This month we’re honored to share our interview with Vivienne McMaster, a Vancouver-based photographer with a big heart and a spirit of playfulness. McMaster leads workshops and online classes that invite individuals to tell their stories using photography.

Her prime tool is self-portraiture. After experiencing a rough patch in her own life, it was photography, and self-portraiture in particular, that helped her heal and find her way back to herself.

McMaster believes that self-portraiture and creative exploration can save our lives.

Her own self-portraits are breathtaking, inspiring and truly one-of-a-kind. McMaster’s work empowers individuals to build a closer and more compassionate relationship with ourselves using the camera and our ever-expansive creativity.

1. Do you incorporate creativity-boosting activities into your daily routine? If so, what activities do you do?

One of my favorite daily creativity boosting activities is to go for photo walks. This is usually a simple walk around the block (or even when running errands). It invites me to slow down and be open to noticing something that might spark my interest and draw me to pull out the camera.

What happens is that something always catches my eye, some little bit of beauty…because it is always out there waiting to be found. There is always some inspiration awaiting us. I especially love this as a way to spark ourselves into creative energy, because if we approach it with playfulness, it’s a great way to trick ourselves into shifting into that right brain creative energy. Plus, it makes just being out and about in the world a creative experience!

2. What are your inspirations for your work?

Storytelling and inviting ourselves into the living, breathing, in-motion story of our own lives is at the core of what inspires my work. I feel like a lot of my inspiration happens really experientially and I get so inspired by wandering (on those photo walks), exploring and not knowing what today’s inspiration might be.

Some days it might be the whimsical way my skirt cuff is moving in the wind or a water droplet on a flower petal. I definitely am drawn to bits of beauty and things that make me slow down and take notice.

Oh, and light. Light is probably one of my biggest inspirations: The patterns it leaves on the ground; the way it falls in rays through tree branches onto my sidewalk at the end of the day; the magic of light flare; and mostly it is the ever-changing cycle of it.

[W]e can’t go back and take that photograph or savor that moment later because the light will then be different. That’s what I mean by the in-motion story of our lives, noticing and savoring the world around us and our place in it, in the moment!

Also, a big inspiration of mine is love and cultivating self-love. A part of my inspiration to take self-portraits is from my own work around healing body image and rewriting.

My relationship to my own self-image using the camera as my tool and I love helping other people discover that their camera can be a tool for that!

3. There are many culprits that can crush creativity, such as distractions, self-doubt and fear of failure. What tends to stand in the way of your creativity?

These are undeniable realities and I’m so well acquainted with all of them! Sometimes they will take hold of me and wrap me up in their untrue stories for months. Other times I can clearly acknowledge that it is fear voicing itself and ask it to trust me and then to trust myself.

Self-doubt and fear of failure are the big ones for me. Each and every time I launch an e-course, they are there with me, whispering in my ear. It has been powerful over these last two years of running a creative business to get better acquainted with them and notice that they are coming up when I’m actually being vulnerable or taking risks and that they are kind of a natural part of the process.

This fall I had a BIG stretch where I was encompassed by self-doubt and fear. I felt like I should just give up, that I should quit (which I don’t want to at all, so I knew it was kind of bizarre to feel that)…[W]hat followed those few months was a new stretch of my creative work where I am learning to step more into my own potential and dream big.

In retrospect it was so clear why I had those feelings, as I was birthing a new stage.

I think the key is to not let it get completely in your way (or to let yourself get in your own way to that degree). The more we can practice getting past these stretches and living through them without giving up, the more able we are to handle it the next time.

4. How do you overcome these obstacles?

One of the ways I try to get through these obstacles and self-doubt is to talk to friends who believe me. Sometimes we just need to get out of the cycle of our own thoughts and hear a different perspective.

I also love to try to keep creating when I’m coming up against self-doubt and fear.  I have a mantra I like to say: “Playfulness is an antidote to fear.” If I can tap into that playfulness of just taking photos with no expectations, it can often help me shift through the fear or self-doubt I’m feeling.

5. What are some of your favorite resources on creativity?

I often find myself so drawn to resources about mediums that I don’t actually do myself, like painting and art journaling. I think because there is so much commonality between different creative mediums, often it is just about finding the tool that feels like home to us.

Right now I am loving the books Daring Adventures in Paint by Mati Rose McDonough and Brave Intuitive Painting by Flora Bowley and reading about their experiences stepping up to the canvas to paint. I love getting art books out from the library to get inspired.

As a photographer, one of the best resources over the years has actually been Flickr. Not only is it full of inspiring images, but whenever I have a question I can’t solve, the Flickr help forums and group discussions are so full of amazing resources.

6. What is your favorite way to get your creative juices flowing?

Playfulness and exploration are the keys for me. I have a range of really simple photo activities that I do regularly to get me sparked and into that right brain energy. Things like shooting without looking through the viewfinder or shooting from the ground get me out of a state of left-brain perfection seeking and into trusting the wild and wonderful beauty that is the world through a camera lens.

7. What’s your advice for readers on cultivating creativity?

Experiment! It took me a long time to figure out what my creative medium was. The process of going to art retreats and painting workshops was so worth it in the path to find the creative medium that felt like it was the one that I could create most freely in.

I think finding ways to make it part of our everyday life is really priceless — whether that is having a sketchbook handy to draw when you notice something intriguing or jot down notes.

With photography it is just so good to have your camera (or iPhone) with you as you wander the world and make space to take a photo or two as you walk to get groceries or sit in your yard, making it part of your everyday experience of being in the world!

I feel like whatever our medium (or the process of finding it), I like to remember that there is always creative energy or inspiration out there asking to be witnessed. Sometimes it’s really about finding the right tools to get us to slow down and engage with it.

8. Anything else you’d like readers to know about creativity?

As I mentioned, it took me a long time to find photography, and it really happened when I least expected it. For a long time before then, I felt really frustrated that each creative medium I tried just didn’t feel right. So I really encourage people to keep exploring, keep dabbling in different mediums and keep making space for it in your life!

