Leslie Glass's Blog, page 399
February 5, 2018
Codependency Cheat Sheet
From Darlene Lancer: Different types of people may behave in a codependent manner, and codependence manifests in varying degrees of severity. Not all codependents are unhappy, while others live in pain or quiet desperation.
Codependency is not something you heal from and are forever done with, but you can enjoy yourself, your life, and your relationships. Should you choose to embark on recovery, you’re beginning an exciting and empowering journey.
Determining If You’re Codependent
If you’re wondering if you’re codependent, take a look at the following list of symptoms. You don’t have to have all of them to be codependent, and there are degrees of severity of codependence. If untreated, codependency gets worse over time, but with help you can recover and be much more effective in your work and relationships. Here are some common traits:
Low self-esteem
Not liking or accepting yourself
Feeling your inadequate in some way
Thinking you’re not quite enough
Worrying you are or could be a failure
Concerned with what other people think about you
Perfectionism
Pleasing others and giving up yourself
Poor boundaries
Boundaries that are too weak and there’s not enough separateness between you and your partner
Boundaries that are too rigid and keep you from being close
Boundaries that flip back and forth between too close and too rigid
Reactivity
Dysfunctional Communication
Difficulty expressing thoughts and feelings
Difficulty setting boundaries — saying “No” or stopping abuse
Abusive language
Lack of assertiveness about your needs
Dependency
Afraid of being alone or out of a relationship
Feeling trapped in a bad relationship and unable to leave
Relying too much on others opinions
Intimacy problems
Avoidance of closeness
Losing yourself
Trying to control or manipulate others
Feeling trapped in a dysfunctional relationship
Denial
Denial of codependency
Denial about a painful reality in your relationship
Denial of your feelings
Denial of your needs
Caretaking
Control
Controlling your own feelings
Managing and controlling people in your life; telling them what to do
Manipulating others to feel or behave like you want (people pleasing is a manipulation)
Obsessions
Addiction to a substance or process
Painful emotions
Shame
Anxiety
Fear
Guilt
Hopelessness
Despair
Depression
Reducing Stress through Relaxation
The key to overcoming codependency is relaxing and building a loving relationship with yourself. At Harvard Medical School, Dr. Herbert Benson developed a type of relaxation that doesn’t require any spiritual beliefs, but was very effective to reduce stress, anxiety, depression and anger. It’s called the Relaxation Response. Try it and if you like it do it every day.
Sit in a relaxed position, and close your eyes.
Starting at your toes and progressing to your face, relax each muscle, and keep them relaxed.
Breathe normally through your nose, and repeat “one” silently with each inhale and again with each exhale. Do not control your breath.
Do this daily for 10 to 20 minutes, and take a few minutes before returning to normal activities.
Turning The Focus Onto Yourself
Focusing on someone else is a real problem for codependents. Letting go isn’t easy. Turning that around so that your focus is on you doesn’t make you selfish; in fact, it’s showing respect for someone else’s autonomy and boundaries. Here are some practical things you can do to:
When you’re together, remember not to watch the other person.
Don’t obsess or worry about him or her. Imagine putting the person in God’s hands or surrounded by healing light. Send them love.
Don’t judge others, just as you don’t want to be judged.
Don’t have expectations of others; instead, meet expectations of yourself.
You didn’t cause someone else’s behavior. Others are responsible for their behavior, and you’re only responsible for yours.
Write about your feelings in a journal. Read it to someone close to you or a therapist.
Practice mediation or spirituality.
Pursue your own interests and have fun.
Remember you cannot change or “fix” someone else. Only he or she has the power to do so.
Take a time out. If you’re starting to react to someone or are in an argument, it’s a good idea to step away and take some time to think things over. A good idea is to write in your journal.
Write positive things about yourself in your journal every day. Look for things you did well or like about yourself, and write them down.
Take the labels off. Sometimes, you can have expectations and make assumptions about someone very close to you which you wouldn’t of a friend. Ask yourself how you would treat the other person if he or she wasn’t your partner or parent.
Getting Help for Your Codependency
If you think you may be codependent, you need help to change your behavior. Here are some sources of help for those suffering from codependency:
Read all you can about codependency (but reading alone is insufficient to change).
