Transitions on the Horizon!

As the change in seasons fast approaches, many of us will be faced with transition anxiety, or what is more commonly known as change anxiety. The term refers to emotional responses to life changes that often appear to push us outside of our comfort zone, and as a result, generate uncertainty, which in turn can produce anxiety. The transitions can be positive, like a new home, a new job or a new school year. Or they can also be more of a challenge, like dealing with the ending of a relationship. Both can result in increased levels of anxiety and worry. Below are some ways to help you better cope with anxiety during these transitional times:

1. Try to remain mindful and in the present: Bring your focus to the present moment instead of worrying about things that are happening in

the future.

2. Reflect on Times when you did change well: Remind yourself that you moved forward in transitions before, and you can and will do it again.

3. Imagine what things will look like: Allow yourself to explore what you might expect from the upcoming change that makes you anxious. Having a clear picture of what you expect can help to reduce the anxiety.

4. Look to your Village: Check in with others in your network that may have had similar experiences to see how they handled it. Connecting with others can provide support and normalize the concern for you.

5. Professional Support: Consider seeking support from a professional if the anxiety persists. The therapists at A Balanced Approach specialize in the treatment of anxiety and can provide you with coping strategies and support.

Remember, change doesn’t have to be a bad thing, and how you handle it makes all the difference. SO, bring on the Change, you got this!!

Exploring Obsessive Compulsive Disorder

As is often common with anything in life, concepts you have little or no exposure to can fly under the radar of your awareness. The same can be said about Obsessive Compulsive Disorder which is more commonly referred to as OCD. Unless you, a family member, or a close friend have direct experience with this disorder, you are most likely limited to that which has been portrayed by the media in countless movies and books. A character in the television show like Tony Shalhoub’s Mr. Monk who goes to great extremes to avoid contact with others to avoid contamination provides us with a possible depiction of what those with OCD experience. But those who suffer with the disorder know that there is so much more to OCD than staying away from germs.

OCD is a real psychological disorder that can frustrate and often debilitate its sufferers and bring anguish to those people who love or support them. Studies show that OCD affects 2-3% of adults and 1-2% of children, but these numbers don’t include those people undiagnosed but still experiencing the symptoms.

There are two key components to OCD; obsessions, which are unwanted thoughts that serve to stir up fear, uncertainty and discomfort; and compulsions, which are the behaviors displayed by the person as they attempt to rid themselves of the distress associated with their obsessional thoughts. Hand in hand these obsessions and compulsions can evolve into a behavioral loop, which left untreated, can result in severe deterioration of a person’s quality of life.

A very common talked about form of OCD is fear of contamination, however, OCD comes in many types of intrusive thoughts and behaviors. Other examples include, having intense anxiety and persistent thoughts that you have been careless or injured someone, preoccupation with exactness, evenness, balance and/or symmetry , unwanted thoughts or images of violent or aggressive acts toward self or others, focused thoughts on sexual preference or topics related to sex, recurring thoughts centered around acting unfaithful or immorally toward God or others, or thoughts suggesting to redo over and again some behavior to ensure the task has been completed ‘just right’.

To help move past these types of thoughts, persons with OCD will then engage in ritualistic behaviors with the attempt to relieve some of the anxiety induced by the mentioned thoughts. Rituals can include things like excessive checking, washing or cleaning, repeating routine actions (ex. rereading, or counting), and ordering or arranging things in particular ways. These unwanted thoughts and counter behaviors result in wasted time and intrusions which impede a person’s quality of life. There are however, treatment strategies that provide OCD suffers with tools to live free of the above mentioned symptoms.

How to Get Help

Cognitive behavior therapy, better know as CBT, is a skills based approach treatment strategy which allows clients the ability to develop an understanding of their problem and then together, working with a therapist, develop a treatment plan that involves learning and practicing healthier ways of thinking, behaving and coping. The therapist is like a coach or teacher who helps the client understand what is occurring. After the client’s fears are identified, the therapist works with the client and provides homework (commonly referred to as exposures) designed to help the client face their fears and learn to live with uncertainty. The therapist serves as guide and mentor teaching the OCD sufferer how to face these unwanted thoughts and behaviors found as part of their OCD.

The good news behind this frightening disorder is that there are treatments that work and provide relief from the sometimes agonizing symptoms, allowing people to get back to living happy and productive lives.

The therapists at ‘A Balanced Approach’ have received extensive training in CBT targeted to help clients with OCD and are available to work with clients needing both clear diagnosis and treatment of the disorder. Please contact us for more details should you or a loved one require help.

Is the Glass Half Full or Half Empty? It’s Your Self Talk That Knows for Sure

Imagine two people waiting in line at the grocery store.  Due to new Covid-19 cleaning procedures the process often creates a back up of customers trying to check-out.  One person standing in the lengthy line believes he is trapped, saying to himself, “I can’t believe how much time I am wasting at this store, I’m vaccinated, why do I need to wait for this extra cleaning?” and “I have go to get out of here and if the clerk doesn’t speed it up, I think I’m going to lose it right here, right now.”  What he feels is anger, anxiety and frustration.  The second person views the situation as an opportunity to relax and finds herself humming to the piped-in background store music.  She looks past the lengthy line and notices the magazine rack off to the side, recognizes the face of a favorite actor and decides to grab the publication and leisurely page through, catching up on a bit of the Hollywood glitz that she finds pleasantly distracting.  Person number two is feeling a sense of calm, acceptance and is at ease with the present situation.  In both cases, the check out line is exactly the same, but the feelings in response to the situation are very different and have been self created by each individual’s internal monologue, or what is commonly referred to as ‘self talk’.  