You can find McMaster’s powerful colorful visual stories at her website www.beyourownbeloved.com.

Jealousy in a relationship can cause you to say things you later regret. You grill your partner about who she had lunch with. You interrogate your boyfriend about who he was just talking to on the phone. You accuse your spouse of flirting.

Jealousy robs you of your peace of mind and wreaks havoc in your relationship. It comes through in the way you talk and the way you act. Strictly speaking, “stalking” is the illegal act of pursuing or harassing another person, like when paparazzi stalk celebrities.

But did you know that stalking also happens in committed relationships and marriages too? Because of suspicion and jealousy, girlfriends stalk their boyfriends and husbands stalk their spouses.

It’s a dangerous game that’s rooted in worry, fear and confusion. What’s worse is that you might not even know that what you’re doing is considered stalking. Ask yourself these questions:

• Do you check your partner’s Facebook page at least once a day?
• Do you regularly drive by your partner’s house or workplace just to check for his or her car?
• Do you look through the texts and call history on your partner’s phone?

These are just a few ways that people stalk and it’s not healthy for your relationship or for you either!

Stalking usually increases suspicion instead of calming it, even if you don’t find any proof. Your jealous mind will not rest until you’ve checked again. The thought, “What if I didn’t catch the incriminating text?” runs through your mind, wears you down and causes you to doubt your partner’s commitment even more than before.

It also ruins trust. Not only does stalking weaken the bond of trust with your partner, if you get caught spying or checking up on him or her, it’s going to push you two further apart. Stalking is isn’t always a conscious choice which makes it difficult to deal with. You react to feeling jealous by sneaking and picking up her phone without thinking. You alter your route home to see if his car is in the parking lot at work without fully realizing what you’re doing.

Getting Rid of Your Jealousy

When your partner says or does things that trigger your jealousy, it feels like you can’t help but stalk them. We want you to know that you can start to make conscious decisions that not only soothe your jealous urges, but improve your relationship.

1. Talk with yourself first.

As you feel that impulse to stalk, notice what you’re doing and stop. Don’t take any action until you have a talk with yourself first. Your self-talk might go something like this, “Hey, I really really want to click on over to Facebook and check my boyfriend’s page. His class reunion was last weekend, and I’m worried that he’s re-connected with his old girlfriend.”

Take a deep breath and continue by saying to yourself, “Okay, is this going to make my jealousy go away? I don’t think so. Will it help me feel close to my boyfriend? Nope. So, instead I’m going to go for a run, and then I’ll text my boyfriend and invite him to meet me for a late dinner together.”

You can literally talk yourself out of being driven by jealousy. Slow down and remind yourself to consider the consequences of stalking before deciding whether or not to go ahead and do what you were compelled to do.

2. Talk with your partner.

Are there times when you’ve got good reason to check up on what your partner says? Definitely! It’s never wise to ignore warning signs that indicate your partner might be lying to you or hiding something. Stick with observable facts, and, in some cases, this might involve doing the very same things that constitute stalking.

The most important thing is for you to know when your jealousy is taking over your decision-making and when clear-seeing is leading the way.  For many people, jealous impulses are fear-driven and not linked to facts. Clear-seeing comes with a sense of certainty, even if you don’t like what you’re being pulled to say or do.

When you have reliable proof that your partner is flirting, lying, breaking promises or disrespecting you, communicate with him/her about it. Have a talk where you set boundaries and create agreements to address whatever is going on. If you find out that your partner is having an affair, decide whether or not you’ll stay in the relationship.

Second chances can lead to success, but only if both of you are willing to work together to rebuild trust.

More relationship advice from YourTango:

• Hard Work Ahead: Are Relationships Really Worthwhile?
• How To Make Long-Distance Love Work
• The Kiss Of Death For Relationships Revealed!

They define working memory as “the conscious processing of information.” And in addition to inventing incredible innovations, working memory is critical for our daily lives.

In fact, the authors call working memory our brain’s conductor. Just as a musical conductor creates a symphony of melodies by instilling order to an orchestra of instruments, working memory instills order to the onslaught of information we confront day to day, including shifting to-do lists, emails, social media alerts, work projects and ringing phones.

So how can we supercharge this maestro of memory?

Working memory helps us process and prioritize information. It helps us stay focused and filter out irrelevant data — like that ringing phone — when we’re chipping away at a work assignment. This ability to tune out distractions also helps kids focus on assignments with multiple steps — instead of their classmates’ chatter — and access information they need, such as words and numbers.

It also helps us make smarter decisions by focusing on the most critical information when deliberating for ourselves the pros and cons of a specific situation or a risky business venture.

It even helps us become better athletes. For instance, when you’re playing tennis, and the ball comes toward you, your working memory helps you scour your options and pick the best play, while keeping in mind where your opponent is on the court.

The prefrontal cortex is the home of working memory. But there are other areas of the brain that help, as well. For instance, any time you need to retrieve long-term information to perform a task, the hippocampus steps in. Think of it as your “brain’s library,” according to the Alloways.

Any time you need to make calculations, such as picking the best mortgage loan, the intraparietal sulcus, the math center of the brain, is activated. (“In fact, the intraparietal sulcus is so important to math skills that when researchers used mild electrical currents in order to take it offline, participants struggled to perform simple math tasks, like deciding whether 4 was bigger than 2.”)

The Alloways feature many valuable exercises in their book to help readers strengthen their working memories. They also include habits we can practice. Here are four habits, ranging from easy to challenging.

Doodle

Research from British psychologist Jackie Andrade suggests that doodling can help you recall information by enlisting your working memory. In her study, Andrade had participants listen to a boring conversation. She told everyone that they didn’t have to remember it. She asked one group to doodle during the tape, while the second group did not.

After the tape was finished, Andrade revealed that the participants did have to recall both the people and places mentioned. The participants who doodled remembered more than the group who didn’t doodle.