Go to a Twelve Step meeting for codependents, such as Codependents Anonymous, called CoDA, or Al-Anon for family members of alcoholics. There are other Twelve Step groups for relatives of other addicts, such as for relatives of gamblers, narcotic addicts, and sex addicts. You can look on the Internet or in your phone book to find out where there’s a meeting near you.
Get counseling from someone familiar with codependency. It’s preferable that they are licensed in your state. They may be marriage and family counselors, social workers, addiction specialists, psychologists, or psychiatrists.
You will probably find it hard to focus on and discipline yourself to make changes without the support of a group or therapist. If you’re practicing an addiction, stopping that should be your first priority before tackling codependency. Here’s a list of things you can do on your own to get started:
When you’re tempted to think or worry about someone else, turn your attention back to you.
Pay attention to how you talk to and treat yourself. Much of low self-esteem is self-inflicted. Train yourself to speak gently and encouraging rather than telling yourself what you should or shouldn’t be doing or what’s wrong with you.
Have some fun and pursue hobbies and interests of your own.
Start a spiritual practice where you spend time alone with yourself. Meditation is an ideal way to help you become more calm and self-aware.
Start looking for the positive in your life and what you do. Make a grateful list each day and read it to someone.
Stand-up for yourself if someone criticizes, undermines, or tries to control you.
Don’t worry! That’s not easy, but most worries never come to pass. You lose precious moments in the present. Mediation and talking things out with someone who knows about recovering from codependency can help you.
Let go of control and the need to manage other people. Remember the saying, “Live and let live.”
Accept yourself, so you don’t have to be perfect.
Get in touch with your feelings. Don’t judge them. Feelings just are. They’re not logical or right or wrong.
Express yourself honestly with everyone. Say what you think and what you feel. Ask for what you need.
Reach out for help when you feel bad. Don’t fall into the trap of thinking you’re self-sufficient and can manage alone. That’s a symptom of codependency, too.
Co-dependency is also treatable. Want to find a therapist who understands the impact of addiction? Visit Recovery Guidance to find help near you.
The post Codependency Cheat Sheet appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Why Do People Love The 12 Steps
Unless you’ve been under a rock for the last 80 years, you have heard of Alcoholics Anonymous and the 12 steps. You may know about meetings and fellowship, and how addicts help each other. You may have heard slogans like “One day at a time” and “Easy does it.” But what happens in those 12 Step meetings may remain a mystery to you.
It’s not a secret society, like the Masons, or Scientology, or the Mormons. And it’s not a cult. The 12 Steps have become for many the universal language of recovery. They have endured through the changes of the 20th Century and spread exponentially so that almost everyone entering a recovery program now becomes familiar with it.
Over Eighty Years Old
The 12 Steps of Alcoholics Anonymous was created in 1935 when two hopeless drunks discovered that they could stay sober only if they regularly talked with other alcoholics. Bob Smith (Dr. Bob) and Bill Wilson (Bill W) knew that alcoholics needed a way for people to emerge from a self-destructive life that wasn’t working to a more positive and sustainable life without drinking or using substances.
This was a tough challenge since no treatment throughout the ages had worked for people with this deadly chronic disease. There was, and still is, no cure for it. Family members also needed a new way of thinking to help them move from being controlled by someone else’s addiction to living their own lives in a safe and peaceful way.
They developed a process that involved group meetings that provided a context for exploring aspects of behavior in addiction that helped abusers stop using and family members to modify their own behavior with regard to their addicted loved ones. Addiction is a family disease, and everyone plays a part in it. Surprisingly, the same process helps both populations in the same way.
The 12 Steps Are Like The 10 Commandments Of Mental Health, Except There Are 12.
The 12 Steps was the first effective program for substance and alcohol addiction and for healing families affected by it. Those who have been transformed by the language, the fellowship of acceptance and caring, and the group talk environment believe that the 12 Steps should be taught to everyone. The steps can be seen as the ten commandments of mental health. Only there are 12 of them.
Try It. You May Like It
Those who haven’t been to an AA meeting have certainly seen snippets of meetings portrayed on TV and in movies. We see people telling their names and stories, and very importantly, they identify as addicts or alcoholics or family members.
