Feeling Stuck and Unfulfilled: Longing for Deeper Connection

Woman in nature by @marcospradobr for Unsplash

This blog post was originally written for my newsletter.

Midlife is a wonderful time for reflection. We’ve made it here. We’re looking back at where we came from and ahead to what’s next.

And for highly sensitive women in midlife, you’re particularly attuned to your inner life and emotional experiences. But instead of feeling freeing, midlife can be overwhelming if you’re feeling unfulfilled, out of alignment, or just burned out.

As I began my midlife journey, I wanted to feel more aligned and comfortable with myself. I knew something needed to change but each step I took never felt like enough.

I had spent my life focusing on other’s needs at the expense of my own. And I’d built a life of putting my feelings to the side—or burying them—so I didn’t even know what was missing. I just knew something was.

Maybe you’ve been there. Taking art classes, yoga classes, starting new exercise routines, trying a new religion, a new church, taking self-enrichment classes and courses, accumulating and reading self-help books.

I’ve been there.

Because nothing I did filled me up in the way I’d hoped, I thought that maybe I’d always feel this way.  That I was the problem.

I was really good at seeing all of my weaknesses.  And as I reminded myself again and again about my deficiencies, I felt the hurt deeply within me.

But I know now that I’m not broken. And I want you to know, you’re not the problem. You. Are. Not. Broken.

If the people in your life didn’t understand and support your highly sensitive traits, you learned early on to keep your needs to a minimum. Or you kept them out of sight.

But when we put our needs aside because we’re told we’re “too much,” we continue to get overwhelmed, stressed, and feel like we’re the problem.

Ironically, I’ve learned the that my search for alignment didn’t have to go any further than myself. The thing that was missing in all of this was me. A healthy, loving, caring relationship with myself.

When you take the steps toward a nurturing compassionate relationship with you and all your parts, you find the gifts that make you, you.

• You’ll begin to make choices that align with your energy and values

• You’ll create space and time for reflecting and recharging

• You’ll trust your intuition. And it will become your best ally

If you’re longing to feel more aligned and you’d like a space to process and reflect on where you’re stuck, and ways to move towards fulfillment I’d love to support you.

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Elizabeth Cush (LCPC) is a licensed clinical professional counselor, a women’s life coach, and business owner in Annapolis, MD where she hosts Awaken Your Wise Woman a podcast for women who want to live more fully and authentically. She loves helping women reconnect with themselves so that they can live with more purpose. Her coaching work is focused on self-compassion practices, healthy boundaries and making the care of Self a priority.  She’s worked in the mental health field for over 15 years, is a certified clinical trauma professional and she incorporates mindfulness and meditation into her psychotherapy and coaching work.

Expressive Arts Approaches for Managing Anxiety

Painting with water colors

Guest Post by: Reina Lombardi

Have you ever felt so tired that you couldn’t wait to get in bed only for your brain to fire up as soon as your head hit the pillow? Had your thoughts swirling around one after another about every interaction that occurred that day? What didn’t get done, what could have been done better, what needs to be done tomorrow, the calls you forgot to make, and so on and so forth. This is just one example of how anxiety has presented itself within my life. The consequence of which is often crippling fatigue due to lack of sleep and a negative impact on my level of alertness and ability to function during the day.

Creating Art with Mindful Attention

One of the tools that I have always turned to for life’s stressors is artmaking and journaling. I don’t consider myself to be particularly skillful at either; rather, I approach them as an opportunity to express and release the energy bound within. Practicing letting go of judgement about the outcome of creative practices is an exercise in self-compassion.  It is one that helps us to find value in the process of creating rather than from the end product. It forces one to learn to let go of judging and attributing value based upon one’s ability to produce something “good”.

Mindfulness activities emphasize focusing all of our sensory awareness to what we are experiencing in the present moment without judgement – we simply observe. We can do anything mindfully. Try doing a task you don’t care for while bringing full attention to all of your senses as you are doing it. This can alter our perception of the task itself. It can also help us shift from a feeling of dread to one of tolerance and maybe even appreciation. When we engage in activities mindfully and immerse ourselves in the present moment, we are unable to review incidents from the past or those we are concerned about getting right in future.  It is the construction of meaning about the past and possible outcomes of the future where anxious thinking resides. The act of creation can be a wonderful tool for developing mindfulness.

Bring in some self-compassion

Self-compassion is the act of nurturing and caring for oneself when they feel distressed, disappointed or in pain. It has been positively linked in multiple studies as an effective strategy for anxiety reduction. [i]  Mindfulness, even when brief techniques are taught, has also been effective towards reducing anxiety. [ii] We can practice both mindfulness and self-compassion when we create art. This can become a place for rehearsing these skills in order to generalize them in other areas of our lives. In addition, structured art-making itself has been found to lower levels of the stress hormone Cortisol after just 45 minutes of creating.[iii]

Three Expressive Arts Activities

1. Paint to Music. I start by finding some relaxing music. I prefer to find music sung in languages with which I am not fluent or without lyrics at all for this exercise. Meditation music is excellent for this process. I don’t want my thinking brain to get activated by the lyrics. I set out a palette of watercolor paints, heavy weight cold-pressed paper, several brushes, a cup of water and paper towels for blotting. Then I turn on the music and paint to the music. I allow the music to guide me in the selection of colors and the brush. I make marks according to the tempo and sounds of the music. As I described earlier, I do my best to focus all of my sensory awareness on the experience of doing. I find watercolor to be the best paint medium for this process, but you could also try gouache or acrylic to determine which media works best for you.

2. Sensory-focused expressive journaling. In order to maximize getting myself into a relaxed state I begin by imagining or remembering a place and time where I felt extremely centered and relaxed. For me, this is inevitably somewhere in nature. I then begin to write in as much detail describing every sensory experience associated with the image in my mind. What colors are around me? What smells? What sounds? What does the temperature feel like? What was the weather – windy, hot and humid, snowing? I spend as long as it takes to capture every detail of being in the relaxed state.

Our brains don’t discriminate between real and perceived stimuli. This is why our nervous system becomes activated when we watch a scary movie. In this exercise we are capitalizing on this process to immerse ourselves in a relaxing picture. This results in our nervous system responding as if we really were laying out on the warm windy salty shoreline of a Caribbean Island against a backdrop of crystal clear aquamarine waves, listening to the squawks of the birds, the rustling of the palms blowing in the wind and the soft crunch of steps in the white sand from people strolling by.

3. Mandala drawings. Draw or trace a circle on a piece of paper. Freely create on the paper using line, shape and color. It is okay to create within the circle or outside the circle. Sometimes, I enjoy creating symmetrical patterns. Other times, I utilize words of affirmation within the circle. Other occasions, I might draw a realistic image within the circle. I just allow my hand to begin and see what flows. There are no rules.

The origin of the mandala is from the ancient Hindu language Sanskrit and means “circle.”  Mandalas are common imagery throughout human history and prevalent in multiple spiritual and religious traditions. The circle represents the completion of a cycle or a state of being whole. In nature it is a basic foundation of geometry and can found everywhere – sun, moon, earth, eggs, atoms, cells, etc… The circle is considered to be a sacred form. Creating within the circle can feel centering and offer a means of connecting within.

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References

[i] Egan, S.J., Rees, C.S., Delalande, J. et al. A Review of Self-Compassion as an Active Ingredient in the Prevention and Treatment of Anxiety and Depression in Young People. Adm Policy Ment Health 49, 385–403 (2022). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10488-021-01170-2

[ii] Call, D., Miron, L., & Orcutt, H. (2014). Effectiveness of brief mindfulness techniques in reducing symptoms of anxiety and stress. Mindfulness, 5(6), 658-668.

[iii] Kaimal, G., Ray, K., & Muniz, J. (2016). Reduction of cortisol levels and participants' responses following art making. Art therapy, 33(2), 74-80.

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Reina Lombardi, ATR-BC, ATCS, LMHC-QS is the owner of Florida Art Therapy Services, LLC in Fort Myers Florida, and the host of the Creative Psychotherapist Podcast.

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Elizabeth Cush (LCPC) is a licensed clinical professional counselor, a women’s life coach, and business owner in Annapolis, MD where she hosts Awaken Your Wise Woman a podcast for women who want to live more fully and authentically. She loves helping women reconnect with themselves so that they can live with more purpose. Her coaching work is focused on self-compassion practices, healthy boundaries and making the care of Self a priority.  She’s worked in the mental health field for over 15 years, is a certified clinical trauma professional and she incorporates mindfulness and meditation into her psychotherapy and coaching work.

