Focusing Inward

Focusing Inward
by Kirsten Emery, MS, LMFT, CADC

As we move past the flurry of February’s celebrations and into the fresh energy of March, it’s a great time to shift our focus inward. While Valentine’s Day may have emphasized relationships with others, the arrival of a new season serves as a reminder that one of the most important relationships we can nurture is the one we have with ourselves. With the promise of renewal in the air, there’s no better time to reflect on how developing a healthy, loving, and secure relationship with ourselves can positively impact the way we show up in relationships with others.

KNOWING YOURSELF

Just as in developing a healthy relationship with another person, it’s necessary for us to explore our own values, needs, and wants. The more we get to know ourselves, the better we can show up in our relationships.

When thinking about our personal values, it can be difficult to know what this entails. For many, values are the things that are important to us and the principles by which we live our lives, or as Mark Manson, author of The Subtle Art of Not Giving a F*ck,  suggests, they are “the measuring sticks by which we determine what is a successful and meaningful life.” When we can identify our values, we have a blueprint for how we want to live our lives each day in a way that feels fulfilling to us. 

Your personal values can range anywhere from “happiness” to “loyalty” to “wellbeing”, and with such a wide array of potential values, it can be difficult to truly narrow down those that are most important to you. Brené Brown, researcher and author of a number of books on shame, vulnerability, and belongingness, offers a useful guide to narrowing down your values. Though her worksheet suggests narrowing it down to two, I often suggest trying to narrow it down to a list of top five (because that in and of itself is difficult enough!)

Once identified, your values can become the stepping stone to gain a better sense of what is important to you in your everyday life and identify the needs that help you feel fulfilled and balanced. For example, if you particularly value creativity, you may notice that you feel energized and fulfilled by playing music or cooking a new recipe, making those key activities to integrate more frequently into your life. From developing an understanding of these parts of yourself, you can then be armed with the knowledge of the things that are most important to you and deserve to have your time and energy put into fostering. 

YOU’RE NOT BEING SELFISH

Many of us not only find it difficult to set boundaries to protect time just for ourselves, but believe it to be a selfish act to do so. The decision to take time to engage in self-care, solely focusing on doing activities for ourselves, often leads to worries of being too selfish. However, the reality is that when we take time out of the day to care for ourselves, we are then able to give even more of ourselves to our relationships in return. When we fill our own cups, we have more to give to others. 

Social media has taken the idea of self-care to a new level, sometimes to the point where it feels like it may not be entirely achievable on an average day. We can’t all make a perfectly cooked and balanced dinner, follow it up with a luxurious hour-long uninterrupted bubble bath, and then go to bed early, falling asleep almost instantly without once touching our phones. In fact, I would hazard a guess that most people can’t do this on a typical night. While there may be pressure to have the perfect type of self-care that seems to eliminate all forms of stress, in reality, self-care is more accurately any activity that helps you to feel like your physical and emotional needs are met. So while it can include all the previously mentioned activities, it doesn’t have to. 

Here are some questions to consider when addressing your different needs: 

• Physical self-care: Are you getting appropriate sleep? Eating three meals per day? Getting some level of movement and exercise that feels right for your body?

• Psychological self-care: Are you incorporating ways to appropriately process your emotions? Engaging in activities that feel mentally stimulating to you? 

• Social self-care: Are you making time to connect with others? Feeling fulfilled in your current relationships? Being conscious of boundaries around how you are being treated?

• Spiritual self-care: Are you taking time to reflect on your life and experiences? Being present and mindful in different areas of your life? Connecting with a community that engages in similar spiritual practices, if that’s of interest to you? 

When you start to take time to engage in these self-care practices, you're prioritizing parts of your life that help you feel balanced and fulfilled. And when you feel balanced, fulfilled, and taken care of, you can then give more to your relationships, making self-care an essential part of your life that should be protected and cherished. Building a healthy relationship with yourself isn't selfish – it's the foundation that allows you to show up as your best self for others.