We all know what addiction looks like, but the transformation that takes place in recovery is not something that is shown in movies or on tv. It would take way too long to show how change occurs over often a long period of time as people begin to understand what the people around them are talking about. Unless you attend a few meetings yourself, it’s virtually impossible to get a feeling of the process recovery in a 12 step program.
12 Steps Are No Walk In The Park & Don’t Work For Everyone
Another important point is that the 12 Steps don’t work for everyone. Just as no single treatment for any illness works for everyone. Transformation doesn’t happen just because someone is learning a new vocabulary and brand new way of thinking. Phrases like “Higher power,” “defect of character”, and “Will of God” can make people really angry, or turn on the light bulb, or inspire both reactions at different times, or even at the same time.
A family member, for example, often has this response at first, “If I’m a good person who cares for someone who is an addict, how can I have a defect of character? I don’t have a defect of character!” But later on they may see a bit of toxicity in all that caring for someone who may not want it. 12 Steps provides a blame-free language and a safe place to explore of what makes us all tick. Especially in relation to our behavior dealing with addiction.
The Power Of The 12 Steps Is That It Makes People Think
Who am I really?
What am I doing?
Who or what is in control?
How can I get better?
How do I relate to other people?
Am I a bully or a doormat?
How Do I Stay Calm?
How do I stay away from whatever problem I have?
These are things that 12 Step meetings and the literature that goes along with them inspire people to think about. Finding a safe place to explore the impact of addiction is a lifesaver for those who feel imprisioned by the disease. People are empowered for the first time to decide for themselves how they want to be. It takes a lot of courage to enter a room full of complete strangers and admit you need help. Those in 12 Step programs say they are welcomed everywhere in the world they go and know they are never alone. One of the slogans, “take what you want and leave the rest” is always helpful.
Want to find a therapist who understands the impact of addiction? Visit Recovery Guidance to find help near you.
The post Why Do People Love The 12 Steps appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
February 4, 2018
Philippine Drug Deaths Continue Despite President’s Promise
From Lauren Gill @ Newsweek: Philippine National Police have killed nearly 50 people suspected of using or selling drugs in the past two months, just months after President Rodrigo Duterte’s promised a less deadly so-called war on drugs.
Officials announced on Friday police had been responsible for the deaths of 46 people between December 5, 2017 and Thursday. In addition, cops had conducted 3,253 raids, leading to the arrests of an unspecified number of “high-value targets,”the New York Times reported.
The figures are the first to be released since Duterte resumed a police crackdown on illegal narcotics in December. Before that, the Philippine Drug Enforcement Agency was put in charge of the war on drugs after police killed three teenagers and lied about their deaths. Their deaths sparked mass protests and a Senate investigation.
After the killings in October, Duterte said he planned to shift his strategy away from users to focus on “big fish,” or the suppliers and networks.
Duterte has pledged to kill every drug dealer and user in the Western Pacific country, waging war on the impoverished inner city. It is unknown how many people have been killed since the war was launched in 2017, although the government maintains the number is fewer than 4,000 suspects. Human Rights Watch, an international rights advocacy group, estimated that figure to be more than 12,000 last week.
Philippine cops do not count the hundreds of victims killed nightly among the dead, attributing those deaths to vigilante groups. Usually, victims are found with cardboard signs strung around their necks indicating they were involved with drugs.
The government has disputed the accuracy of Human Rights Watch’s death toll and demanded the organization issue an apology. At the same time, a representative from the group defended its estimate.
President Donald Trump has praised Duterte, applauding him for doing an “unbelievable job” in the fight against illegal drugs.
Do you struggle with substance abuse? Help is available near you. Visit Recovery Guidance to find it.
The post Philippine Drug Deaths Continue Despite President’s Promise appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Why We Put On Rose-Tinted Glasses
From Science News Daily: New research from City, University of London, University of Oxford and Yale University has shown that we see our own lives, and also those we care about, through ‘rose-tinted glasses’.
The study, which is the first to show that such an ‘optimism bias’ extends beyond the self, found that people readily changed their beliefs about a person they like when receiving good news but barely changed their opinions about them after receiving bad news. This ‘vicarious optimism’ in their learning about others was found to be stronger the more people cared about another person, and was even seen for strangers.