The Power of Practicing Gratitude

Now is the season for feeling thankful and grateful, but maybe we should be practicing gratitude every day.

The post “Giving thanks can make you happier” on Harvard Medical School’s Harvard Health Publishing website, notes that, ““In positive psychology research, gratitude is strongly and consistently associated with greater happiness. Gratitude helps people feel more positive emotions, relish good experiences, improve their health, deal with adversity, and build strong relationships.”

That’s pretty strong evidence for taking time to be grateful—but how do we do that? And can it help us in other ways?

Here are some suggestions to get you started on feeling gratitude each day:

Start a Gratitude Journal. Take some time in your day to journal something you’re grateful for.  It doesn’t matter when you do it, but try to schedule that time or mentally reserve it for journaling. If journaling isn’t your thing, use the time to think about what you’re grateful for each day.

Keep it Simple. Being grateful for small things is as effective as making bigger gestures of gratitude. When I walk, I like to remind myself to pick a few things to be grateful for, like the sun on my face or seeing a squirrel scamper up a tree.

Get creative. Artwork, singing, writing, and dance or movement can be fun ways to express gratitude. 

Share Your Gratitude. The research also shows that when we share what we’re grateful for with others, the positive effects of the practice increase. So, from time to time, share what you’re grateful for with your kids, a partner, friends, family, coworkers, or even a stranger.

Notice the Sensations that Arise. Take a moment and feel in your body and mind what happens when you allow yourself to feel—inside— the joy, awe or appreciation each day. When I take a moment to pause and let the grateful feelings seep in, I feel a warmth in my chest. I can even get choked up when I allow that feeling fully into my heart.

A gratitude practice becomes part of your life

It might feel forced at first, but when you continue to focus on gratitude each day, you’ll start to notice feeling grateful at random times, too.

I find that gratitude and mindfulness practices can complement each other. When I’m mindful of my surroundings I’m also feeling grateful for the things I’m noticing, like the sound of the wind in the tress, or the feeling of my dog’s soft ears, or the way the sun makes shadows on the walls in my home.

You can bring gratitude into your life in a way that fits you and your lifestyle, so that it becomes a natural part of how you move through the world.

If you think someone would benefit from a gratitude practice, please share this with them! Together, we can make the world a little more positive, resilient and connected.

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Image from @abdullam at Unsplash.com

Elizabeth Cush (LCPC) is a licensed clinical professional counselor, a women’s life coach, and business owner in Annapolis, MD where she hosts Awaken Your Wise Woman a podcast for women who want to live more fully and authentically. She loves helping women reconnect with themselves so that they can live with more purpose. Her coaching work is focused on self-compassion practices, healthy boundaries and making the care of Self a priority.  She’s worked in the mental health field for over 15 years, is a certified clinical trauma professional and she incorporates mindfulness and meditation into her psychotherapy and coaching work.

Explore Your Inner World Through Journaling

Do you journal? Journaling is the practice of writing down whatever is in your head. You can journal daily, weekly, or whenever you feel the urge.  A journal can be a place to offload and explore your worries and stress. A place to navigate your inner landscape, a place to record your daily activities, your artwork, special events…You can make your journaling practice as unique as you are. I often recommend the practice to my clients as a way to relieve stress, but some have told me that it can be hard to know what to write. It doesn’t have to be that way.

My own journaling journey

I’ve had an off-and-on relationship with journaling. At times in my life I journaled every day; other times it was more sporadic or not at all. Recently, I came across a bunch of my old journals in a box in my basement. Some of them date back to middle school! That was more than 40 years ago.

There’s something comforting about knowing that my experiences are logged into notebooks that I can go back to anytime. And research shows that journaling improves our mental and physical well-being and our cognitive abilities. 

I’ve come back to my journal this year. I was doing it occasionally, and when the pandemic struck, I took up nightly journaling to process my stress and anxieties before going to bed. I’ve enjoyed coming back to the daily ritual, and it calms my mind before sleep during these unsettling times.

Journaling in the digital age

These days you can find apps and online platforms that make journaling easier than ever.

A few weeks ago, the founder of the online journaling platform Upfinch contacted me. They were interested in collaborating, and we set up a phone call to talk about the possibilities. They shared their mission with me, and I was impressed:

If we don’t take time to consciously reflect on our lives, it will never occur. Instead of floating to the next temporary island of comfort, we should be clearly defining what we want and how to get there.

Their journaling prompts get you thinking about yourself and your goals, and they offer prompts to increase positive mental health. Within each category, their templates give you the space to describe your thoughts, stresses and worries.  The prompts at Upfinch help you explore and gain a better understanding of yourself. They then take it a step further and prompt you to explore the ideas that can help you move forward.

The founders of Upfinch asked me to collaborate on the templates for anxious feelings and thoughts, and I’m honored to have my suggestions included on their platform!

I’m excited about this collaboration and happy to share that Upfinch is sponsoring the Woman Worriers podcast for the month of January. When you subscribe to the Upfinch platform, the first month is free, and they’re offering Woman Worriers podcast listeners and newsletter subscribers a 15-percent discount off their monthly subscription when you enter the coupon code “WORRIERS” at check-out!

>> You can find the guides here.

Sign up Here!

>> And sign up for your 15% discount here.

The journals are private and never accessed by humans or software.

Give journaling a try!

People have shared with me that not knowing what to journal about stops them from starting.  What stops you from journaling? Maybe 2021 is the year to get started or try a new way to do it.

Through journaling, let’s enter the New Year with new insights and more positive intentions!

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Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety contact me!

Using Meditation and Mindfulness to Manage Anxiety

If you’ve listened to the Woman Worriers podcast, or read some of my blogs, you know that I credit my mindfulness and meditation practice for helping me manage my anxiety, stress and feelings of overwhelm.

Before I started meditating, I was sure I’d never be able to clear my mind of worry and thoughts. Although I’d heard others talk about the benefits of meditation, I was skeptical that it would do anything for me.

I wasn’t sure I could sit quietly for very long. And then to try to clear my mind of any thoughts or worries? Forget it! But I’ve learned there’s so much more to a mindful meditation practice.

What meditation is and isn’t

Meditation and mindfulness are not a magic pills that take the anxiety away; rather they’re  practices that help you become more aware of your anxious feelings. Meditation and mindfulness can help you get to know your inner self—your more genuine self—with more clarity, and they can bring more ease into your daily life.

As I read more and listened to mindfulness and meditation teachers’ presentations, I got curious. A therapist I was seeing at the time loaned me the book Wherever You Go, There You Are by John Kabat-Zinn, and I was intrigued. I began exploring other resources and talking to more people about how I could get started.

Listening and learning about mindfulness

My regular practice began when I purchased Self-compassion Step by Step by Kristen Neff and Meditation and Psychotherapy by Tara Brach, from Sounds True. These CDs of educational talks include meditations that you can follow along with during the teachings.

With those purchases I also received a free CD of guided meditations. It was a sample of seven or eight meditations with different teachers. I copied the CD into my iTunes and used it regularly. 

By listening to the CDs, I learned that mindful meditation isn’t about clearing your mind of worries and thoughts, it’s about being aware of where your mind goes—all the time. It’s normal for our mind to wander, and we can learn how to bring our attention and focus back to an anchor, like our breath or sounds or a mantra. I like to think of it this way:  Each time I bring my mind back from wherever it went, I’m teaching my brain what it feels like to live in the present moment, instead of being stuck in the worry and stress.

The courses I purchased through Sounds True taught me how to use meditation in sessions with clients because they taught me how tolerate my own difficult feelings by using self-compassion practices. I can say wholeheartedly that the work of Tara Brach and Kristen Neff have impacted my client’s lives just as their teachings have changed my relationship with myself in very meaningful ways.

Continuing the meditation journey

At the beginning of my journey with mindfulness, I moved in and out of meditation, sometimes practicing regularly, and at other times not practicing at all. When you’re learning on your own, without a group, it can be hard. It’s so easy to get caught up in something else.

Although I don’t use the free meditations that I got from Sounds True anymore, I do practice regularly. And I notice it when I don’t.  I feel as if something is missing, and y body yearns to get back to the practice. I’ve taken some amazing courses, joined meditation groups, interviewed meditation teachers and bought lots of books to help me sustain the work. 

I was honored to talk with Tami Simon, the founder of Sounds True, on the Woman Worriers podcast. We explored what inspired her to create the platform, how her journey has helped her to find a sense of belonging in the world and the universe, and how she sees the company moving forward.