Andrade believes that doodling keeps our brains minimally stimulated. Instead of daydreaming, we still pay some attention. So, as the authors suggest, “if you ever find yourself dozing or daydreaming during a meeting, lecture, or class, grab a pencil and paper and start doodling.”

De-Clutter

While there’s little research on the relationship between clutter and working memory, it makes sense that the more stuff you have laying around, the greater the demand on your brain. If your working memory is focused on finding the document you need, it won’t be able to focus on actually accomplishing the task at hand.

Plus, when you’re looking for what you need, you come across everything else, which further distracts you from your task. As the authors note, “An hour or so later, you realize you never finished the project you set out to accomplish.”

The authors suggest de-cluttering your desk and computer. They also suggest that when you buy something new, you get rid of something you already own.

Depending on how much clutter you have, weekly or monthly, you also can “evaluate ten ‘treasures’ in your home and ask yourself if you really cherish them. If you don’t, chuck it.” Take a few minutes out of your day to straighten up your environment and electronic space (like sorting your email into relevant folders).

Get Creative

Research from Andreas Fink at Austria’s University of Graz found that when participants were thinking of creative uses for everyday objects, the areas of their brain associated with working memory were activated. To enhance your working memory, come up with three unconventional uses for a conventional object. The authors gave the example of a fork, which “can be refashioned into a fish hook, a paint scraper, or a lever for opening stubborn jam jars.”

Get Moving Outdoors

A study from the University of Illinois found that running improved participants’ working memories (while weight lifting did not). Other research suggests that running fires up the prefrontal cortex (remember that’s the home of working memory).

Barefoot running might be even more beneficial. In a study conducted by the authors, barefoot runners had higher working memories than runners who wore shoes.

There’s also an interesting type of exercise called MovNat, which might boost working memory. The Alloways describe it as “the original workout; the workout our prehistoric ancestors had to do every day in order to survive – jumping, running, climbing, throwing, crawling and balancing in a random, natural environment.” (You can learn more here.)

Ross Alloway joined one MovNat workshop to test the participants’ working memories throughout the day. Before the workshop started, on average, participants were able to remember four numbers in backward order. At lunchtime, they were able to remember five new numbers.

“By the end of the day, despite being tired and muddy after training for so many hours, they were now able to remember about six numbers in backward order, or 50 percent more than they were able to in the morning.”

Working memory is vital to surviving and thriving in our daily lives. And the great news is that we can boost our working memory with a variety of fun and healthy habits.

While those things are a real downer, you can think of it like the weather. They force you to bring a raincoat, a sweater or an umbrella to prepare. They temporarily direct your path. But it doesn’t have to ruin your life.

You can choose to allow addiction, illness, depression, or other difficulty to leave you permanently defeated. After all, there is legitimate reason for you to fall down when the going gets tough. But whether you get up after you fall is more an indication of your own attitude, strength and resilience than the obstacles that flood your path. As you’ll find out below, with knowledge and awareness comes responsibility. You can choose to allow life’s challenges to consume you or you can choose to not be overwhelmed by them. It’s a choice that will dictate the rest of your life so make sure you choose wisely.

{Flickr photo by Malingering}

Does Addiction Run in Your Family? How to Talk to Your Kids About Their Risk
(Addiction Recovery) – Yes genetics increases the likelihood that your children will become addicts themselves. But you can stop the domino effect by reading this. Learn what you can do to help safeguard your kids against addiction.

What Depression Is & What It Is Not
(Caregivers, Family & Friends) – Depression isn’t always easily identifiable. That’s because symptoms look different in certain groups like kids and men. Here are a few ways to help determine if you or your loved one is depressed.

Watering the Seeds of Depression, Watering the Seeds of Resiliency
(Mindfulness & Psychotherapy) – Tired of your inner critic beating you down? Here’s why that negative voice might actually be trying to help you and find out how you might be able to cure it with kindness.

Strengths + Passion = Happiness
(Character Strengths) – Want more happiness? Multiply your joy by discovering what your strengths are and incorporating them at work. Find out how here.

Don’t Judge Me Until You’ve Walked A Mile In My Shoes
(ADHD Man of Distraction) – Before you walk down the road of judgment, learn what it’s really like to have ADHD.

Who are we? Where does our consciousness begin and end? How are the lives of the individual and the collective connected?

These are questions that an increasing number of scientists and thinkers around the world are exploring.

More and more attention is dedicated to how neuroscience, biology, psychology and ancient philosophical and spiritual questions can be integrated by looking at the big picture of how these disciplines intersect and inform each other.

That’s why I’m pleased to welcome Gerti Schoen, M.A., LP to blogging on her new blog, Mind Matters: Neuroscience & Consciousness. You may recognize the name, because Gerti has been blogging with us over at The Gentle Self. She’s going to retire that blog and focus on this new topic — which should be extremely interesting!

Mind Matters follows the debate of how neuroscience can be integrated into spirituality, as it gains more and more traction around the globe, and shows how it relates to improving our everyday lives.

Please head on over and welcome Gerti to her new blog, Mind Matters now. We hope you become a regular reader!

“I should be happier. What is wrong with me?”

During more than 20 years as a psychologist, I have discovered a powerful and destructive force from people’s childhoods that weighs upon them as adults. It saps their joy, and causes them to feel disconnected and unfulfilled. This childhood force goes completely unnoticed while it does its silent damage to people’s lives. In fact, it’s so invisible that it has flown under the radar of not only the general public, but also the mental health profession.

I call this force childhood emotional neglect, and have spent the last two years trying to help people become aware of it, talk about it, and heal from it.

Here’s the definition of childhood emotional neglect (CEN): It’s a parent’s failure to respond enough to a child’s emotional needs.

You can see from this definition why CEN is so hard to detect. Since it’s not a parent’s act but a parent’s failure to act, it’s not an event. It’s not something that happens to a child; it’s something that fails to happen for a child. Therefore, it’s not visible, tangible or memorable.

To further complicate things, it is often caring and loving parents who fail their children this way; parents who mean well, but were emotionally neglected by their own parents.