To examine how far this optimism bias extended, the researchers studied a mechanism known as ‘good news/bad news effect’ that generates and protects our optimism.
In life we sometimes change our beliefs about ourselves based on new information we receive. For example, when told we are more intelligent than we thought — good news — we update our beliefs, but if we hear we are less intelligent than we suspected — bad news — we change little. This learning bias appears to arise from the desire to feel good about ourselves and our future.
But we also want to feel good about the future of people we care about. Bad news for people we care about feels dreadful, potentially preventing us from integrating such information into our beliefs about these people. This ‘good news/bad news effect’ can also tell us how much someone cares about another person, as the more we care about another person, the more likely we are to accept good news about that person and reject bad news.
To test if such an optimism bias extends beyond the self, the researchers recruited more than 1,100 participants for five studies. In each of these studies, participants imagined a host of negative life events happening to other people, ranging from their friends to strangers. The research is published in the journal Psychological Science.
For a friend, for instance, participants imagined a negative life event (losing one’s luggage, getting cancer, missing an important meeting…) happening to them. They were then asked to indicate the likelihood of such an event occurring. Following this they were told the actual probability of such an event taking place.
Sometimes, this information was good news — it was lower than participants expected. And other times, this information was bad news — it was higher than they expected. To measure how much people used good and bad news to change their belief about the other person, participants were then given a second chance to indicate the likelihood of the event occurring to their friend having previously been told the actual probability. The differences between their estimate before and after receiving the news is taken as an index of belief change.
The researchers found that the optimism bias indeed extends beyond the self, and that this effect was stronger the more people cared about another person. If participants, for instance, first read information about a stranger indicating that this person was a good person, they showed subsequently vicarious optimism for that person. However, if they read that a stranger was not a nice person, the vicarious optimism decreased substantially for that person. Finally, the more pronounced the vicarious optimism for a stranger, the more likely participants were to help people similar to that stranger.
Dr Andreas Kappes, lead author of the study and a lecturer in the Department of Psychology at City, University of London, said: “Our research shows that we see not only our own lives through rose-tinted glasses, but also the lives of those we care about. What we found is that participants showed vicarious optimism when learning about the outcomes affecting others they care about, updating their beliefs less in response to bad news compared to good news. But this optimism did not stop with friends — it also extended to strangers when learning about their future.” Dr Molly Crockett, senior author of the study and Assistant Professor of Psychology at Yale University, said: “These studies suggest that empathy affects how we learn as well as how we make decisions. Those people with stronger ‘vicarious optimism’ for strangers were more likely to help a stranger in need. Concern for others leaves its fingerprints on the beliefs we develop about the world.”
Do you struggle with relationships more than you’d like? Therapists and counselors near you are listed Recovery Guidance.
The post Why We Put On Rose-Tinted Glasses appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Dating After Grief
When I started dating, I stuck a toe in the water of the online dating pool. It was at a time in my life when I felt alone and I was doubtful of my footing. I was divorced and my support system was gone.
My extraordinary parents died nine weeks apart, and I was still a little dazed and unsure of myself. But I wanted to be connected to the world and I wanted to know that I was showing up as who I really was and not some imposter who was stuck in grieving.
How To Gain Dating Confidence
There are a lot of clichés which try to soothe and inspire those in the aftermath of a breakup. “There’s a lid for every pot” and “a lot of fish in the sea” are two takes on the subject. Their message being, that there’s someone for everyone and a lot to choose from. But sometimes, the sheer plethora of choices is overwhelming. When choosing becomes limiting, we often substitute it for being afraid of making a mistake or being unhappy and we choose to do nothing. We exchange experiencing life and learning from our mistakes for being too careful at the beginning. We forget that we are choosing for ourselves and that completing a relationship and starting again teaches us about ourselves in a way that we cannot do on our own. And it builds confidence.