I respect and value the resources that Sounds True offers and decided recently to team up with them, so the Woman Worriers podcast is now an affiliate partner. If you use my link, a portion of the proceeds from anything you purchase will go to fund the podcast.

I love podcasting and it takes time, energy and money to continue to do it well, and to offer you a meaningful experience, with good sound and careful editing. With support from other resources, like Sounds True and Audible, I can continue to do the work I love and share it with the world!

Here’s the link to use to check out what Sounds True has to offer and to support the Woman Worriers podcast: https://www.soundstrue.com/store/#ecush

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I want to Find Similar Articles and podcast episodes

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety contact me!

Experiencing the Power of Self-Compassion

If you’ve read my blogs and listened to my podcast, you know that I encourage practicing self-compassion, especially if you’ve got an inner critic that shows up to make sure you’re aware of all your faults and possible missteps.

I love self-compassion work so much that last week I shared some practical self-compassion exercises in my guest blog—Using Self-Compassion to Reduce Anxiety—for Sharon Martin’s Happily Imperfect blog on Psych Central.

Beginning My Journey Toward Self-Compassion

I learned about Kristin Neff’s work on self-compassion when I was just starting out as a therapist. I remember having lunch with my supervisor and she mentioned self-compassion and Dr. Neff’s work. I’d just bought a CD with her self-compassion training and was excited to better understand how to bring meditation and mindful awareness into my life, with compassion.

Since then, I joined 50 other people for a week-long training workshop with Kristen Neff and Chris Germer, diving deeper into the practice.

The work has changed my life, and that’s not an exaggeration. I know myself better, I have a better relationship with my inner critic, and I’ve learned to be kinder to myself and others.   

Experiencing Unexpected Benefits

That’s the hidden gem in the self-compassion practice. The practice helps us feel more connected to ourselves and all other living beings. When we open ourselves up to the concept that we all struggle at times—because we’re human—we learn to offer kindness instead of judgment to ourselves and to others who are struggling. 

The practice has helped me feel more in tune with myself. It has allowed me to build a kind, loving relationship with me. And I’ve learned to trust myself in ways I never did before. I also feel more connected to the people in my life and more empathetic and accepting of others.

Sharing the Wisdom of Self-Compasion

Because the practice has helped me feel less anxious and more comfortable in knowing myself, I’m creating a program with self-compassion at its core to help women build a more loving and open relationship with themselves. I’ll keep you up to date and share some of what the program will offer as I’m building it, so keep an eye on this space!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety contact me!

How To Recognize Stress When You're Stuck At Home

I experience anxiety, I’m an introvert and I recognized later in life that I’m also a highly sensitive person (HSP), so it’s not surprising that I usually spend a good amount of time alone. With the current physical distancing and stay-at-home restrictions here in my home state of Maryland, the pace of my days is a little slower and I’m spending even more time at home.

I’m not a big fan of exercising in a gym with a lot of other sweaty people. Stadium music events stress me out, and shopping at a crowded mall or store isn’t my idea of fun. So, although this time of enforced quarantine is really hard, being at home is not a problem for me.

Make no mistake—I miss traveling, seeing my kids, my family and my friends and being able to go out without worrying about the virus. But I recognize that some time spent alone is actually good for my emotional state.

Stress and anxiety as background noise

Unfortunately, I’m not spending more time at home by choice. Although I’m not dying to go to the gym, I’d like to be able to go to a store without worrying about coming home contaminated. That feeling of powerlessness can add an underlying level of stress to my life.

I’ve taken up journaling each night before bed. Lately I’ve noticed a low level of anxiety that’s with me at the end of each day. It’s as if my body is saying, “There’s another day/week/weekend ahead where you have to be alert and careful. Stay on guard.”

It’s not surprising that some nights that I feel like I dream all night long and others where I toss and turn or wake up in the middle of the night. Fortunately I sleep soundly some nights, but I’m always tired when I wake, so I know my body is holding on to stress all the time.

Tips For Managing Stress In Troubling Times

If you can relate to my experience, or even if you’re feeling pretty good, you can incorporate a few things into your life to help you better manage the constant underlying stress of living in a time of crisis.

Be kind to yourself.  I’ve seen people posting on social media that this as a period of increased creativity and productivity—but if you’re not feeling productive or creative right now, know that you’re not alone. Stress and anxiety make it very hard to find the mental energy and mindset for anything other than survival. So, be kind to yourself. Remind yourself that you are where you are, and that you’re doing the best that you can right now.

Be kind to yourself 2.0. You might also find that you’re falling back into old roles, habits or behaviors you thought you’d changed or modified. Know that it’s not unusual for this to happen. We can easily revert back to old ways of coping with our stress because those old ways of being and doing worked in the past to help us feels better.

I’ve been comfort eating—consuming more carbs than usual—and it is comforting! You might be drinking, using other substances or eating more or less than usual. Or maybe you’re on your phone or other screen more than you’d like to be, or ignoring your kids, or playing more video games than usual to help you relax. Try being kind to yourself in this time, no matter what. We’re in a state of crisis, and adding harsh self-criticism to the mix will only make you feel worse.

Get some fresh air. Being inside might feel safer or less scary, but your body craves nature to help it balance and reset. Find a place where you can feel the ground under your feet, wiggle your toes and stand barefoot if possible, so you can really feel connected to the earth. Imagine you are rooted to the ground, like a tree. Take a few slow deep breaths and notice the air as it enters and leaves your body. Allow yourself to be here for a few minutes before moving on to whatever is next.

Set aside five minutes each day to journal. Taking pen to paper can calm your nervous system without you having to do anything else other than write or draw. Here are a few prompts to get you started:

• What’s happening in my body right now? Get curious and use words or images to describe how your body feels right now.

• What did I do today? It doesn’t have to be profound. Write as much or as little detail as you like.

• How am I feeling right now? Tired? Anxious? Relaxed? Write how you’re feeling and try not to judge a feeling as “good” or “bad.” If you find you’re judging your feelings, journal a reminder that everyone has all the feelings all the time.

• Let it flow. Write about whatever comes to mind.

• Make note of three things you’re grateful for that day. They can be big things or small ones, like seeing the sun shining through the window. Research shows that gratitude practices can reduce depression and anxious feelings.

Laugh out loud. Watch a TV show, YouTube video or Instagram post that gets you laughing out loud. Laughter relieves the stress response, massages your internal organs and can stimulate your circulation and relax your muscles. So get those laughter juices flowing!

We will move through this. Taking care of yourself while we do is good for your body and mind.

Are you doing some fun, outside the box, creative things to de-stress? I’d love to hear about them and include them in a podcast episode!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

5 Tips for Teletherapy or Online Counseling

Many therapists in the United States and probably across the globe have switched to some or all virtual sessions. It all shifted so quickly that I’m amazed the Internet didn’t collapse! Between everyone streaming movies, shows, games, and exercise classes, I’ve been pleasantly surprised at how well my online sessions with clients have gone and how well my clients adapted to this new medium.

I’ve been doing online therapy, or teletherapy, with a few clients for about a year, so I’m familiar with the platform.  A lot of free training is available to help therapists  get online and feel more comfortable, but I haven’t seen much to help our clients feel more at ease with this “new normal.”

Sitting in the client’s seat

I experienced the discomfort first-hand as I got ready to meet my therapist online for the first time this week. I’ve been advocating for the switch with my clients, but when it was my turn, I found I wasn’t as enthusiastic at all! Some of the thoughts that went through my head were:

• “Maybe I don’t need a session this week.”

• “It can’t possibly be as meaningful as in person.”

• “I wish I’d just cancelled my session.”

I like going to my therapist’s office, and I was a little frustrated that I had to do this “new thing at home.” We talked and I laughed about my own discomfort as we met through our screens. Guess what? My session went really well! I got so much out of the session.

Experiencing virtual therapy myself gave me a lot of perspective and I felt so much compassion for my clients who have to do this “new thing.”

So, I thought it might be helpful to share some things that might help you if you’re going through a something similar, or if you’re considering therapy for the first time and your sessions will be online.

Here are a few tips for client of online therapy:

1.    You’re probably going to feel a little nervous about seeing your therapist online if you’ve never done it that way before. Your therapist will probably be nervous, too, especially if it’s new for them too.

Meeting a therapist in a new space in a new way feels different, and that can make us feels uncomfortable and anxious. That’s totally normal! Talking to your therapist about your feelings can help you feel comfortable as you get more familiar this new platform.

