There is something really inspiring about opening a fresh, clean calendar. I can see why people make New Year’s resolutions. It’s a great time for reflection. It’s healthy to want to improve a thing or two in our lives and make this next calendar year better than the one before. However, I find people go about the New Year’s resolution in an unhelpful way. We tend not to know how to motivate ourselves to make changes. Here are some thoughts on making a better resolution for 2012:

• Choose something that benefits you on a daily basis. One mistake is that we choose to make a change that will only be felt months from now (I want to look great in that dress I’m going to wear next July.). Or we decide to make a change to please other people (I want to lose weight for my spouse). Like it or not, that will not inspire you on a regular basis to make changes. Instead, picture a change that you will notice each day. Imagine what it feels like, what you will notice, and how it will improve your life. I want to be more organized at work. I’m picturing what it will be like to walk in the office and everything is put in the right place. That’s a big relief. I won’t have to dig through mountains of paper. I can picture how having less clutter helps me feel more clear, more relaxed. That visualization and getting in touch with how I want to feel helps with motivation.

• Identify exactly what this change is going to take. Outline the steps to get to your goal. For me, its going to take 10-15 minutes a day just putting things away. Ask yourself: Can I really do these steps? Modify your goal if the steps require more than you can do. If you are not realistic, it’s not going to work.

• Use positive reinforcement. If you are punitive with yourself, you will rebel against your own goals. If I start to criticize myself for all the times I slip a little with organization, I’m not going to feel very good about myself. I might start to believe that I can’t achieve the goal and give up. This is counterproductive. For tips on being more positive with yourself, check out my blog on giving yourself some credit.

• Put support and structure in place. When something is really important to me, I try to find a way to hold myself accountable. Sometimes I hire a professional to help me with my goal. Sometimes I sign up for a class or a group. Maybe I’ll even publish it in a blog (okay, this is the first time I’m trying it!). The idea is that you need some pushing, so you need to find a way to get this. Recently, some of my fellow gym-goers have been emailing to find out when I’m going to the gym. This is extra incentive, because if I tell someone I’m going, I really need to follow through. Get creative- find the right vehicle for support with your goal. It could be telling friends, posting it on Facebook, joining a structured program, finding a mentor, writing yourself a letter about why you are doing what you are doing. I’d love to hear if you have some ideas. Please comment or contact me.

• Give yourself some room. Allow for being sick, tired, or pouty. And then have a concrete plan for how to bounce back. Maybe you go by the 90% rule. For me, that means 9 out of 10 work days I try to put away my papers.

Good luck and Happy New Year!

I have the opportunity everyday to learn so much about the human experience. Not many people get to sit and talk about important topics with others for a living. I’ve decided that it might be helpful for me to reflect on some of the themes that come up again and again throughout my week. I hope that it’s also useful to anyone reading this to get a sense that they are not alone. While we all are individuals, the core struggles we have are very similar.

This week I’ve been thinking a lot about emotions. I guess that should be obvious. What I realize is that feelings get a bad reputation. People talk smack about emotions saying, “feelings are a sign of weakness,” “feelings make me out of control,” “emotions lead to nothing good” or “it’s not fair that I have to feel this way.” Emotions are the scapegoats of humanity. We tend to blame it all on the feelings.

For the record, blaming our feelings is not only unfair, it’s also very unwise and problematic. Why? Because it’s what we do to avoid our feelings that is actually causing us the most trouble. When we start to feel some feeling we don’t particularly like- maybe it’s shame, fear, hurt or sadness- there is a pervasive tendency to avoid. Perhaps something will distract or numb this feeling, we think to ourselves (usually on an unconscious level). Next thing we know we might be doing something that is not particularly in line with what we want for ourselves. It could be fairly benign like watching endless episodes of some show on Netflix or some mindless eating. It could be more risky like casual sex or using drugs. Or maybe it’s interpersonally damaging like creating an argument or projecting our feelings on to others. There are so many ways to avoid the feeling.

It seems to me that it’s the long-term impact of using these avoidance strategies that brings lots of people to therapy (which I think is a wise decision, of course!). We all have some flavor of this. Who hasn’t chosen to “check out” in some way after a stressful situation? It’s when we do this again and again in ways that damage our bodies, relationships, and self-regard that it really becomes a problem.

From my point of view, behavior change ideally comes from learning how to tolerate our feelings. We need to respect and work with them, not run from them. That’s sometimes a challenge, but it’s workable.  I’m working on ways to tune in, instead of tune out with myself and with most of my clients.

Those are my thoughts for the week. I hope you have a great weekend!

Photo Credit: www.sierra-family-therapy.com

I’m really glad you asked. Okay, maybe it was me who posed the question, but it’s still a good one. EMDR stands for Eye Movement Desensitization and Reprocessing. Yes, that does sound quite sci-fi. What can I say? It was discovered when Star Trek: The Next Generation was newly popular. EMDR is a type of therapy that helps clients reprocess old information so that past events no longer cause distress in the present. That sounds impossible, but unlike teleportation, EMDR is real and the technology exists NOW.

EMDR is highly researched and effective with a variety of presenting problems, most notably Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. However, when you think about how many learned behaviors, automatic thoughts, and intrusive memories come from some event or series of events from our past, you can begin to realize the true potential of EMDR. It is a power tool for helping us update our brains, making sense of old thoughts that no longer serve us in our current lives.

For more information about EMDR, check out my resources page.Interested in learning even more? Stay tuned for additional information about EMDR right here on this blog.

I recently came across some very good articles in the mainstream media about mental health issues. I’m particularly impressed with a series called, “Lives Restored” from The New York Times. It is a series featuring people who have struggled with serious mental health issues and have found success. The latest, the fourth in the series, is called “Finding Purpose After Living with Delusion” by Benedict Carey (you can read it here). The story features Milton Greek, who has been working to better understand his own psychosis and thus help his recovery from schizophrenia. I was struck by the way some people are taking an empowered approach to understanding their diagnosis and finding common-sense strategies that work for them. Gathering information, using self-reflection, and seeking the help of trusted professionals and loyal friends and family are wise courses of action for anyone facing a mental health issue. It’s very refreshing to read the stories of those individuals who have taken steps to make meaningful lives in the face of great difficulty.

Have an article to share? I’d be very interested.