Looking For Friendship
So, that’s how I started dating. I am not interested in being anyone’s girlfriend was my platform. In fact, I thought I was clever in coining the term “activities partners” to describe what I was looking for. Basically, there would be no commitment, no strings, no sex, and no exclusivity. We would just go out and do things together in a purely platonic fashion – enjoy each other’s company and that’s it. And I would be doing this with lots of guys at the same time. Don’t be falling in love: I was firm on that one. If feelings started getting in the way, they needed to be communicated; the point wasn’t to hurt anyone, just to relax and have some fun. If you’re looking for a long-term relationship – I’m not the girl for you was my motto … and I left it to the guy to figure it out for himself. I choose for me and you choose for you. My boundaries were clear, or so I thought…
Playing The Field Or Being A Player
There was, in fact, a downside that hadn’t occurred to me, however. I was accused on more than one occasion of being a player. There it was, the term often associated with guys who are off playing the field while in a relationship. The guys who subscribe to a don’t ask-don’t tell policy as it pertains to their love lives and who play with the hearts of all involved with them. I was cast, by some, into this dishonest lot.
Saying Good-Bye
Of course, the mere fact that I was open about dating other guys wasn’t enough for some; shaming and blaming was their game and soon it became easier to spot and steer clear of such characters. I found most guys to be great about it, though. They didn’t pressure me to move into an exclusive relationship or to “pick” them; there was no trying to convince me or making me wrong for my choices. And when something showed up that I wasn’t comfortable with, I ended it and moved on. No explanation required. It was no one’s fault – we simply weren’t a good fit. I would choose being alone over unhealthy with greater ease. I was learning.
Being Myself Instead Of Fitting In
Men found me charming and mysterious, and often described feeling inspired because of how I felt about myself. After about a year, the feedback was synonymous among them and I knew I wasn’t trying to fit in or trying to be something that I wasn’t … I was simply being me. It was time to move from a lot of fish in the sea to finding the lid.
If you need help with relationships, visit Recovery Guidance, a free patient resource to find professionals near you.
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February 2, 2018
Co-Dependent’s Tips For Tackling Party Germs
I love sharing a laugh and a great party dip as much as the next Super Bowl fan, but I don’t love getting sick. And seriously, who does? Here are my top five tips to help your guests share a great night without over-sharing party germs.
The truth is, we are often contagious BEFORE we have any symptoms. According to the CDC, healthy adults can become contagious 24 hours before their symptoms develop. Once they’re sick, they’ll be contagious for about five to seven days. Young kids, who are likely to sneeze on anyone within 100 yards of them, are contagious longer than that. Yikes.
Here’s your best defense at keeping you and your guests healthy.
1. Wash Your Hands
Hand washing is the most effective way to stop spreading germs. I used to work on a patient floor at a hospital, and I actually had to take a class on hand washing. You want to suds your hands for at least 30 seconds. Rinse your hands and then use a towel to turn off the faucet. Soap is better than hand-sanitizer, and you don’t have to use an anti-bacterial soap. Ditch community bar soaps during your party.
2. Don’t Touch Your Eyes
Yes, Bud-wiser has promised another tear-jerking Clydsdale commercial, but don’t you dare wipe those tears. Touching our face is one of the main ways party germs and viruses get into our systems.
3. Disposable Products Dispose Of Party Germs
If your guests can pitch it, you should buy it. And make sure to have extra paper plates and cups on hand. These are my top picks for this year’s party:
Red solo cups are your party’s MVP. Ah nachos. We love you the most, but plan on being an all-star host by serving up these tasty chips in disposable cups. Several well-placed Sharpies will help guests keep their cups straight.
In the bathrooms, invest in some paper, disposable hand-towels. Sharing a guest towel in flu-season can put you on the sidelines for a week.
Cocktail toothpicks are a must for meatballs, cocktail weenies, and cheese cubes. Guests can also use them to grab fruit and bite-sized brownies.
Cupcake liners are another way to serve buffet style dishes in individual portions.
Put disposal silverware in more red disposable cups, in high traffic areas, handles facing up.
4. Think Like A Germaphobe
During cold and flu season, it’s a great idea to wipe down solid surfaces like phones, door knobs, remotes, and counters with disinfectant wipes. Don’t forget to wipe your soap dispensers, faucets, and trash cans. I will be using these wipes to sanitize my house before AND after guests arrive. Maybe even at half-time if you observe some suspicious sneezing. Also, put boxes of kleenex everywhere!