Kirsten Emery is a Licensed Marriage and Family Counselor and Certified Addictions Counselor with Padera Therapy and Wellness. She is also the Co-Clinical Director at the practice. Kirsten specializes in treating addictions, eating disorders and body shame, mood disorders and family issues. Kirsten also has a special clinical interest in working with clients who practice consensual non-monogamy and are part of the Kink community. When Kirsten isn’t practicing clinically, you can find her perusing bookstores, reading fantasy and speculative fiction, and spending time with her husband and two pets.

New Year, Better Resolutions

A blog post by Kirsten Emery, LMFT

New year, new you! We see these words plastered across social media, television, and seemingly everywhere we go. The push to “be a better you” seems to be on everyone’s mind at this time of year, but what does this really look like to implement? 

Some estimates show that up to 80% of people abandon their New Year’s resolutions by the time February comes around, nevermind that the second Friday of January has been officially dubbed “Quitter’s Day.” With the pressure to set resolutions and the continued uphill battle to stay focused on them through February, it’s a wonder if it’s even possible to set them in the first place. Not only should we consider how to set effective goals, but also we should be considering how we want those goals to serve us!

SETTING ACHIEVABLE GOALS

By now, you are likely familiar with the term SMART goals, or at least have heard mention of it. When setting a new goal or resolution, one of the most effective techniques to make sure you achieve it is using the SMART goal technique which suggests all goals must be:

• Specific - What outcome do you want to achieve with this goal? 

• Measurable - How will you measure your progress towards achieving this goal? 

• Achievable - Do you have all the tools and resources necessary to achieve this goal? 

• Relevant - Is this goal aligned with your values, morals, or overarching goals? 

• Timely - When do you want to achieve this goal and is it reasonable for the identified timeframe? 
  

For example, if my New Year’s resolution was to “read more books”, to make it a SMART goal, I would expand on it to be: “I will read 25 total books, one more than last year, from my to-be-read (TBR) pile by the end of December 2025.” 

It is:

• Specific: I am increasing the total amount of books I read in a year

• Measurable: I am reading 25 total books

• Achievable: I have an (ever-growing) TBR pile on my shelf from which to choose a book

• Relevant: I love to read and this is fulfilling my value of reading more

• Timely: I have one year to read all these books
  

SMART goals allow us to set goals that ultimately help us to feel like we are more likely to accomplish them, as compared to typical and difficult-to-define New Year’s resolutions of “be happy”, “eat healthier”, “save money”, etc. Beyond just being vague, these types of resolutions are also questionable of whether they are meaningful enough to follow through on. Some have suggested that resolutions fail because of their vagueness, but another contributing factor to failed resolutions is a lack of emotional investment and choosing goals that are not compassionate or respectful of you. While your resolutions or goals may fulfill all the SMART criteria, one piece to consider is whether those goals are taking your well-being into consideration. Are the goals you’re setting ones you want to make and are compassionate towards you? Or do they reflect the “shoulds” that seem to run on repeat in your mind? 

SELF-COMPASSIONATE GOALS

Most often, we make resolutions or goals that focus on the idea of becoming better versions of ourselves. And while that is reasonable and admirable, those goals don’t always take into consideration the overarching impact of setting such expectations on ourselves. Have you ever set a goal that then felt it too difficult to achieve? And by not achieving it, you felt worse rather than feeling better? This brings into focus the need to consider self-compassionate forms of the goals you’re setting. 

To put it simply, self-compassion is mindfully treating oneself with warmth, understanding, and kindness. According to Dr. Kristin Neff, a leading self-compassion researcher, “Instead of mercilessly judging and criticizing yourself for various inadequacies or shortcomings, self-compassion means you are kind and understanding when confronted with your failings – after all, who ever said you were supposed to be perfect?” If you’re interested in taking her self-compassion test to see how compassionate you are towards yourself, you can do so here.

In thinking about structuring your goals or resolutions to be self-compassionate, a useful question to ask yourself could be “Is this goal kind and understanding of me, my needs, and my values?” Approaching goals through the lens of self-compassion can open up new possibilities for what you truly want as your New Year’s resolutions and maybe all your goals in general. 