Here’s one example of how CEN can work:

9-year-old Levi comes home from school feeling upset because he had an argument with his friends. He is feeling a swirl of emotion: hurt that his friends ganged up on him on the playground, embarrassed that he cried in front of them, and mortified that he has to go back to school the next day to face them.

Levi’s parents love him very much. But on this day, they fail to notice that he is upset. They go about the afternoon, and no one says to Levi, “Hey, is something wrong?” Or, “Did something happen at school today?”

This may seem like nothing. Indeed, this happens in every household across the world, and generally it does no great harm. But if it happens with enough depth and breadth throughout Levi’s childhood, that his emotions are not noticed or responded to enough by his parents, he will receive a potent message: that the most deeply personal, biological part of who he is, his emotional self, is irrelevant, even unacceptable.

Levi will take this implicit but powerful message to heart. He will feel deeply, personally invalidated, but he will have no awareness of that feeling or of its cause. He will start to automatically push his feelings away, and to treat them as if they are nothing. He will, as an adult, have difficulty feeling his emotions, understanding them, and using them for the things that emotions are meant to do. He may have difficulty connecting with others, making decisions, or making sense of his own and other people’s behavior. He may feel unworthy or invalid in some indescribable way. He may believe that his own feelings or needs don’t matter.

CEN can take an infinite number of different forms. Levi’s example is only one. But I have noticed a certain pattern of struggles which CEN folks tend to share. The pattern includes feelings of emptiness, difficulty relying upon other people, self-directed anger and blame, and problems with self-discipline, among others.

Because the cause of CEN is so subtle and invisible, many CEN people look back upon a “fine childhood” with loving parents, and see no explanation for why they feel this way. This is why they so often blame themselves for their difficulties, and feel a deep sense of being somehow secretly flawed.

The good news about childhood emotional neglect is that once you become aware of it, it is entirely possible to heal from it. But since CEN is so hard to recognize, it can be quite difficult to see it in your own childhood.

It’s human nature to ask “Why?” — especially when faced with feelings of deep uncertainty and feeling out of control.

Our minds are powerful, and often trick us into believing that if we uncover the answers to all of our “whys,” we will somehow alleviate our pain, creating a buffer against the waters of grief that so often surge during this vulnerable time.

Such was the case for Renee. After having a baby in her 20s, she assumed expanding her family would not be a problem. She was surprised and shocked when her body did not cooperate. After years of trying to conceive, she sought the advice of medical doctors and reproductive endocrinologists only to be told that her infertility was “unexplained.” Hearing this news, she felt her body was broken, and that this was somehow her fault. Even more upsetting, no one could tell her “why.”

Like Renee, for so many women, fertility challenges are a health crisis, not only of the body, but also of the soul. For many of us, we think of starting a family as our birthright, a natural event in the course of our lives. When this belief is challenged, we may be overwhelmed by feelings of confusion, disappointment, and failure. These powerful feelings often lead to automatic, judgmental thoughts about ourselves, fracturing the connection between our heads and our hearts.

There’s good news: Just as our minds play an active role in our suffering, they can also play an active role in our healing. We can cultivate this process through learning and practicing the life skills of mindfulness. Mindfulness means moment-to-moment, nonjudgmental awareness. It is cultivated by refining our capacity to pay attention, intentionally, in the present moment, and then sustaining that attention over time as best we can. Through this process we become more in touch with our life as it is unfolding. Clinically proven to reduce symptoms of stress, anxiety, and depression, mindfulness is being used to help individuals and couples struggling with fertility challenges.

Mindfulness brings to infertility a powerful framework for noticing whatever we are doing in each moment. It allows us to see past the veil of our automatic thoughts and feelings. By observing the whole field of our experience, we become more aware, and this leads to a deeper actuality. We can cultivate this awareness by turning inward and focusing on the breath. Starting where we are, we can breathe in through the heart and out through the belly. If our minds wander (which they may), we can notice what comes up, and then return to the breath.

Through sustained practice, mindfulness becomes a great ally, and combats the myopic thinking often caused by a diagnosis of infertility. Instead of seeing things in such bimodal terms of “all good, or “all bad,” we learn to appreciate the space in between by paying attention to whatever emerges moment to moment.

When we slow down and really pay attention, we birth the stories that map onto our experiences, one after the other. We learn about our own attachments, longings, losses, and disappointments. Regardless of what we have attached to in the past, mindfulness offers the opportunity to begin anew. Through sustained practice, it retrains the mind, laying down the fertile ground for compassion, a natural antidote for suffering.

Sometimes we attach an intergenerational narrative around our fertility. Perhaps our great-grandmother, grandmother, and mother became pregnant with ease, and having repeatedly heard these stories, we are certain this too, will be our path. When the fertility narrative does not unfold as we historically have been told, judgment erupts. Too often we beat ourselves up, convinced that we must be doing something wrong, and that we are somehow inadequate or broken.

One form of mindfulness is Metta meditation. Metta means loving-kindness. Repeating words and phrases, Metta meditation offers loving and kind actions to ourselves, other beings in our lives, as well as to the universe. Metta meditation can calm the deepest of worries and fears, offering a renewed sense of well-being. We can start with four simple phrases:

May you be happy.
May you be healthy.
May you be free.
May you love yourself unconditionally, just the way you are.

Through Metta meditation, we can turn inward, reconnecting with a sense of kindness for ourselves. Compassion births generosity and acceptance, and offers a wider lens through which to view our experiences. Metta meditation allows us to “be” with ourselves, just as we are. It’s the music that quiets the critical voices that spiral through our minds.

When we honor our experiences, moment-to-moment, what was once inconceivable often becomes tolerable. We realize that everything is temporary, including our suffering. And by simply noticing, our fears shrink, our hearts expand, and empathy grows. Through this practice, time and again, we connect with a new sense of ourselves. Embodying kindness and wholeheartedness, we realize that our stories are just our stories, ever-evolving narratives, being created one word and one moment at a time.

