Why Your Emotional Support Animal Is Not Treatment For Your Anxiety

I was on a recent teletherapy call with an anxious young college student. Let's call him Robbie. Half-way in he told me he thought he needed an ESA. ESA, I thought…is that one of those texting anagrams I should know, like FOMO or YOLO? Before I had a chance to ask, Robbie said that having his long-time companion, his adored tabby, in his dorm room would make his anxiety manageable.

It came to me in a flash: Emotional Support Animal. I'd read about these. A quick Google search after the call revealed that people are contacting teletherapy services, like the one I took Robbie's call on, to obtain virtually (pun intended) immediate certification to have their ERAs in dorms, pet-unfriendly apartments and on airplanes. 

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4 Steps To Becoming Your Authentic Self

One of my top recommendations for clients and friends who are dating is to be yourself. Although you may not list authenticity as a top quality for a partner or friend, recent research suggests it is one of the qualities that we seek in others. Authentic people are generally really fun to be around and easy to read. They tend to be less stressed and more satisfied. They do not trigger red flags like the inauthentic.

Authenticity is basically the opposite of being a liar, a fake or a fraud. It's being yourself, being honest, being who you truly are. According to psychologist Robert Biswas-Diener, you can increase your authenticity quotient.

So let's look at how you know if you are being authentic and how to work on being more authentic, while avoiding the trap of overplaying your authenticity. 

1. Talk the talk. Say what you really think. Honor your values, beliefs and ideals above people pleasing and despite possibly making a few waves. If you believe it's important to reduce your carbon footprint, say so.  Read more here...

Relieve Your Stress And Become A Better Mother

I'm quoted in a post about ways to reduce your stress for better parenting.

You can read it here...

Stress Turns Out To Be Good For You! 3 Strategies You Need To Follow

You just need to figure out how to put your stress to work for you. I recently wrote about it in a post that starts like this:

It's common knowledge that, repeated over time, stress leads to problems with health, performance and wellbeing, including illness, missed days from work, depression, aggression and relationship problems.

If you're like most people, your mindset is geared toward getting rid of the stress or avoiding the problem. Who can blame us? Nobody likes that that sick-in-the-pit-of-my-stomach fight or flight feeling. Our response is usually denial (I'm fine!), anger (Why me!) or overwhelm (I can't handle this!).

But, oddly, recent research has shown that stress actually heightens awareness, speeds up thinking, improves performance and leads many to say, "I'm great in a crisis." It's why my clients suffering with anxiety tell me their worry helps them anticipate problems and envision potential solutions. It's how I know that adults who have faced hardships early in life can have tremendous reserves of strength to face current difficulties and often a greater appreciation for the gifts life has given them.

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Need A Boost Of Confidence? First, Step Out Of Your Comfort Zone

Why enter a road race? If I say, Because it's fun, I can hear the groans already. Another reason I do it is because it's out of my comfort zone. I've been running a long time and running on my own is easy. But entering a race, sitting in my hotel room alone the night before, checking my gear for the nth time, wondering just how much colder the wind will make it feel, anxiously trying to sleep and then waking up early, with nervous anticipation, sometimes I really wonder why I do it.

I've decided it's all about getting out of my comfort zone and becoming stronger—not just physically stronger, but mentally stronger. Here's how it works:

The Positive Mindset

As Olympic runner Jeff Galloway said, "The more you frame the marathon as a stressful experience, the more negative messages you will receive." Sitting in my hotel room I sometimes have a negative mindset, worrying about the potential problems and pitfalls of the next day's race. To shake that, I remind myself of how I'll feel walking toward the starting line with fellow-runners, talking about last year's race, those we've run recently and upcoming events, and my positive mindset kicks in. 

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The Olympics Remind Us About Lucky Charms And Other Power Objects

Olympic athletes wear lucky socks and bras, and keep four-leaf clover rings and lucky dinosaurs. These are just a few of the lucky charms, or power objects, I read about during the recent games. I'm sure we would find more if we had an opportunity to rifle through all the athletes' belongings.

You may not be getting ready to medal, but maybe you're about to go on a first date, give a speech, or interview for a job, and feel the need for a lucky charm yourself. There's nothing lucky about these charms, so I prefer the term power object. They work, but not in such mysterious ways. It's a three-step process.