REST AND RESILIENCE

Not many of us consider setting a New Year's resolution to rest more or build our resilience. Understandably so, as the typical cultural drive in the United States is to do more, be busier, and thrive on accomplishments! This often pushes us to set goals for ourselves that tend to focus on hitting some sort of achievement. However, could it be time to consider what a resolution related to rest and resilience may bring to your life? 

In a world that is constantly moving with information that is available to us as fast as we can tap our phone screens, rest is particularly essential for us. Taking time to disconnect from the buzz of technology and social media to spend time in the present moment, purely focusing on the things happening around us in that moment, can provide countless benefits. 

Rest allows our body to rejuvenate itself, whether it’s the process of digesting our latest meal or sorting through memories when we sleep. It restores balance to the complex systems that are constantly working for us. Rest allows us to develop emotional balance and gives us a greater ability to think clearly. 

Tricia Hersey, author of Rest is Resistance: A Manifesto and founder of The Nap Ministry, even suggests that resting is more than just recharging ourselves. She believes that rest allows us to push against the “grind culture” that has been established by capitalism and white supremacy, that “rest is not a luxury, but a human right and a deliberate rebuking of the oppressive structures that are snatching the souls of humanity.”

If we are constantly going, moving from one thing to another, and never taking the time to incorporate time for our bodies and our brains to put our literal and figurative feet up, we run ourselves ragged. Ever notice when you’ve made it through that final stretch before your time off that suddenly you start to feel the impending doom of sniffles and a scratchy throat? When we don’t allow time to rest in day-to-day life, we open ourselves up to physical and emotional pain, however that manifests. In taking the time to incorporate more rest, we then can build resilience. Whether that’s physical resilience such as building up immunity against those pesky winter colds and flus, or it’s emotional resilience that helps to face stressors that come your way, resilience allows us to keep moving forward one step at a time. And it all starts with a little bit of rest. 

RESOLUTION OF REST

If you’re still considering what you want your New Year’s resolution to be, or even if you’re just thinking about the goals you set for yourself in general, a key piece to keep in mind is to ensure that you are setting goals that feel specific, measurable, achievable, relevant, and timely (aka SMART!) But that is truly just the starting point. It’s important to also ensure that your goals are self-compassionate, not only contributing to meaningful areas of your life but also treating you with kindness, warmth, and understanding. 

In considering ways to be more self-compassionate to yourself, incorporating a resolution focusing on allowing yourself to rest, something that most of us have a particularly difficult time doing, may just be the thing you need to do. That could be getting 8 hours of sleep at night most nights, allowing yourself to put your feet up for 15 minutes every evening after the kids are in bed, or even scheduling in 2 minutes of deep breathing exercises between meetings. Whatever rest looks like to you, all of it helps us to build the resilience we need to keep going, even on the toughest days. 

About the Author:

Kirsten Emery is an LMFT and Co-Clinical Director at Padera Therapy and Wellness. Kirsten specializes in treating addictions, eating disorders and body shame, mood disorders and family issues. Kirsten also has a special clinical interest in working with clients who practice consensual non-monogamy and are part of the Kink community. When Kirsten isn’t practicing clinically, you can find her perusing bookstores, reading fantasy and speculative fiction, and spending time with her husband and two pets.

How to Keep Social Media from Driving You Crazy

For most of us, our relationship with social media is fraught with complicated feelings. We’ve seen the documentaries, read the think pieces, and heard the stories about how social media isn’t great for our mental health. We know the statistical correlation between social media use and eating disorders, increased depression, anxiety, body image issues, and even self-harm tendencies. However, we also know that it is an increasingly important tool we can use to stay connected with friends and family all over the world, as well as being a place of inspiration, connection, joy, and learning. And whether we are engaged in healthy activities on it or not, social media platforms can quickly become consuming.