She complains that “He just doesn’t listen.” He counteracts with the statement that “She just doesn’t understand.” Each person is appealing to the therapist to ‘fix their partner’ on the basis that their version of the problem is the correct version.

Ideally it might be perfect to have an adjudicator, whose wisdom would surely come down on ‘my’ side. This, of course, would ensure that my partner not only knows they are wrong but also follows my directions to ‘fix themselves,’ and therefore fix the relationship up!

As a couples therapist, I have never come across a relationship where it is as black and white as ‘he is right and she is wrong’ or vice versa. “How is that possible?” you ask, “when I have done all I can to change and all my attempts to fix the problem have failed?” The answer lies within our brain and how it functions when we are in the “fight-flight-freeze” mode. Let me explain.

The “fight-flight-freeze” mode is activated in circumstances where you may feel criticized, unsafe or under threat, as a survival response. In this mode you may experience anxiety, panic, hyperactivity, an exaggerated startle response, restlessness, an inability to relax, hyper-vigilance, digestive problems, emotional flooding, chronic pain, sleeplessness, hostility and rage.

When this happens, there is a part of the brain called the hippocampus, which is left out of the loop. The hippocampus is a contextualizer. It places events literally in terms of location, and also places them in context. It sequences events and holds short-term memory long enough to move into long-term memory.

Have you noticed that when you experience “fight-flight-freeze” that your brain has difficulty processing information? You are unable to sequence the events in and around the crisis, because the part of the brain that would’ve been able to encode this information is not there. Even attempting to contextualize the narrative surrounding the crisis will be frustrating.

Both people will think their partner is lying or simply disconnected from reality because they’re both certain that what they saw was real. This creates an escalating conflict that threatens to boil over with words of incrimination, blame, name-calling and even physical acts of violence. We’re not interested in what happened anymore, because there’s no ability to report it accurately. There’s only the ability to get upset about it in trying to report it properly.

How then do you establish the truth and deal with your relationship issues if you cannot rely on your brain to process information accurately?

Your first task is an individual one. It is to take responsibility to calm yourself. When stuck in the “fight-flight-freeze” response, you are completely vulnerable to suggestions of threat, which then trigger and heighten symptoms that reinforce your present conflictual experience. When you learn to calm yourself, your nervous system settles again and you are less reactive.

Your second task is to be mindful of what your partner needs to feel calm. This is counterintuitive to what you ‘feel like’ doing when you feel hurt, frustrated and angry. However, when you are mindful that your words and actions communicate respect and safety toward your partner, they no longer feel under threat and their nervous system settles, allowing opportunity for more effective communication.

Creating a calm environment is the first step toward relationship repair. Having a conversation about what calms you might be a different, but valuable, conversation to have.

Having talked about it, you have a shared responsibility to create the environment you each need to communicate differently. Where conflict has escalated, this may not be achievable without the support of a couples counselor whose expertise can guide and support your relationship throughout this transition.

A therapist I know once suggested that staying married is a choice you make on a daily basis.

She said that every morning when you wake up and look over at your snoring spouse, you’re deciding — on some level — to stay married one more day. This isn’t a psyche-challenging exercise if you’re in a good, or good enough, marriage. It’s an autopilot decision you don’t even know you’ve made.

But if you’re wondering daily whether you’re in the right marriage, this decision becomes a gut-wrenching task that occupies every waking thought.

You’re consumed with the realization that your marriage is on the low end of the proverbial marital satisfaction spectrum. All the more confusing is that you may find yourself moving up and down that spectrum like a zipline gone haywire. One day the marriage seems almost tolerable, the next you’re fantasizing about running out for milk and never coming back.

You know you’re unhappy in your marriage when you’re always wondering whether or not you’re happy. Happily married people aren’t asking themselves if they’re happy. They just are. And admitting to yourself that you’re unhappy in your relationship is not going to top your list of life’s great moments. The realization that you have to end your marriage is painful and the timing never feels right. Between your kids’ soccer schedules, your full-time job, your sick mother-in-law, your niece’s upcoming wedding, your partner’s perpetual underemployment and your second mortgage, there’s always some excuse to delay the inevitable.

In my psychotherapy practice, clients often ask me when they’ll be completely sure that it’s time for a divorce. I tell them that only they can answer that. I also tell them that ready-to-divorce folks often describe a feeling of desperation that engulfs them in a way they’ve never experienced before. “I felt like if I didn’t get out, I was going to die,” clients say. Their lives start to feel more like death.

Recently, a client told me she wanted to wait until she was sure she’d have no regrets about her decision whatsoever. I told her that’s impossible. Why? Because it’s impossible to hurt the people important to you and not have some lingering doubt about your decision. It’s impossible to assign your kids the designation of being “from a broken home” and not have some lasting sadness.

But here’s the reality: that doesn’t mean your decision to divorce is wrong. And although it’s imperative to take your time making this decision, folks often get mired in time-wasting efforts that do nothing but delay the inevitable. In fact, there are three things people do routinely that keep them imprisoned in pre-divorce misery. If deciding to divorce is taking you much longer than you think is healthy or necessary, ask yourself these questions:

1. Are you trying to convince your spouse that your perspective of the marriage is the “right” one?

Your marriage has a unique story and the two people in it have very different versions to tell. In unhappy unions, these versions are often very different. If you’re expending a lot of energy trying to convince your spouse that your story of the marriage is the right version, do both of you a favor and stop. He doesn’t see it your way and he isn’t going to. Rehashing the story of when your marriage went wrong isn’t useful, it’s painful and destructive. And, in reality, there’s truth in both of your stories. It’s like when police interview witnesses of a violent crime and no one can agree on what color shirt the perpetrator was wearing. It’s all about perspective. Just agree to disagree.

2. Are you trying to convince your spouse that staying in the marriage (or leaving it) is the best decision?

Often when couples are considering divorce, one partner wants to leave and the other wants to hang in there and try to make it work. If you have a partner who adamantly wants out, there’s little chance you’re going to convince him otherwise. You can pull out all the stops trying to change his mind but at some point, you have to accept his decision and find a way to move on. You’re also not going to convince your partner that divorce is for the best when he’s sure that it will destroy his life. That’s what usually makes divorce so contentious. You each want a vastly different outcome. So don’t wait for your spouse to give you the green light; you’re not going to get it.