2.     If possible, find a place in your home where you feel at ease and have a comfy place to sit.  As a therapist, I go to great lengths to make my office feel like a sanctuary. A place you come to and say, “Ahhhh…”

We will talk about difficult issues in session and we want you to feel supported even in your discomfort. So, do your best to find a place where you can relax when meeting virtually with your therapist.

3.     Privacy is very important. When you go to your therapist’s office, there’s good chance you’ve come across a white noise machine. That’s because we want our conversation in the therapy room to be private. Now, you don’t necessarily need a white noise machine, but you do want to find a place in your home where you can talk freely.

If you have to monitor your voice level or are worried about someone listening to your conversation, address this with your therapist.  Maybe you can find an alternative solution, like calling or meeting virtually in your car, or another private place.

Using headphones or earbuds can help, too. That way, you are the only one hearing your therapist’s voice.

4.     There will be glitches! Technology is rarely seamless. Screens will freeze, voices will sound disjointed of clipped, or you might not be able to connect at all online. Those issues can be very frustrating. The amazing thing is that, most of the time, it works really well. So, try not to get too discouraged if a video session isn’t perfect.

I’ve opted to call clients by phone when the online technology is working against us. Your therapist might not be able to provide this option if your insurance won’t allow phone calls, but your therapist might be able to suggest other options.

5.     If you’ve always met your therapist in their office, know that we are in this new space together. You will get used to it. The discomfort will fade, and therapy will continue to be a source of support, learning, comfort, acceptance and growth.

As we move forward in this new world where entire countries can be affected by health concerns, I’m grateful for the virtual spaces where we can feel connected to our families, friends, colleagues and our therapists!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

5 Tips For Managing Your Anxiety About Coronavirus

The coronavirus, or COVID-19, is all over the news. Everywhere, we see evidence of people’s fears about the virus. Hand sanitizer is hard to find. Organizers are cancelling conferences and events. When I traveled to the west coast last weekend, I saw many people at the airport wearing masks over their nose and mouth.

According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC), the reported cases have ranged from mild symptoms to severe illness and, in some instances, death. Symptoms may appear from two days to two weeks after a person is exposed to the virus. Symptoms include fever, cough and shortness of breath.

COVID-19 is a lot like the flu except it’s a new virus—one that got transmitted from animals to humans—and we don’t have a vaccine yet. So that is a little frightening.

But, it’s hard to know how concerned we should be. Some news reports leave me worried and scared, and some leave me reassured and wondering why we’re all in a panic.

The hardest part of getting sick is that we have very little control over whether we get sick. Our lack of control can make the worry, stress and anxiety much worse. So, how do we manage our stress when we can’t control an outcome?

There’s no tool that can take the COVID-19 worries away. The virus is out there. But you can do a few things to help you feel more grounded and present, and hopefully reduce your stress in the moment.

1. Wash Your Hands

The CDC recommends washing your hands as one of the best means of prevention—much better than wearing a mask. On the other hand, if you’re sick, wear a mask and keep your germs to yourself.

And you can make washing your hands a mindful moment. Experts recommend that you should wash your hands for at least 20 seconds to rid them of germs. As you’re counting down the time, listen to the water as is flows out of the faucet, smell the soap’s fragrance, watch it lather and notice the feeling of the lather in your hands. As you rinse your hands, watch the lather flow down the drain. When your minds goes to worries or stress about the coronavirus, bring your attention back to the sensations of washing your hands.

2. Stop Touching Your Face

The CDC also recommends keeping your hands away your face. Let me tell you, this is really hard. I’ve caught myself picking something out of my teeth with my finger (I know, TMI) and rubbing my eyes without any thought to all to the germs that might be on my hands. Try not to judge yourself too harshly if you forget, too. We’re human and we have a lot of habits that aren’t easy to break.

3. Avoid Information Overload

A lot of information is flying around out there, so managing your information intake is important. I try not to check the news about the virus more than once a day, but someone or something can bring me news even when I’m not looking for it. 

If you do hear disturbing facts or updates about the virus, remind yourself that there are some things that you can’t control and that you’re doing the best you can to control the things that are within your power to control.

4. Breathe Deeply

A few deep breaths can calm your nervous system and boost your immune system. A few times a day—especially if you feel stressed—take three slow, deep breaths. Fill your lungs, back and belly when you inhale. As you exhale, let your breath out slowly, making a sighing noise—haaaaaahh.

5. Take Care of Yourself

From news reports, most hospitals and doctors’ offices want you to stay home if you’re sick, UNLESS you’re having difficulty breathing and/or your fever is very high.

If you do get sick, don’t panic. Most people who get the virus don’t die. Take care of yourself and do all the things you’d do if you got the flu. Drink a lot of fluids. Keep your fever down and get lots of rest so your body can heal.

If you have a compromised immune system or existing lung issues and you think you have COVID-19, communicate with your doctor so you can get the help you need.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

Curious About Mindfulness? Join Us to Learn More

We work so hard to get things done, to check them off our list(s), to be productive that we forget to notice what it’s like to live our life.

We make “doing” a priority.

Then the universe shows up and says, “What if doing isn’t enough? Wouldn’t you like to be in your life instead of do your life?”

“You were born worthy of love and belonging. Courage and daring are coursing through your veins. You were made to live and love with your whole heart. It’s time to show up and be seen.”

— Brené Brown

About 15 years ago, I got stopped in my tracks. I’d been so busy taking care of others: the kids, the animals, the house, schoolwork, the chores…. Suddenly I realized I was missing something. I felt disconnected, untethered.

I was so out of touch with what I needed and wanted that I would freeze when given a choice like “pizza or Chinese?”

Starting a mindfulness practice

That’s when I started on my journey with a mindfulness and meditation practice. It wasn’t easy. I wasn’t used to sitting quietly or taking notice of my sensory experience. I can remember telling my meditation coach, “I find that I tune out. I daydream, get lost in thought. I don’t think I’m meditating right.”

I worried that I might never get it “right.”

What it’s taken me some time to recognize is that it’s the noticing—when we’re drawn away to our thoughts, feelings, daydreams— that’s what matters. When we’re noticing and coming back to our breath and our body’s sensory experience, we’re practicing mindfulness.

The continued practice has helped me gain new insight into Me. It’s helped me feel more love and connection to all of me. All. Of. Me. The shadow and the light, the imperfections and the gifts. All of me.

It’s also helped me to feel more connected to everyone around me. My kids, my husband, my family, my dog, my clients, people I encounter in daily life…Because I feel a deeper connection inside me, it shines through on the outside.

Imagine if we could all show up and be seen.

Join me on a mindfulness journey

I’m on a quest to make that happen! Come join me and women like us in the Women’s Mindfulness Circles that are starting next month!

Here’s what others have said about the Mindfulness Circles:

“Spending time with other women in a supportive, healthy environment, I realized how little I have that.”

 “A chance to meet with other [women] who are experiencing similar challenges and be accountable to the group for trying new habits and practices.”

“[I enjoyed] sharing and talking about our experiences.”

What to know more? You can find it here.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

Watch for Exciting New Changes

Some changes are coming to Progression Counseling and the Woman Worriers podcast! Don’t worry. They’re nothing huge—but they are changes.

Why is change so hard for us humans? You’d think we’d be biologically wired for change. After all, back in the day we’d need to be ready for whatever came our way: cold weather, lions, drought… But today we’re so resistant to making changes ourselves or when changes are made for us.

I think our worrying minds go into overdrive when we contemplate change. We think up all the possible bad things that might happen and then flesh out those stories so that they feel real, as if they actually happened.

Change can be uncomfortable. When we think about doing things differently, it can make us feel physically uncomfortable. That’s because unexpected changes can activate our fight/flight response. When our brain and body feel under attack from a perceived threat, our digestive system slows down and our heart rate increases as our body gets ready to fight or flee. 

What Can We Do When We Don’t Like Change?

We don’t always like change, but it happens and we can’t change that! Most of the time, change isn’t something we can control. That’s the way life is. What we can change is our reaction to change. We can learn to tolerate the uncomfortableness that often accompanies change.

We can tune in and notice our body’s reactions to change by using mindfulness and meditation. Meditation trains us to notice the discomfort and stay with it. And although that might sound terrible, the feelings usually diminish. As they become less intense, we begin to feel less stressed.

Mindfulness helps us notice the thoughts, perceptions and interpretations that accompany our feelings about change. We can then get curious and look for other ways to interpret what’s happening. This helps to open us up to new possibilities and new ways of responding.