Step one. When you use a power object, you first clarify your intention for your desired outcome. It's always easier to get what you want when your vision of it is clear. For example, you place mala beads (the power object) on your desk. Each time you notice the beads you will tell yourself, "be calm and breathe" (your intention), so you will be brilliant during your job interview (the outcome).

Step two. The second step is strengthening the links between the power object, intention, and outcome, through repetition. Every time you notice the power object you're reminded of your intention to stay calm and breathe. You take a few breaths each time. You're reinforcing the belief that you can control the situation and produce a positive outcome through your behavior. With each breath, that positive outcome starts to feel more likely. With each repetition, you start to feel more empowered.

Step three. The final step is using the object in the stressful situation. When you go into a stressful situation like a job interview, you may keep the beads in your pocket as a concrete reminder of your intention to stay calm and breathe. This intention has now become effortlessly attached to the power object. As a result, you feel calmer in the situation. Your desired outcome, a brilliant performance, is attainable.

Your power object can be a stone, a photo or any object that makes sense and feels right to you. You can have the object in a purse, have it pop up on your phone, or create another process that works for you. The repeated connection between the intention and the object gives you that extra sense of control over the outcome. You have created your own lucky charm that provides that Olympian power you need for a challenge.

Stress: The Inner Game

"The cause of most stress can be summed up by the word attachment. [The ego] gets so dependent upon things, situations, people and concepts within its experience that when change occurs or seems about to occur, it feels threatened. Freedom from stress does not necessarily involve giving up anything, but rather being able to let go of anything, when necessary, and know that one will still be all right. It comes from being more independent—not necessarily more solitary, but more reliant on one’s own inner resources for stability."

The words of a Zen master? Actually, W. Timothy Gallwey in The Inner Game of Tennis, a very interesting read even if you don’t play. Consider applying the notion of attachment to one’s performance in a game like tennis, or any game. In giving up the need to win, the implications of losing and so forth, we are freed up to perform without stress.

Can you apply it to your life? If you can give up the idea of things being as you expected them to be, wanted them to be, thought you needed them to be, does it free you up to relax without stress?

Disengaging doesn’t mean we’re not interested, motivated or working hard. It simply means that we’re not getting caught up in emotional entanglements and self-criticism that move us away from our true goals. Whether at work, at play or in relationships, there are many applications of these ideas.

I hate to be pedestrian, but having just seen (and enjoyed) Yes Man, I am reminded of Terence Stamp’s life coach from hell. He does make the good point that you have to start somewhere in your life and start saying yes to opportunities. I’d argue it’s a way of disengaging and letting go of some of your long held and dearly beloved beliefs about the way things should be.

So try saying yes to opportunity and no to stress.

Holiday Advice

I’m not big on advice, but what the heck, it’s my blog. So here it is. It might be fun to practice savoring during the holidays. When savoring, one experiences the specifics and detail of the present moment. Noticing all the different aspects of an experience might include sounds, smells, textures, tastes and emotions.

For instance: I’m lying on the beach. I feel the sand warm under my back. I smell the ocean and sunscreen and feel a light breeze play across my face. My hair moves slightly against my cheek and I feel my eyelashes meeting above closed eyes. Along with the surf, I can hear the occasional shriek of a gull and children off somewhere playing and calling to one another. I'm relaxed. I feel still, at east and connected.

I could go on with my observations (and wishful thinking). Notice what I didn’t include. I’m not worrying about what’s going to be waiting for me when I get back to work. I’m not wishing I was on a beach in Cannes instead of Florida. I’m not thinking I should get productive and take a walk or read. I’m not looking at my watch, checking my email or texting.

You can savor anything. We are all familiar with the idea of savoring a fine wine, cigar or other gustatory experience. Have you ever savored a success? Getting the promotion, finishing the dissertation and completing your first 5K are all opportunities for savoring. So is listening to a symphony or smelling a rose.

So my holiday advice: Find a few things (or many) to really savor and enjoy. Maybe it’s a special food someone makes at this time of year, or the giggle and smile of a particular niece, or the walk you have the time to take in the crisp winter air. Make the most of these experiences and be really present for them. If you’re used to being on the run and multitasking, it may take some practice, but I think you’ll find it well worth the effort. And it’s good for post- and pre-holiday times as well.