All of these pieces (healthy and not) can become overwhelming as we are constantly inundated with information from our various social platforms. The relentless updates can feel like an assault on the senses—our brains quickly try to take in more information than they can realistically process. But as much as we may occasionally long for the days before the barrage of likes, tweets, news updates, and addicting TikTok content, social media and its impact on our lives is here to stay. Still, rather than hopelessly giving into the addiction or entirely divorcing ourselves from it (or more likely, getting stuck in the yo-yo between de-activating and re-activating), we may want to find a middle ground. Here are some ideas for developing a sustainable relationship with technology so that we can use and enjoy the value of it, while minimizing the downsides:

1. BE INTENTIONAL

Notice the emotions that trigger social media use. What were you feeling right before you opened the app? Was it boredom? Sadness? Insecurity? Anxiety? Curiosity? We tend to make the excuse, “It’s just a habit!” rather than digging into our patterns and tendencies. It may be a habit, but behavior is also motivated by an emotion or urge. Once you’re able to identify triggers (social discomfort, boredom etc.), it is worth starting to develop other tools to deal with these feelings. You do not want to be overly reliant on any one coping skill/tool/option.

Side Note: If you’re using social media to deal with uncomfortable or unpleasant emotions, is it distraction or avoidance? Distraction is a healthy tool that we can use to get through difficult moments when emotions are extremely intense. When emotions are heightened, our brain’s ability to engage in effective cognitive processing shuts down. We go into survival mode: fight, flight, freeze (it is our brain’s way of trying to help us protect ourselves) and it becomes nearly impossible for us to be rational or logical (which is why we think and say “stupid” things when we are upset). Distraction can help us stay calm until our brains can access rationality again (it usually takes about 15 minutes or less). Once we are calm, then we turn to other coping skills to help ourselves through a difficult time.

Avoidance is different—it’s when we have no intention of returning back to deal with the emotion/trigger/situation/person that made us uncomfortable in the first place. We distract ourselves out of honestly dealing with our feelings and never learn to cope with our discomfort in a healthy way. When we continue to suppress emotions/not deal with our issues, it generates more anxiety around them (we feel like we cannot deal with them). Avoiding can increase feelings of depression/low self-esteem/sadness/hopelessness/helplessness in the long-term.

2. BUILD AWARENESS

What emotions does social media generate in you? What emotions does it bring up for you? What are you looking at? Are you exclusively engaging with happy content? Stressful news? Looking at perfectly airbrushed influencers? It is important to start building awareness of the content that you’re consuming and how it is impacting you.

3. CURATE YOUR FEED

What is healthy about your social media use? Start curating a feed that will feature exclusively healthy content. This will look different for EVERYONE! This might mean muting or unfollowing people who tend to generate negative thoughts about your body, accounts that constantly feature stressful news stories, friends who airbrush their photos, or people who post about their perfect families. You aren’t rejecting them or avoiding them, you are simply recognizing that a constant barrage of images that trigger insecurity for you aren’t great for your mental health. You can actively choose to engage with these people and accounts when in a healthy headspace to do so (which isn’t necessarily the case when they simply pop up on your feed).

4. REJECT COMPARE AND DESPAIR

Social media feels like a burden when we are comparing ourselves to others (i.e. comparing your insides to someone else’s outsides.) If you are noticing yourself playing the comparison game, unfollow the person you’re comparing yourself to OR remind yourself that you’re seeing their highlight reel. People typically don’t post their piles of laundry, dirty bathrooms, children’s tantrums, or the dinners they burned. But it is easy to assume that another person’s life is full of perfect moments when that is all you’re seeing of their experiences (and remember, others may be thinking the same about you!).

While these ideas are not the be-all-and-end-all of our journey towards developing a healthier more sustainable relationship with technology, they are a helpful place to start the process. Creating and sustaining any healthy relationship, whether with technology or another person, will require changing and evolving as we learn more about them/it and ourselves. Thus, practicing flexibility and adaptation as we learn will be key in ensuring we can have a relationship with technology that is less about addiction or need and more about using it to enhance our lives and relationships.