Here’s an example of mindfulness in action:

You learn from a neighbor that the store you love is changing management. You know the manager now, and go there because they carry all the things you love. But now you’re wondering about this new manager and what they might do to change things. Your body responds as if something really bad is about to happen.

You’re feeling upset or mad, so you decide to sit with that feeling for a moment. You take a few minutes to slowly breathe into the uncomfortable feelings that rise up in your body. You take a moment to honor whatever you’re feeling, without judgment. After a few minutes, you might notice that you’re feeling calmer.

You decide to get curious about your thoughts and perceptions about the change. You notice that you’re telling yourself that it will terrible for you, and you wonder, “What if it isn’t terrible?” You continue to get curious and imagine that the new manager might bring in some new stuff that you like, and maybe the new manager is just as nice as the old one.

You recognize that you can ask questions and find out more about the changes and then decide how you want to respond.

Using mindfulness and meditation to tolerate uncomfortable feelings around change takes practice and lots of self-compassion. If you’d like some help getting started, you can sign-up for free meditation and mindfulness guides available from my updated website.

Changes to Progression Counseling and Woman Worriers Podcast

The changes I’m making will definitely NOT be life threatening. I’m streamlining my website and redoing my logos for both Progression Counseling and Woman Worriers. I’m also offering a new Worried Women’s guides for meditating and mindfulness that you can request for free!

I’ll be shifting the content of the bi-weekly blogs a bit, too. My plan is to have one longer blog each month on things that make me/us worry and how we can support each other and ourselves in this worrying time. Towards the end of the month, I’ll send out an update with all the podcast episodes that month and links for you to find out more.

I’m refining the podcast focus as well. I’m still working on how it will shift, but my plan is to be more intentional about the podcast mission and guests who support that mission. It had begun to feel scattershot—who the guests were, why I was interviewing them. I want to be clear about my reasons for inviting someone on the show and to communicate that to you, the audience.  

This is a worrying world, and all female-identified people have plenty to worry about! So, we’ll be talking to warrior women who have learned to work with the worry, instead of running from it and to warrior women (and sometimes men) who are supporting and empowering worried women in their journeys. I’ll be sharing warrior women’s worries, whatever they might be.

If you think you’d be a good guest on the podcast, or you know someone, you can contact me here. 

Remember: You always have a choice about my emails and I’d love for you to stick around to see what’s new!  

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979.

Setting Intentions For the New Year

The beginning of each new year feels like it brings pressure to do something big, to make changes, to be different. Vision boards, resolution lists, intention setting, manifesting… We have so many options to create change. I’m sure there are more.

For the last few years I’ve made a list of new-year intentions. I wrote down things I’d like more of in my life. Last year I also participated in a Best Year Ever class, where I mapped out what I wanted to accomplish over the course of the year. That was very helpful, but I found I tried to do all the things I’d mapped out right away! Then I forgot to go back and see what was left on the list as the year progressed.

In the past, because I’m a business owner, my goals tend to sway towards work rather than personal goals. I ended up feeling overwhelmed by all the things I added to my to-do list. Although my business is very important to me, I’ve recognized this past year that my personal goals get put aside or remain undone because I minimize their importance when I’m deciding how to spend my time and energy.

“Perhaps the biggest tragedy of our lives is that freedom is possible, yet we can pass our years trapped in the same old patterns...We may want to love other people without holding back, to feel authentic, to breathe in the beauty around us, to dance and sing. Yet each day we listen to inner voices that keep our life small.”

— Tara Brach, Radical Acceptance: Embracing Your Life With the Heart of a Buddha

It’s important to make yourself a priority

When we put more emphasis on work, or other people’s needs and we don’t honor what we need it can lead to burn-out and us feeling frustrated, exhausted, angry and resentful. Not the best way to spend the first year of a new decade!

When you’ve lived much of your life putting other’s needs first—and that can happen at work as well as at home— it can be hard to do things differently. It definitely takes a bit more effort and a lot of positive self-talk, self-compassion and self-awareness to be mindful of and meet our own needs.

Making yourself a priority can feel selfish, mean, and very uncomfortable, but it’s important. If we’re not paying attention and attending to our needs, who else is going to do it?

It’s also easy to fall back into our old behaviors when we’re stressed. They’re called patterns for a reason! We’ve been taking care of everyone else’s needs for a long time. Change takes time.

I’d love to dedicate this year to the Self, and I hope you’ll join me. Taking care of You and making You a priority doesn’t have to be a grand gesture or enormous shift. It’s small steps, like checking in with yourself a few times a day and asking, “What do I need right now?” The answer might surprise you.

3 tips for taking care of your needs

Here are some other ideas to help you move into the new year with compassion and love for yourself:

• ·Make time to meditate each day.
  Two to three minutes of mindful meditation every day can help you get to know yourself and your body in a deeper way.

• Be in nature.
  Connecting with the natural world helps us feel more grounded and calm. When you’re in a more grounded place it’s easier to tune into You.

• Offer yourself the compassion and kindness you would give to friends.
  We can change our relationship with ourselves if we can find some space for kindness.

No matter how you mark the new year, I hope you’ll take some time for you in 2020!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979.

How to Survive Seasonal Stress

Whether you’re celebrating a holiday or not, this time of year can feel really stressful. You usually see signs of Christmas everywhere you go. The music, the ads, the decorations can all feel like a little too much—or maybe a lot too much!

You might not be feeling much of the holiday spirit. This time of year can bring up painful memories and feelings of loss, loneliness and sorrow. If the holidays are difficult for you, know that you’re not alone. Although it might feel like the whole world is having a great time and you’re the only one not filled with holiday joy, know that others are struggling, too.

How mindfulness can help

“We can only be said to be alive in those moments when our hearts are conscious of our treasures.”

— Thornton Wilder, from The Woman of Andros

Mindfulness can help you get out of your head where the planning and scheduling, the sadness, the worry, and the distress all live.  Mindfulness creates more space and awareness for what’s going on right here, right now. I wrote the blog post Staying Mindful Through the Holidays a couple of years ago because I know how hard it can be when the holidays feel overwhelming.

If the holidays are hard for you, or even if you absolutely love them, take some time to feel whatever it is you’re feeling without judgment. Take some time to be kind and compassionate with yourself.

My wish is that, over the next couple of weeks, you can also find some time to relax, take care of yourself, enjoy the people you love, and find small (and big) moments of gratitude and joy. Here’s another link to the post:
https://www.progressioncounseling.com/blog/staying-mindful-through-the-holidays

My recent podcast episode, How to be Mindful this Holiday Season offers even more tips.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979.

The Best Gift You Can Give Yourself This Holiday Season

Between working, preparing for the holidays, maybe taking care of family or friends and doing the everyday things that need to get done, chances are you haven’t been doing a great job of taking care of yourself.

Sometimes we’re so used to caring for others that we’re not fully aware that we’re neglecting ourselves. How do we know we’re not taking good care of ourselves? Here are a few signs that it’s time to give yourself the gift of some self-care—and some suggestions for how to do it.

1. You’re exhausted all the time.
It’s normal to feel more tired than usual during the holidays, when we’re extra busy—but if you’re having a hard time getting out of bed or staying awake throughout the day, you might be over-stressing your system.

Our body and brain need rest to reset each day. If you’re not sleeping well, try taking some time to rest. Lying down for 10-15 minutes without doing anything—even if you don’t sleep—can help your body recharge.
 

2. You hate the holiday season.
For some of us, the holiday season isn’t filled with joy and laughter. Maybe your memories of past holidays weren’t great, or maybe the idea of seeing some family members leaves you feeling stressed. Whatever the reason, it’s okay not to love this time of year, but it’s all the more reason to do things that you do enjoy! Take some time to watch a movie, listen to music, prepare a good meal, travel, hang with friends or take a walk in nature. Do things that nourish you.

If you do have to spend time with people who leave you feeling less than joyful, set some limits on how much time you need to be there. Maybe have separate transportation so you can leave when you’re ready. Maybe you stay for one day instead of a whole week. Think ahead and remind yourself that setting limits can be very healthy and good for us!

3. You frequently feel resentment, anger or frustration this time of year.
If you’re the kind of person who always puts other people’s needs ahead of your own, if you’re a people pleaser or  a constant caregiver, the holidays can bring up a lot of stuff! We can get overwhelmed easily and feel resentful and underappreciated. Life is busy enough without the holidays, so adding more to the to-do list can feel like a burden.