3. Are you trying to get your spouse to singularly take the blame for the demise of the marriage?

If you’re endlessly passing the baton of blame back and forth, you’re wasting precious time. You’ve both played a role in the disintegration of the marriage. In the end, does it really matter who shoulders the blame? Instead, work on creating a post-divorce financial plan and focus on helping your kids through the transition. No family court judge has the time or resources to consider how he didn’t come to your father’s funeral or that you sexted with the pool boy at the country club. Don’t whittle away your energy trying to convince yourself or others whose fault all of this is. No-fault divorce laws exist for a reason.

Ultimately, the decision to divorce can only come from you. No therapist in the world can, or should, tell you if or when it’s the right choice for you. What I can offer you, though, is this: it’s time to divorce when you have tried everything to keep your marriage together and nothing has worked. It’s time to divorce when divorcing is perpetually on the table as a possibility: happily married people don’t talk about divorcing. It’s time when you can’t imagine the rest of your life with this person, when he makes your life into sadness with no end in sight. It’s time when, yes, your life starts to feel more like death.

More divorce advice from YourTango:

• How To Divorce-Proof Your Marriage
• The Top 5 Mistakes That Lead To Divorce
• Dating After Divorce: What You Need To Know

Nowadays there seems to be a focus when talking about mental illness or challenging life issues to talk about what’s wrong. There’s this emphasis on symptoms — an emphasis that seems unrelenting and single-minded.

Eventually, when you get into psychotherapy, you do start talking more about your strengths, about the good things in your life, and how you extend such strengths and wins into other aspects of your life. But people don’t seem to go into psychotherapy as much nowadays. They expect life changes to just happen, with little effort on their part.

Since this is Mental Health Month, it seems like a good time to just say what sometimes seems impossible — you can make the change you want in your life.

Whether you do it on your own, or you do it with a friend or therapist, it doesn’t really matter. People make changes — small and large — all the time in their lives.

Sometimes it feels like we can’t change. Like all of the weight of our previous decisions weigh us down, that our personality traits are intractable and unchanging. We instead might focus on trying to change others instead of focusing on ourselves. But nothing in your is as set in stone as it seems.

People who experience a serious accident or a life-threatening diagnosis find this out very quickly. Life change in the blink of an eye, yet we wrap ourselves in a daily cocoon of pleasant — and safe — optimism (whether we mean to or not). Most of us believe our lives will continue today just as they did yesterday, with little difference.

That’s the false belief most of us operate under. And most of the time it works for us.

But when something in your life isn’t quite going right, or you’ve run into a wall in the treatment of your diagnosis, you discover how things don’t always work as well as we’ve led ourselves to believe. Coping with our emotional states using crutches — whether they be unhealthy behaviors or irrational thinking or both — usually won’t work out in the long-term.

Just as an outside force — such as an accident or physical illness — can exert change into our lives, we can be just as powerful a force for change. We just need to make the choice for change, and then stick to it.

“Easier said than done, doc,” I sometimes hear in reply. I agree — it is easier for me to say we can all change, than to actually do it.

That’s for a number of reasons. Sometimes it’s our illness telling us that we’re losers, that no matter how hard we try and change, it’ll never take. Or if it takes, it won’t last. Or if it lasts, it’ll just be a matter of time before something newly bad happens to us. That’s the insidiousness of disorders like depression — they affect the very core of who you are, as well as your self-confidence.

Other reasons might be more a matter of your current circumstances. Maybe you’re out of work and can’t afford health insurance. Maybe a relationship you valued just ended, and you lost that one person you always had to rely on to talk to, to share life with.

And these are all very good reasons. But reasons shouldn’t be turned into excuses for inertia — for rationalizations to stay in the status quo.

You can change. It usually is not easy, and for every step forward, you may feel like you’re taking two steps back. But trust me when I say that change is possible. And that potential is within every single one of us — yes, even you.

Stress touches everyone. It’s a tangible part of our days. But it doesn’t have to dismantle our lives. The key is to cope with stress effectively. And, thankfully, this is something each of us can learn. Once you find practices that resonate with you, you can tuck them into your personal wellness toolbox for use at any time.

Below, Kathryn Tristan, author of the book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living, shared her tips for alleviating stress and enhancing your well-being. You’ll also find a simple test at the bottom to help you quickly assess your stress level.

1. Take three deep breaths.

When we’re stressed out, we tend to take small, shallow breaths. Or we even hold our breath. Of course, this only exacerbates anxiety. We feel faint, lightheaded, tense and tight. Taking slow, deep breaths, however, soothes your sympathetic nervous system and promotes relaxation. This can lower blood pressure and heart rate. And it can reduce stress hormones.

2. Stretch your body.

Stress tends to weigh heaviest on our bodies. Stress is a bad headache, a stiff neck, tense shoulders and all-over tightness. Tristan suggested loosening taut muscles by moving and stretching your body.

3. Repeat a calming phrase.

Find a phrase that rings true for you, which you can say in stressful moments. Tristan gave these examples: “All is well,” and “This, too, shall pass.”

4. Engage in an enjoyable activity.

Build fun, fulfilling and rejuvenating activities into your daily schedule. Bike, hike, garden, paint, play, read, dance, attend museums, see a movie, get a massage or take a walk around the block.

5. “Focus on what you want, not on what you don’t want.”

Remember that whatever you pay attention to grows. So if you focus on all the things that are stressing you out, they’ll only get bigger and bigger. Instead, try to focus more on what’s meaningful, positive and supportive. “Visualize things going the way you want and feeling happy about it,” Tristan said.

6. Focus on right now.

Although planning for the future is helpful, when you’re stressed out, it turns into fretting and overwhelm. That’s why Tristan underscored the importance of focusing on the present, moment to moment.

