquiries about why choose an EMDR intensive model over more traditional, weekly, 50 minute sessions. So I thought I’d write a little about what an EMDR intensive even is, and how to know if it might be right for you. (If you are not familiar with EMDR as a therapeutic modality, you can read a previous blog I wrote on the topic HERE or learn more about it from the EMDRIA homepage HERE.) 

An EMDR intensive is indeed, just as the name implies, intense. They are longer EMDR sessions (usually 2.5-hours, 4-hours, or even longer) where you focus for an extended period of time on your desired area of inner work. EMDR is considered a maximum exposure therapy, where you are reprocessing a specific trauma, memory, feeling state, or experience in a way that you are fully present with any lingering and unprocessed distress of that particular experience.

The discomfort that remains is based on a subjective level of distress you still experience when thinking about the memory. This is based on somatic, mental, and emotional discomfort. Through the bilateral stimulation of the brain, (and through the lens of the adaptive information processing model) repeated exposure and reprocessing of the memory allows the brain and body to release the physical, mental and emotional pain associated with the memory, so the distress level inevitably comes down. The goal is to have the distress become a 0 (subjectively on a 0-10 scale) where it feels that no distress remains present. The memory is then successfully reprocessed and released into your long term memory, rather than looping and causing triggering responses to your present life circumstances.

Once the distress is a 0, a positive cognition is created and reinforced through bilateral stimulation as well, and once it feels absolutely true (this is gauged subjectively on a number scale as well) as an inner felt sense, it is practiced with future templates. Imagining yourself accessing this new positive cognition in potentially distressing or triggering circumstances within the future helps to create new patterns and possibilities. Through this work you can now begin to respond and react within those future challenging moments in a more grounded and steady manner.

All that I’ve described so far is a very rough and quick overview, there are certainly many more elements incorporated into EMDR therapy, however this intended as just a basic gist. Our goal is to rewrite negative cognitions, or beliefs about the self, that have been created or reinforced through these distressing memories, experiences, and traumas. These experiences created beliefs about the self that perpetuated patterns of behaviors, thoughts, and feelings that can create negative internal experiences as well as difficulty feeling truly confident, hopeful, grounded, and worthy just as you are.

Through the inner work, you can release the trauma still stored mentally, physically, and emotionally, and therefore release the negative beliefs that have arisen out of those experiences. This creates a new way of existing within your life that is freeing and empowering.

With a traditional 50 minute session there is some preparation, potentially reprocessing and desensitization, verbal processing, grounding and re-stabilization in a relatively short time. With an EMDR intensive you are in that potentially reprocessing and desensitization phase for a much more extended period of time. I have found that a 2.5-hour EMDR intensive is similar to approximately 4 sessions when using the traditional, basic protocol. A 4-hour intensive is similar to approximately 6-7 sessions when using the traditional, basic protocol. There are always potentially other elements incorporated into sessions depending on each person’s individual needs along the way.

If you are someone who has done some personal work already and feels that EMDR could be helpful to resolve some traumatic memories, this could feel really nice, to get in a lot of therapy in a shorter, more intensive period of time. These intensives are useful if you find that you have some patterns that you seem to repeat in relationships, with money, with food, with negative self-talk, and with specific anxieties. Initially, we identify the primary negative cognition, and then use the protocol to work through these memories or experiences that seem to repeat themselves in a way that makes sense for you. 

For example, if you are someone who finds that you seek out relationships with people who are emotionally unavailable over and over, there may be a limiting believe or negative cognition that is stuck in your subconscious that can be worked through in a short series of EMDR intensives. We first identify the negative belief about yourself, and then work with the memories that have created or reinforced that belief. Or, if you are someone who seems to fall into the same patterns with food, or money and spending that you have repeatedly tried to change, this too could be reinforced subconsciously by a negative internalized belief that can be worked through with EMDR intensives. I have found intensives to be helpful for those struggling with perfectionism, creative blocks, resistance to or fear of change, specific anxieties (such as flying, driving over bridges…) and much more.

If you are interested in an EMDR intensive, it is best to reach out to a few certified EMDR therapists who offer them, who are also licensed in your state. Many therapists are willing to offer a 15-minute consultation where you can describe your current needs/goals and they will be able to determine if you may be a good candidate for intensive EMDR therapy. I am licensed in New York and Virginia, and therefore only can offer them to those currently living in either of those states. For people with chronic or complex post traumatic stress disorder who are just beginning treatment, those with a low distress tolerance, and for those with certain chronic conditions, I have found that traditional weekly sessions tend to work best, however, everything is truly determined on a case-by-case basis. 

I hope I’ve piqued your interest and maybe you will think about considering EMDR intensives as part of your personal growth, mental wellness, and emotional health process. Here’s to confronting our negative internalized beliefs head-on and creating a more empowered, confident self and living a life fully immersed in a feeling of worthiness. You deserve to feel your best and live your best life.