People pleasers and people who gravitate toward caregiving for others often have a hard time asking for help, taking time for themselves and saying “no.” But when there’s so much to do this time of year, the best way you can care for yourself is to set some realistic limits on your time and energy. Take some time to consider how you can support yourself. Don’t say “yes” right away. Pause and ask yourself if this next thing will over-stress you. Could family or friends help with whatever needs doing? 

What’s are your clues that tell you it’s time to tune in to yourself? You can give yourself so many gifts:

• Paying attention to your needs

• Taking time to rest

• Nourishing your body

• Doing the things you love

• Setting boundaries

• Asking for help when possible

You also can check out more ways to manage holiday stress on episode 83 of the podcast.

Here’s hoping your holiday is filled with whatever self-care you need!

Are You A People Pleaser?

I’d like to think that I can say what I need without concern, but the truth is that sometimes I keep quiet because I worry about how others will react. Am I a people pleaser? Sometimes!

Both men and women can be people pleasers but I think that, from an early age, women get subtle and not so subtle messages to put others’ needs first. That taking care of ourselves is selfish.

It’s okay to consider other people’s feelings when making decisions, but if your go-to response is to prioritize other people’s happiness over your own feelings, you’re not doing yourself any favors.

If your own needs weren’t valued or met when you were growing up, you internalize those messages. Maybe you were ignored when you cried or were hungry. Maybe you were told to be quiet or told that you complained too much. Maybe another family member’s needs were always a priority.

When family members struggle with mental health or substance use issues, the children in the family often end up taking care of the parent or sibling who’s struggling. Those kids learn very early that they must meet other people’s needs first in order to have peace and calm in the home. That message can become ingrained in the child’s psyche.

We then bring those early childhood messages into our adult relationships. We work hard at making sure everyone else is “happy” or taken care of and we ignore— or don’t even know—what we need.

What Happens When We
Always Care For Others First

Constantly caring for others’ needs can lead us to feel exhausted, unacknowledged, taken for granted, resentful and confused about why we struggle with anxiety or depression.

It can also create the feeling that we have to be perfect. There’s a part of us that feels if we can just get it all “right”—the house clean, others’ needs taken care of, the work done—then everyone will be happy. We might believe that if everyone is happy, then we can be happy, too.  The reality is we’re probably not very happy if we’re not listening to our own needs.

I definitely struggle with trying to keep everyone else happy.  I continue to work on recognizing when I’m ignoring what I need. The fear of making others angry or hurting their feelings drives my people-pleasing behaviors into high gear. And then the anxiety begins to bubble up….

The tension in my chest and constricted feeling in my throat are my body telling me that I have something that needs to be said. I have needs that parts of me really want me to share.

I know the feeling so well, and yet sometimes I still push it away. I busy myself to try to avoid feeling it until I can’t ignore it any longer because I’m lying awake at night when I’m exhausted and I should be sleeping.

What Happens When We’re Mindful Our Own Needs

I still worry about hurting others, making them angry or being ignored if I do share my feelings. But I’ve learned that tuning in to the parts of me that want to be heard, that need to be heard, helps me express my feelings.

When we give ourselves permission to be heard, we’re reinforcing that we can meet our own needs—that we don’t have to look to others to validate and voice our feelings. We learn that we can find joy, calm and contentment inside ourselves.

If you’ve struggled with figuring out what you need or trusting that you know what you need, therapy can help re-connect you with your Self. It provides a safe, non-judgmental place to look at the messages you internalized growing up. It gives you a space to hear your own voice and build the trust in your Self that might have gotten lost along the way.

Moms are often pushed to meet everyone else’s needs. This week on the Woman Worriers podcast I spoke with Doña Bumgarner, a life coach for moms, about how moms can learn how to meet their own needs while still meeting the needs of their family. You can find the interview here.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

Why Self Care Feels Selfish—And Why You Need To Do It Anyway

 On last week’s episode of the Woman Worriers podcast I talked about the practice of self-care and offered some small, simple ways to care for yourself. Even as I was writing up some notes for the recording, I was asking myself, “Am I the right person to tell others how they can better take care of themselves?”

Although today I’m much better at my own self-care, I didn’t always take great care of myself. There were times in my life that I drank too much, I wasn’t a very healthy eater and I was more concerned about taking care of others than paying attention to what I needed.

Our Past Can Shape Our Present Behaviors

When we’re stressed or anxious, we tend to fall back into old patterns of behaviors. Chances are, the old patterns are things we did for a very long time. Sometimes that means we forget or choose not to care for ourselves, even when we know it’s good for us.

We now know that when we practice new behaviors we can create new pathways in the brain. It’s called neuroplasticity. However, we can easily revert back to our old ways of doing things when we feel overwhelmed or triggered. Those old neural pathways are well established, like deep ruts in a road. When life makes us stressed or anxious, we can get stuck back in those old ways of doing —or not doing— things.

This past weekend I took some time away from work to spend with family. I noticed that I was really tired when I got home. I had planned to take a day off to do the usual weekend things that help me prepare for the week ahead, but, I filled that first day back home with business instead of using it to rest.  I was exhausted from travel but felt guilty when I thought about lying down, so I pushed myself until it was time for bed. Then —no surprise—it was hard for me to fall asleep! 

Why Self-Care Can Be So Hard

Does that scenario sound familiar to you? We have lots of reasons to put off taking care of ourselves. What I see so often in my psychotherapy practice is that the clients who have a hard time prioritizing self-care had caregivers who didn’t take care of themselves, or parents who were too strict or who didn’t enforce rules, boundaries and expectations for their kids.

We learn how to take care of our needs, create boundaries, and do things we don’t want to do from our parents. In her very informative blog on childhood emotional neglect, Dr. Jonice Webb writes :

“Most people don’t realize that we humans are not born with the ability to structure ourselves. Nor are we born with a natural ability to make ourselves do what we don’t want to do. In fact, quite the opposite.  We learn this skill from our parents. As a child, each time your parents called you in to dinner, interrupting your play with the neighbor kids, made you take a bath, clear the table, clean your room, brush your teeth, hang up your clothes, weed the garden or empty the dishwasher, they were teaching you the two most vital aspects of self-discipline:  how to make yourself do what you don’t want to do; and how to stop yourself from doing what you do want to do.”

So, if your parents didn’t teach you when to stop playing and get a drink of water, to have a snack or a meal, or to go to bed, it’s very hard to reinforce those self-care activities now that you’re an adult. Making those behaviors a habit takes conscious effort and reinforcement. Even then, when we’re stressed, we might fall back into old patterns.

Having a parent who is always spending their energy and time on others’ needs can also make it hard for us to prioritize our own needs as adults. If you had overly strict parents or parents with narcissistic tendencies, you might have been taught that having your own needs was selfish or self-centered. You might have been shamed or made to feel guilty when you tried to get your needs met, so you learned that caring for yourself shouldn’t be a priority. The shame and guilt you carry with you from childhood can also make you feel very anxious when you do try to meet your own needs in adulthood.

We Can Learn To Care For Ourselves

But we can make changes. We can choose to do things differently. It might feel really hard at first, because those old patterns of behavior get triggered and are very ingrained in us. But through mindful awareness, continued practice and reinforcement, we can learn to take good care of ourselves.

Mindful awareness in daily life helps bring a focused attention to the present moment and gives you some insight into how your thoughts, feelings and behaviors impact your body and your mind. For instance, if you take a moment a few times throughout the day to ask yourself what you need in that moment, you might find that your body is telling you it’s hungry or thirsty. You might find that you’re extremely stressed and you need to take a few slow deep breaths to calm yourself.

You might find that you know what you need but have come up with reasons for not taking care of yourself. Reflect on these moments with compassion. When you can listen to the part of you that believes that taking care of yourself isn’t important, and you recognize that self-care sometimes makes you feel uncomfortable, you can often recognize that those feelings and beliefs are rooted in your past. That’s a moment of mindful awareness. That’s the moment you can choose to do things differently.

If you live in the greater Annapolis, Maryland, area, consider joining one of my mindfulness groups for women. I’d love to have you be a part of our group!  You can find out more about the groups here.

You can also find more episodes of the Woman Worriers podcast here.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

Healing Your Wounded Parts

Recently, I’ve been reading through some of my old journals, exploring who I was so many years ago. I used my journals to record events but they were also a place where I wrote about my fears, desires, frustrations and all of my feelings.