In this piece, clinical psychologist Christina G. Hibbert, PsyD, shared additional valuable tips for focusing on the here and now.

• “At any given moment in the day, simply stop, take a deep breath, and notice where you are, notice what is happening [and] take it all in.
• Imagine a big brick wall popping up that blocks you from thinking of anything but what’s right in front of you.
• Get in tune with your senses: Take a walk, feel the ground beneath your feet, smell the flowers in the air, listen to the birds chirping. You will decrease your anxiety and increase your joy by learning to focus on now.”

7. Cultivate gratitude.

Tristan calls this tip the “five-minute mental marinade.”

• “Place both hands over your heart and close your eyes.
• Slowly take five very deep breaths.
• Think of five things that are right about your life and for which you are grateful.
• Focus on someone you love or something you love to do and marinate in that feeling a few minutes.
• Take five more deep breaths, open your eyes and enjoy feeling totally refreshed!”

One of the best things you can do to relieve stress is to identify the root of the problem, brainstorm realistic solutions, and take action. The above techniques help you calm down, clear your head and gain perspective, so you can problem-solve successfully. They’re also a great way to take care of yourself.

Stress Test: How Stressed Are You?

Tristan shared the following stress test, which is featured in her book Why Worry? Stop Coping and Start Living. Score 3 for “often;” score 2 for “sometimes;” and score 1 for “rarely.”

• Do you feel edgy and impatient?

• Do you overreact?

• Do you have trouble falling or staying asleep?

• Are you upset when things don’t go perfectly?

• How often do you feel worn out or fatigued?

• Do you feel there is never enough time to get things done?

• Do you have trouble relaxing when you have free time?

• How often do you get stress-related headaches?

• Do you eat or drink too much?

• Are you forgetful or have mental gridlock?
  

This is how to interpret your results:

10-14: low-level stress

15-20: moderate stress

21-30: high Stress

Additional Resources

Check out these additional pieces on easing worry and stress and taking better care of yourself.

• 3 unique exercises to stop worrying
• 3 practices to calm an anxious mind
• Self-care strategies to change your life
• How to start meditating
• How to stop feeling guilty about practicing self-care
• Finding time to nurture yourself

If you make a person feel smart and insightful, that person will more likely enjoy your company. The point is not to be manipulative, but to help other people feel good about their contributions to a conversation.

So here are some suggestions to make that happen.

1. Take notes.

I’m a compulsive note-taker, and I used to feel self-conscious about pulling out my little notebook and taking notes during a casual conversation. Then I noticed that people really seemed to enjoy it; the fact that I was taking notes made their remarks seem particularly insightful or valuable. Now I don’t hold myself back.

2. Refer to a comment that the person made earlier in the conversation.

“This ties to your earlier point about…” This reference shows a person that you’re tracking and remembering their comments very closely. And give people credit for their ideas! The terrific Ramit Sethi gave me the idea for this post.  Relatedly…

3. If a person doesn’t finish a thought, ask him or her to pick it up again.

“You said there were two reasons, but we didn’t get to the second reason.”

4. Use the person’s name — judiciously.

Perhaps it’s the influence of How To Win Friends and Influence People, but some folks seem to think that throwing names around is always a winning move. I think it’s much more complicated than that. Sometimes, when someone uses my name, I feel as though I’m being manipulated, or chided, or patronized. But in the right context, it can add a very nice note.

5. As people talk about things they’ve done, take note of evidence of their admirable qualities — just in a word or two.

“That must have taken a lot of research.” “You showed a lot of initiative in starting that.” When someone mentions a fact from the past, my father-in-law often remarks, “You’ve got a good memory.” It’s surprisingly gratifying.

6. Ask for advice.

We all love to give advice, and feel smart when someone seeks our counsel. Even better…

7. Take someone’s advice!

If you read a book that someone recommends, use a software program that someone suggests, or try a restaurant that someone loves, that person will feel brilliant. In conversation, I’m always making recommendations such as Inform Fitness gym, where I go for strength-training, and Gary Taubes’s book Why We Get Fat, and I feel enormously pleased when someone follows my suggestions.

What have I left out?
What are some other ways to make people feel smart and insightful?

Wow! I love quotations and send out my daily Moment of Happiness email, with a happiness quotation (you can sign up here). So I was thrilled to hear from several people that the Real Simple Daily Thought for today was a quotation from…me! I feel so fabulous. My quotation was: “You can choose what you do; you can’t choose what you like to do.” That’s right, I wrote that.

I myself was guilty as charged, “should-ing” here and there as well. And then, when I actually pondered the meaning of what we were suggesting, the blinker in my mind flashed red, and I tried to bring myself back into check.

That wasn’t the first time that I’ve had difficulty with just letting people be.

I’ve had to come to terms with the fact that someone who I wanted to remain in touch with decided he no longer wanted to communicate — at all. I found myself time and time again expressing frustration that I wouldn’t have stopped communication so abruptly. I would have at least explained where I was coming from a bit more.

After venting my angst to others, I heard a perspective that just clicked. I needed to let him be. Letting someone be involves acceptance of who the person is, and it’s allowing him or her to do things that may be different from your own actions. Do I like his behavior? Not exactly, but I think it’s definitely a freeing thought process to practice.

Lorna Tedder, life coach and author of several books (including both fiction and nonfiction guides), discusses her dealings with this teaching in her 2010 article, “The Hard Truth of Letting People Be Who They Are.” Tedder was berated (she actually described it as “viciously attacked”) when she answered a question for an online community.

“It was a personal question based on my own experiences, as I’d stated, and a stranger intruded to tell me that’s not what happened at all in my life and give his opinions on matters he had not witnessed. He made some very bold and incorrect assumptions. When I took exception, his attack turned extremely personal.”

Tedder left that particular online base, only to stumble across the very same individual in another digital platform, patronizing another woman with regard to a question about her career. That’s when she speculated that it wasn’t just her; he has a general oppositional approach when interacting with others.