For more tips, see an article about the Harvard Medical School Portable Guide to Stress Relief.

A song that captures savoring and the holiday mood: Let it Snow

Olympian Challenges

All the hoopla about the Olympics makes me ponder the Olympian challenges that face us all, and how we conquer them.

I’ve noticed that many of the articles that I scan, or that are sent to me by family and friends, from publications as varied as Women’s Day, The NY Times, The Wall Street Journal, Sports Illustrated, and more, frequently propose the notion that we can all do great things, Olympian things, as it were. These things, it is posited, are accomplished by means of such behaviors as perseverance, tapping into strengths, following dreams and passions, focus and problem-solving, to name a few.

We are able to attain said accomplishments according to said articles, and their sister articles that focus on taking time for oneself, by not only doing, but also not doing. Not doing covers such things as relaxation exercises, meditation, yoga, walking, jogging, reading, pondering, fishing, biking, and driving, to name just some. While, you may say, these things are really doing, they’ve not doing the thing we’re trying to accomplish.

Thus, we work, and then we take time to regroup, replenish, re-whatever, in order to continue on toward our chosen goals. As we often point out in coaching, taking even 10 minutes toward your goal, or toward your time-out from goals, is well worth the effort. Come one, how many times have you read that taking three deep breaths (in through the nose, out through the mouth, from the abdomen, not the upper chest, add a few seconds on the exhale) once a day improves health and wellness? It doesn't even take 3 minutes.

Right now, my Olympian challenge is mastering Microsoft Vista. I know I can do it. I also know it’s going to take time as well as perseverance, focus and problem-solving, among other things. But that didn’t stop me from doing 15 minutes of yoga and running 30 today.

I’ll make it to the top eventually, cause I won’t back down (Tom Petty and the Heartbreakers). Sorry for you regular readers, but some songs you just have to use more than once.

20 one minute ways to beat stress got me started on this. Check it out.

Twist and Shout

Like many animals, rats put in new situations run the perimeter, presumably learning about their new environment. In fact, according to Esther M. Sternberg in The Balance Within, if you placed electrodes in their brains to map out the cells that are active during this exploration, you'd see that they matched the shape of the new environment perfectly. If they are able to learn, they learn the environment and their anxiety at the newness wears off.

Extrapolating wildly from this, you might wonder how a person, with all these pictures of their life in their head, complete with dead ends and diabolically treacherous twists and turns, ever breaks out of their maze. I'm fascinated by the people who are able to do so, and equally by those that are not.

According to Sternberg, if you're a low-stress-hormone Lewis rat, you'll explore your environment vigorously, presumably open to change. If you're a high-stress-hormone Fischer rat, you'll cringe in the corner, presumably, not so open to change. No worries; even the Fischer rat eventually learns the new environment, it just seems a lot more fraught with anxiety, if I may anthropomorphize for a moment.

Back to us, how can we adapt? Again, from the rats, it seems that once the new environment becomes more familiar, they're more comfortable.

So taking that very basic observation, one useful self-statement might be to assure oneself that it'll be okay, you'll get used to it. Whatever "it" is. The new job, the new city, the divorce, the death.

Now I'm going out on a limb to say that I'd have to guess having something familiar in a new environment would also allay some anxiety. You know how it feels when you move and unpack your stuff. It's a comfort to see the stuff, whether it's nice and almost-new or crummy and ready for the Salvation Army.

Sternberg goes on to talk about how relationships can also serve as buffers for the stress of change. Mind you, given the link between chronic stress and impaired immune function, this is all pretty critical. So we need change, we all experience lots of change, but too much prolonged change can make us sick. Like I said, life presents diabolically treacherous twists and turns. But also intriguingly engaging twists and turns.

So my recommendations: use positive self-statements (e.g., this is all going to work out), break out some comfortable objects (and light those candles, or whatever makes you feel good), rely on friends and other significants, and, when it comes to the treacherous twists and turns, put on some music and shake it up baby.

You know, Twist and Shout (The Beatles).