When I’m reading about those long ago experiences, I find myself feeling as if I’m still there—as if I’m 15 or 19 or 25 again. I’m right back there with all the emotions. My journals give me some perspective on my younger wounded parts, but at times I can feel myself judging those younger selves for not behaving in more socially acceptable ways, for pushing hard against boundaries or for not meeting others’ expectations.

In those moments, when the judgmental part shows up, my anxiety begins to rise. Most often it’s a burning feeling in my chest and throat, but the anxiety can show up as an upset stomach or a tightening in my throat that makes it hard to eat and digest anything.

I’ve worked hard to manage my anxiety. When it does show up, it can be very frustrating. I begin to feel like a fraud, because my critical part starts questioning my abilities. “How can you help others when you can’t even help yourself!”

The 15-Year-Old Rebel

My 15-year-old self has been making herself known to me lately. In my journal, she recounts all the parties she went to or wants to go to, all the boys she has crushes on or kissed, the distress she feels when she’s alone, her feelings of loneliness (although she seems to have so many friends), her constant need of stimulation, either through substance use or business.

As I read through page after page of my journals, I find that a part of me wants that 15-year-old to behave better, to be more in control, to be less reckless, to stop pushing back so hard. She makes me uncomfortable, and her wildness scares me a little. I want see her clearly. I want to feel compassion and acceptance for her and all that she went through, and yet I don’t want feel her pain or see her vulnerability and loneliness.

But she keeps showing up and she wants to be seen.

Rethinking and Ruminating

If you’ve experienced childhood trauma or childhood emotional neglect, there’s a good chance you also have some younger parts that feel wounded. They show up in our lives because they’re tired of hurting and they want us to help them heal. They show up in our dreams, they show up when we feel triggered, and they show up in our relationships.

When we shame our younger parts with expectations that they couldn’t live up to then and certainly can’t live up to now, we retraumatize them again and again. If we approach our wounded parts with judgment and we shame them with our present-day expectations, we’re sending negative messages: they’re not enough, they need to change to be loved, they need to get over the hurt. These messages are probably pretty similar to those they heard when they were struggling.

Our parts feel wounded when we judge them instead of seeing them with compassion and love.

Healing Old Wounds

We can’t change the past but we can heal. The healing happens when we can show our wounded parts unconditional love and acceptance. There are many ways to explore all of your parts. Here are a few suggestions:

• Individual or group trauma herapy

• Journaling

• Artwork 

• Dance or  movement

It’s important to remember that when we’re exploring our wounded parts, we want start with an intention to bring an attitude of curiosity, compassion and caring to that part. The goal is to accept and love all of our parts in an open and non-judgmental way.

I recognize that I sometimes find myself wishing that my 15-year-old part had behaved in more socially acceptable ways. But when I hear the judgment or fear in my approach, I try instead to welcome her with curiosity, kindness and caring.  She reminds me how hard she was struggling. She had a lot of changes and upheavals in her life. I can see now that she was surviving the only way she knew how.

She’s not going anywhere and she wants me to know that. She’s a part of me. She’s my fighter, my boundary pusher, my resilience, my strength, my princess. I’ll continue to work on being with her without any expectations other than her just being one part of me.

For more insights…

If you’d like to know more about recognizing and challenging some of the expectations we put on ourselves and society puts on us, you can listen to my conversation with Dr. Agnes Wainman on the Woman Worriers podcast.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979. 

Why We Need To Talk About Domestic Violence

We don’t talk about domestic violence (DV) much, although people are abused more often than you might think. According to the National Coalition Against Domestic Violence in the United States alone more than 10 million people each year experience intimate partner violence. That’s 20 people per minute each day. Nearly half of all women and men in the United States have experienced extreme psychological aggression by an intimate partner at some point in their life. And according to the Global Study on Homicide, in 2012 an intimate partner or family member killed half of the women who were murdered worldwide.

Sadly, we don’t hold domestic violence to the same standards as other forms of violence. In fact, the media rarely names intimate partner violence when reporting on it. When you pick up a newspaper or watch the news on television about an abuser killing their partner, it’s called homicide, murder or labeled a murder-suicide. The reporters rarely talk about the ongoing abuse and intimidation. In most cases of domestic homicide, there’s a long history of violence leading up to the killing. Media stories rarely discuss that.

We don’t want to hear about domestic violence

For a recent episode of the Woman Worriers podcast, I spoke with Rachel Louise Snyder about her book No Visible Bruises: What we don’t know about domestic violence is killing us. In a subsequent episode, I shared my own story of being in an emotionally abusive relationship. What struck me while I was preparing for and recording those two shows is that people shy away from talking about or wanting to hear about domestic violence.

When I shared with colleagues and friends how excited I was about getting an interview with a nationally and internationally recognized journalist, they were very excited—until I told them the topic of the podcast was domestic violence. And the numbers prove my point. The downloads for my shows on DV are lower than any others.

When one in three women and one in four men are being injured by their partners, you’d think we’d have a lot more interest and motivation in learning about stopping or preventing the problem.

Why we’re silent—and what we say instead

There are many reasons for not talking about DV if you’re you’re in an abusive relationship. Not talking about it keeps you safer.  But why as a society aren’t we saying, “This is a problem that needs addressing”? Why do we shy away from naming it when it’s happening all around us?

I sat long and hard considering these questions, because I’m a survivor of an emotionally abusive relationship and I rarely talk about it. I find that at times I still feel ashamed to talk about a relationship that happened over 30 years ago! The shame can’t all be in my head. The shame also comes from the messages received from family, friends and our culture’s views of domestic abuse.

“It’s not our business.” “It’s a relationship issue.” “It’s a private matter.” “If she wanted to leave, she would.” Unfortunately all of these statements paint the victim as the problem or they ignore the fact that there is a victim.

Understanding why people stay in abusive relationships

When I was struggling in the emotionally abusive relationship in college, I could see the disappointment in others’ eyes that I was still in it. I could feel their judgment around me not leaving. I felt the shame of that judgment and my own confusion about why I would stay when he was so terrible to me.

But I’ve learned from personal and professional experience that emotional and physical abuse usually happens over a long period of time. It slowly diminishes your feelings of self-worth, your confidence and your mental health. You’re vulnerable and abusers often leave you feeling alone and isolated. They make you believe that no one would love you like they do.

And you do feel loved, but those moments come farther apart and less often. They’re paired with gaslighting— the art of making you feel crazy and questioning reality— so you’re left off balance and you can no longer trust yourself or others.

Being in an emotionally and physically violent relationship can impact your mental and physical health, leading to medical bills, lost wages, lost jobs and long-term mental health struggles. The economic impact alone is concern enough for us to be doing more to prevent domestic violence.  According to the Women’s Institute for Women’s Policy Research the healthcare costs for women who experienced abuse were 42% higher than for women who were not abused. The overall costs to society in the U.S.—including healthcare and productivity losses—was estimated at 9.3 billion dollars.

Let’s start the conversation

It’s time to get domestic violence out of the darkness and into the light. The #MeToo movement went a long way toward helping victims and survivors of sexual assault feel heard and for our society to say sexual assault isn’t OK. So let’s start talking about domestic violence.

If we were to champion a movement for DV survivors, what would we call it? #MeToo2? #DVSurvivor #NoMore? #StopTheViolence? #LetsTalkAboutDV? #SupportVictims? I’d love to hear your suggestions!

If you’re struggling with how to support someone you love and care about who might be in an abusive relationship, one of the most helpful things you can do is to let the person know that you’re there for them, no matter what. If you’re concerned about their safety, let them know you care and you’re worried. You can offer to look at DV support and informational websites, including sites that offer a danger assessment.

Offering advice or suggestions about what you think they should or shouldn’t do can leave victims feeling ashamed and less willing to talk the next time they need help. Non-judgmental listening and letting them know you’re there for them if they need or want help can go a long way in supporting those who are struggling.

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979.

How To Declutter Your Mind

Decluttering is all the rage. If you have Netflix, I’m sure you’re aware of the show Tidying Up With Marie Kondo. They’re promoting it like crazy! Ms. Kondo also has a book about decluttering called Spark Joy. In both she encourages you to get rid of the things in your life and your home that no longer—or maybe never did—bring you joy. 

This week on the Woman Worriers podcast I spoke with Vidyamala Burch about her book, Mindfulness For Women: Declutter Your Mind, Simplify Your Life. We talked about how by choosing to place our attention in our bodies through mindful activities, we’re choosing not to get caught up in the worry, planning and negative thoughts that clutter our minds.