“I noted several other attacks he’d made online and realized that he really enjoys baiting people and then saying, I’m a psychiatrist and therefore I know what you were probably thinking and you don’t.”

As difficult (and aggravating) as it was to swallow, Tedder understood that she may have to just let him be who he is.

In Tiny Buddha’s post, “Why Judging People Makes Us Unhappy,” Toni Bernhard distinguishes the difference between judgment and discernment. Discernment is the way we perceive how things are, but judgment is the added implication that a change of sorts is needed.

Bernhard acknowledges that you certainly don’t have to spend time with those you don’t wish to have in your company (boundaries are always something to think about), but allowing them to be eliminates further discontentment.

“So, judgment is just a recipe for suffering: start with our dissatisfaction over how a person happens to be and mix in our desire for them to be otherwise,” the post stated. “To make that suffering nice and rich, be sure the desire clings tightly to the dissatisfaction!”

In all honesty, letting people be has not always come easy, and usually the dilemma unfolds when certain expectations I have aren’t met. Well, maybe expectations are the problem. While it’s ideal to be treated in a preferable way, everyone handles life differently.

On days like these, it’s best not to exacerbate the situation. If possible, finding ways to baby yourself the way you would a sick child will soothe the parts of you that feels wounded. Rest, support, compassion can all help to heal what ails you in this moment. Make it a priority to take care of yourself and you’ll be better able to meet any future challenges that come your way.

This week you may still be recovering from Mother’s Day. Scroll down below to read how you can heal not just from growing up with an emotionally unavailable mother, but from a difficult past. There’s also tips on how to be comfortable with being yourself and ways to give back to a deserving mom in your life. This mix of healing posts should help you through any rough day you’re having right now.

{Flickr photo by Randy Cox}

Wounds of Childhood: Three Understandings to Facilitate Healing of Past Wounds in the Present
(Neuroscience & Relationships) – You may have had a difficult, traumatic childhood. But here’s hope that you can heal the wounds of your past.

Mother’s Day For The Momless (Narcissistic Mother)
(Therapy Soup) – Mother’s Day isn’t the greeting card holiday commercials make them out to be. This is especially the case for those who grew up motherless. Arguably one of the worst of these is having a mother who is narcissistic. If that sounds like you, read how you can mother yourself this holiday.

Chronic Pain and Narcotic Use
(Living With Chronic Pain) – Have you ever felt judged by your pain management doctor? This blogger shares your pain. Read what it’s really like managing chronic pain and the judgmental looks from those who are supposed to help heal you.

Putting Yourself Out There: My Tricks for Gaining Self-Assurance
(The Impact of Sex Addiction) – One of the challenges addicts face is feeling comfortable with being themselves. How do you put yourself out in the world in a more authentic way? Here are four strategies to help you appreciate your genuine self.

Happy Mother’s Day To Moms Who Put Themselves Second
(Caregivers, Family & Friends) – Mother’s Day is long gone. But you can still show your appreciation for a mother you treasure in your own life. Here are a few thoughtful ideas.

Connecting via Facebook, emails, texting, tweets and instant messages can be convenient. Technology can offer fast ways to ask your husband to pick up lettuce at the grocery store on the way home or to let your wife know that you’ll be home later than usual.

But according to new findings, this convenience may come at the cost of closeness in your relationship.

That’s because reserchers from Oxford University have found couples who keep in touch too much via technology tend to have less satisfying marriages.

How could this be?

The study surveyed social media used by 3,500 couples, including Facebook, emails, texts, tweets and instant messages. Couples who used five or more electronic channels of communication reported an average of 14 percent less relationship satisfaction than couples who were less electronically connected.

Shouldn’t connecting more — in any capacity or modality — foster closeness?

Well, yes and no. Any connection a with loved one beats no connection at all, provided that the connection is neutral or positive. Sending a text that reads, “See you after work” is neutral information-sharing. On the other hand, sending a text that says, “I love you!” conveys a much more positive message and fosters loving feelings… at least a bit. And swapping naughty texts back and forth over the course of the day gets you hot for each other when you climb in to bed together at night.

However, virtual connecting is never a substitute for physical togetherness and it can sometimes make matters worse in your relationship. Here are four reasons why:

1. Technology makes it easier to fight dirty. 

Anger can be too easily impulsively shot out in an email or text. Too many folks dash off a quick nasty comment in response to something that annoyed them. If they click and send before they’ve had time to calm down and think through a more tactful response, there’s likely to be trouble ahead.

2. “Checking things online” interrupts your quality time together. 

Folks who connect over so many electronic channels with their loved ones may be doing the same with friends and business partners. Therein lies the problem. Maintaining all those connections can slice and dice your time with your main loved one. Each and every interruption to your time alone together diminishes the intensity of your connection.

3. Virtual connections can’t replace physical intimacy. 

When you receive a text or read an email, all you get is information. You don’t receive smiles, hugs, laughter or touch. Whatfosters loving feelings with significant others usually involves physical contact — simple thingslike gazing lovingly at each other, holding hands, whispering sweet nothings. Eye-to-eye and skin-to-skin contact all turn on the love hormone oxytocin. This chemical in your brain enhances your feelings of affection and increases your sense of bonding with your partner. This is something you can’t express over a text message.

4. Messages are easily misinterpreted.

Texts can only convey so much through words without what psychologists call “prosody” or the sound of voices. This means that misinterpretations of texts can run rampant. Sending a text that reads, “See you after work” can be interpreted as an annoyed order if the receiver is sensitive. In this regard, at least phone calls (which add voice to the bandwidth) are less likely to create upsets from misperceptions.

Sharing thoughts makes at least some emotional connection, which is part of why many couples like to talk as a prelude to sex. At the same time, talking enhances connection power when you are physically together, because you can see each other, hear each other and touch each other. And that can never be conveyed over technology of any kind.

More relationship advice from YourTango:

• Hard Work Ahead: Are Relationships Really Worthwhile?
• The Kiss Of Death For Relationships Revealed
• How To Make Long-Distance Love Work