Self talk is the continuous stream of unspoken thoughts, both good and bad, that run through our minds. 

 The source of these thoughts is generated either based on logical reasoning, or, on misconceptions that a person creates on their own when there is a lack of information or knowledge.  This lack of information may cause a person to “fill in the blanks” with misinformation, which in turn, can result in negative self talk.  Negative self talk impacts how we view ourselves and the world around us.  It is not to say that negative things won’t occur and bring with them negative thoughts, but producing more negative thoughts than positive on a regular basis, can greatly impact your mental health and the way you view your world.

 So how do you identify negative self talk?  A good starting point is to look at examples of some common forms; 

Filtering-  Filtering occurs when a person focuses on the negative aspects of a situation and filters out the positive.  An example of this would be: A spouse vacuums and dusts the entire house and has dinner waiting on the table for the family and when the family offers praise for the sparkling home and the delicious food, the spouse can only think about the two loads of wash that they didn’t get to that day.

 Personalizing -  In the event that something bad occurs, the thought pattern of this person will be to find reason to blame themselves.  Learning that the group has decided to cancel lunch plans, the person using personalizing will produce thoughts that the lunch was indeed canceled because the others did not want to be around them.  

Catastrophizing- A person with this thought pattern automatically resorts to the worst possible outcome.  An example of this type of negative thinking is illustrated by the person who spills coffee on themselves at breakfast and then automatically thinks that the rest of the day will be filled with mishaps.

 Polarizing-  This type of thinking has no room for middle ground, but rather focuses on the extremes, good vs. bad, right vs. wrong.  The thought is that unless it is perfect, you are a failure.

Strategies to Improving Your Self Talk

 It takes awareness and practice, but a person can learn to replace negative thoughts.  It may take some time to internalize this new habit, but the next steps will get you on the path.

1.      Focus in and notice (start small)-  Take a look at your life and focus in on one area; a relationship, work, a daily routine, for example, and begin to notice your thoughts.  Notice if your thoughts are mostly positive or mostly negative.

2.     Evaluate your thoughts 

Check in with yourself throughout the day and notice, if thoughts tend to be mostly negative, see if you can find a way to put a more positive spin on them.  If they are mostly positive, notice, and feel good about yourself and your thinking. 

3.     Use Compassion-  Don’t be too hard on yourself if you begin to notice that the majority of your thoughts appear negative. Noticing is a good first step toward change, and you are now one step closer.

4.     Practice Good Self Care-  A person who is more relaxed, rested and at ease will undoubtedly have any easier time engaging in positive self talk.  Do your best to practice behaviors that help mange your stress.

5.     Positivity Can Be Contagious-  Make it a point to surround yourself with positive thinkers.  Supportive people who provide you with positive modeling make for an easier journey.

6.     Practice Breeds Improvement-  Notice examples of negative thinking and then counter it with something positive.  The more practice you get the more automatic it will become.  Using gratitude while working on positive thinking is a good strategy to practice as well and can help you generate more positive thoughts.

     So the next time you find yourself in a long check out line, use the time to flip through a magazine or hum a song, remembering, you can’t change the length of the line, but you can change how you think about it.

A Little Anxiety Can Be OK

6 Tips to Validate your Child’s Feelings Without Reinforcing their Fears

As parents we often feel the need to take on super-hero powers to help our kids manage their anxious feelings. Some may feel like it’s written in the parent job description to do whatever is possible to help children deal with anxious feelings. What parents often miss in this repeatable cycle is that this short term fix can actually reinforce the fear. The child learns that when they voice feelings of anxious distress, someone (the parent) takes it away. For a little while the child feels better, but this is short- lived because the child has not faced their fear. While reassurance in the moment seems appropriate, it is strengthening the fear for the future. So what can a parent do? Here are 6 tips to keep in mind:

1. Develop Coping Skills- A better goal than eliminating your child’s anxiety is to help them develop their own coping strategies to manage it. As parents we don’t enjoy seeing our children unhappy, but teaching them to sit with anxiety and tolerate the feelings, even when they are anxious, is best. Using this approach will result in a decrease or even elimination of the anxiety in the long term.

2. Avoid Avoiding- Sometimes a natural reaction to anxiety is to avoid the things causing the anxious feelings and, in the short term, the child will feel relief. But this avoidance actually reinforces the anxiety in the long term. A child who cries or gets upset in response to anxious feelings, who is then removed from the situation by their parent, has now learned this as a coping strategy and this cycle (anxious = cry = parent removes me) has a high probability of repeating itself.

3. Provide Support - Validating that the fear is present for your child and then providing support which focuses on the child’s strengths is best. “You have done well in the past and I saw you study several extra hours for your Math exam so I am confident that you will be able to manage the anxiety you are feeling about the exam.” This response example allows your child to hear that they are understood, but also focuses on your confidence, that you believe your child has the coping skills needed to face the anxious feelings.

4. Don’t Reinforce the Fears- Children look to their parents for guidance and direction. Being aware of your own fears and being careful not to impose them onto your child is key.

5. Be Aware of Anticipatory Time- The time leading up to a feared situation can work to intensify a child’s fear. There is little benefit to announcing at breakfast, to the child who fears needles, that they will be seeing the doctor that afternoon. Hiding the appointment is not suggested, but shortening the anticipatory time is a positive strategy.

6. Model the Behavior- You are your child’s first teacher. Providing them examples on how you cope with your own anxiety is important. Pretending that you don’t have anxieties is harmful and sends a conflicting message. Pointing out healthy ways you use to tolerate and handle your own stressors allows your child to see that anxiety is manageable and is a normal part of life.