Ms. Burch also shares her experience with mindfulness and why she believes it’s so important for women to bring more mindfulness in to their daily lives.

Last week on the podcast I shared three nature-based strategies to help you be more mindful in daily life.  And next week I talk with, Mari Lee, from Growth Counseling Services and The Mindfulness Academy For Addiction and Trauma Training, about why finding a therapist who’s been trained in mindfulness and trauma therapy is so important.

Mindfulness Helps Keep the Clutter in its Place

Imagine what it would be like to declutter your mind. What might you discard? Maybe you’d get rid of racing thoughts, constant worrying, ruminating, judging others, judging self, memories of all the things you might have done differently…. The list could go on and on.

What would remain? If you pay attention and focus on the present moment, what  brings you joy or a sense of awe? Sunlight shining through a window? A child’s laughter?  A favorite song or piece of music?

What helps you feel more grounded, calm or settled? Being with or petting your dog, cat or horse? A warm blanket? Your feet on the floor? When our thoughts and worries take over, we might miss all of these experiences.

Being caught up in worries and fears makes our brain think we’re under attack. It jumps into fight/flight mode. We feel anxious, and our fears and worries intensify. It’s a vicious cycle. And it’s hard to come back down.

When we practice mindfulness, we begin to notice how often we’re caught up in the clutter of our minds. Rehashing, retelling, re-worrying. Each time we find that we’re caught up in thought and worry, we can choose to shift our attention to the things that are happening right now.

Here’s a quick example:

The worry:  “Oh no. We leave for our trip tomorrow. The Weather Channel says it might rain while we’re there. Should I bring my raincoat? What if I bring it and it doesn’t rain? Then I took up all that space in my suitcase for nothing. What if it rains the whole time? That would be terrible. The trip would be such a waste of time away. Just stuck in the rain everywhere we go. I wouldn’t have any fun and I’d come home from the trip more stressed than I am now.”

Mindfulness in action: “As I notice where my thoughts have taken me, I can pause and say to myself, ‘Wow! I just recognized that I’m caught up in my worries again and it’s making me really stressed out!’ I can take a slow, deep breath right now to help me tune into my body. 

“Instead of getting caught up in the worry, I can choose to pay attention to what’s happening right now, where I am. So instead of being in my head, I can pay attention to folding this sweater for the trip. I can feel the softness of the fabric and I can see its beautiful texture. As I hold it closer to my face I can smell its clean scent.  As I move about the room gathering my stuff, I can choose to notice how tense my shoulders and back are. I can breathe into that tension and notice if it changes.

“I can remind myself that I can’t predict the future, but I’d like to be prepared, so I gather my raincoat from the closet. I notice the sounds the fabric makes as I zip the zipper and fold it to fit into my suitcase.”

A mindfulness practice can help you declutter your mind. Focusing your attention on your body and breath will help you come back from runaway thoughts and worries. Mindfulness actually helps to build new neural pathways that allow you to break the cycle of the worry—>fight/flight—>more worry. You might still worry about things you can’t control, but mindfulness helps you to recognize that you have a choice in how you respond to the worry.

Woman Worriers Mindfulness Groups

Here in Annapolis the Woman Worriers mindfulness groups will begin again this Fall.  If you live locally, or in Maryland I’ll be offering in-person and online groups. The groups are designed to support you in your new or ongoing mindfulness practice using meditation and other mindful activities. If you’d like to know more call or email me!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger,  creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress, contact me!

Making Friends With Your Inner Critic Can Ease Your Anxiety

When you make a mistake, are you overly critical? Do you blame yourself for even the smallest mistakes? That’s your Inner Critic talking. It’s the part of you that wants to point out your faults, to warn you about your potential mistakes in the future and remind you of all your mistakes in the past. It’s the part that expects perfection and won’t accept anything less. It’s the part that believes it can read other people’s minds to know what they’re thinking and feeling about you. Focusing all your attention on your Inner Critic can make you feel really terrible.

Why Do We Believe Our Inner Critic?

On this week’s Woman Worriers podcast, I spoke with Michelle Richardson about Internal Family Systems (IFS), or “parts,” model of therapy. She explained that IFS is based on the idea that each of us has many different parts inside us and they all serve a purpose, although sometimes it’s difficult to figure out just what that purpose is. 

Why do we bully ourselves?

So, why are some parts of us so mean and unforgiving? We all have an Inner Critic, but for some of us that critical part is much louder and meaner than it is for others. A loud Inner Critic can make you feel anxious or depressed by telling you that you aren’t living up to others’ expectations. I doubt you would ever be that hard on a friend or family member—or anyone other than yourself. 

Many people believe that without their Inner Critic, they’d never get anything done. It’s the part that always reminds them of the things they didn’t do. The reality is, bullying doesn’t make you more productive. In fact, research shows that bullying in the workplace lowers productivity and increases depressive symptoms. Research has also shown that self-criticism goes hand in hand with social phobias and depression. Self-criticism also seems to increase the severity of combat-related post traumatic stress disorder  (PTSD), eating disorders and body image issues.

What’s The Purpose Of Our Inner Critic?

So, if our Inner Critic leaves us feeling bad about ourselves and increases the risk of some mental health disorders, can we learn anything from listening to that part of ourselves? Is it possible that the critical part of you come from a place of good intent?

If you approach the Inner Critic from the IFS model, you begin to understand that your critical part is working really hard to protect you from harm. It says all those mean things with the best intentions. It truly believes that it’s helping you.

So how do we get the Inner Critic to quiet down? To be less critical?

Tune In, Get Curious, And Be Compassionate

Tune in. The first step is to really tune into the Inner Critic. Try to draw a mental image of, or actually draw, that part of you. How old does it feel? What does it look like? Does it sound familiar—like a person from your past, a parent or an ex-partner—or like someone currently in your life?

Get curious. As you begin to have a clearer picture of that critical part, the next step is to start noticing, without judgment, how often it shows up. Does it chime in when you make mistakes or when it worries about being judged? Does it tell you to avoid new places and situations? How often is it present? Does it show up once in awhile, or is it a constant stream of negativity?

Ask some questions. You might notice that the critical part hangs around a lot, especially if you’re feeling anxious or depressed. The next time you hear your Inner Critic, here are some questions you can ask to help find out more about it:

• “What does my Inner Critic need me to know?”

• “What is my Inner Critic afraid might happen?”

• “Is there another part that’s showing up?”

You can also explore your parts with creativity too. In episode 55 of the Woman Worriers podcast I talked with Jennifer Wolfe-Hagstrom about using SoulCollage® to explore all of your parts.

Love all your parts

Use compassion and curiosity. As you take time to listen, see if you can be compassionate, present and curious. Would you like to ask that part some other questions? Each time your critical part answers a question, let your Inner Critic know that you heard what it said.

You’ll probably learn that your critical part is reacting from deep-seated fears. It’s trying to protect you from future harm. It wants to keep you safe. It wants to protect other parts of you from getting hurt. When you learn that the critical part wants to protect you and your wounded parts, you may feel less likely to tell it to shut up and leave you alone. You might even begin to feel some compassion for the critical part because it’s always responding from fear, and it works really hard.

Listen and respond. As you become more familiar with when and how your critical parts show up, you can start responding differently. You can take a deep breath and say something like, “I hear you. I know you’re worried that I’ll make a mistake or get hurt by others. Thank you for worrying about me. Can you step aside while I decide what I’m going to do?” You’re telling that part that you hear it. With compassion, your more grounded self is asking your critical part to trust you to take care of it and all your other parts.

Talking to your Inner Critic takes a lot of practice. I bet that part has had your ear for a long, long time. With practice, you’ll find it’s easier to notice when it shows up and easier to get it to calm down as you try new things and maybe even have fun doing them!

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If you enjoyed this blog post and would like more insights into living with anxiety, tune into the Woman Worriers podcast. In each weekly 30-minute episode, host Elizabeth Cush, LCPC, and her guests explore living with anxiety, relationships, parenting, surviving trauma and other topics and offer insights into mindfulness, meditation and other helpful resources.

Elizabeth Cush, LCPC is a therapist, blogger, creator and host of the Woman Worriers podcast, and the owner of Progression Counseling in Annapolis, Md and she’s been featured in these major publications. Elizabeth helps busy, overwhelmed men and women manage their anxiety and stress so they can live their lives with more ease, contentment and purpose. If you'd like to know more about how individual, online and group therapy can help ease anxiety and stress call me 410-339-1979.