5. Be A Responsible Guest
Are you the one attending a party? Only go if you’ve been fever free for 24 hours. Taking medicine isn’t enough to make you not contagious. No one wants to miss the party, but being patient zero is worse. Ask friends to Skype or face-time you if you feel up to virtually joining the party.
Do you struggle with drinking more than you’d like? Help is available near you. Visit Recovery Guidance to find it.
The post Co-Dependent’s Tips For Tackling Party Germs appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
Today Is National Wear Red Day. Here’s Why People Are Dressing Up
From Flora Carr @ Time: Women (and men) across America will be color-coordinating today for National Wear Red Day 2018, which aims to dispel myths surrounding heart disease. National Wear Red Day is intended to help raise awareness of heart disease, in particular among women. Heart disease is often generally associated with men, but cardiovascular disease is the number one killer of women.
Every year, nearly 500,000 American women die from heart disease and stroke. Launched in 2004 by the American Heart Association (AHA), National Wear Red Day also aims to raise funds for research into the misunderstood disease.
Here are five more heart disease facts from the American Heart Association in honor of National Wear Red Day:
Only 55 percent of women realize heart disease is the No. 1 killer for American women.
Fewer than half of American women know what a healthy blood pressure or cholesterol level is.
Your BMI (Body Mass Index) isn’t just helpful when it comes to diets or losing weight – it’s also linked to your risk of heart disease.
It’s a myth that strokes, which affect the arteries linked to the brain, only happen to older people. Strokes can happen even in infants.
Women are also more likely to suffer from a stroke, contrary to popular myths.
Do you struggle with drinking more than you’d like? Help is available near you. Visit Recovery Guidance to find it.
The post Today Is National Wear Red Day. Here’s Why People Are Dressing Up appeared first on Reach Out Recovery.
7 Reasons Why Laughter Is The Best Medicine
Why Laughter Works
Laughter is a powerful antidote to stress, pain, and conflict. Nothing works faster or more dependably to bring your mind and body back into balance than a good laugh. Humor:
Lightens your burdens
Inspires hope
Connects you to others
Keeps you grounded, focused, and alert.
It also helps you to release anger and be more forgiving.With so much power to heal and renew, the ability to laugh easily and frequently is a tremendous resource for surmounting problems, enhancing your relationships, and supporting both physical and emotional health. Best of all, this priceless medicine is fun, free, and easy to use.
7 Powerful Health Benefits
1. Laughter Relaxes The Whole Body
A good, hearty laugh relieves physical tension and stress, leaving your muscles relaxed for up to 45 minutes after.
2. It Boosts The Immune System
Laughter decreases stress hormones and increases immune cells and infection-fighting antibodies, thus improving your resistance to disease.
3. Laughter Triggers The Release Of Endorphins
The body’s natural feel-good chemicals. Endorphins promote an overall sense of well-being and can even temporarily relieve pain.
4. It Protects The Heart
Laughing improves the function of blood vessels and increases blood flow, which can help protect you against a heart attack and other cardiovascular problems.
5. Laughter Burns Calories
OK, so it’s no replacement for going to the gym, but one study found that laughing for 10 to 15 minutes a day can burn about 40 calories—which could be enough to lose three or four pounds over the course of a year.
6. Laughter Lightens Anger’s Heavy Load
Nothing diffuses anger and conflict faster than a shared laugh. Looking at the funny side can put problems into perspective and enable you to move on from confrontations without holding onto bitterness or resentment.
7. Laughter May Even Help You To Live Longer
A study in Norway found that people with a strong sense of humor outlived those who don’t laugh as much. The difference was particularly notable for those battling cancer.
By seeking out more opportunities for humor and laughing, you can improve your emotional health, strengthen your relationships, find greater happiness—and even add years to your life.
This article was originally published on helpguide.org.
Looking for addiction and mental health treatment? Visit Recovery Guidance for a full range of treatment providers near you.
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What Is All Or Nothing Thinking
My go-to response is almost always a snap judgement. Yes or No. Now or Never. All or nothing thinking seems innocent enough, but this pattern has caused me and my family great harm.
What Is All Or Nothing Thinking?
A person who is stuck in all or nothing thinking ONLY sees two choices. The hundreds of in-between choices simply do not occur as viable options. Some examples of all or nothing thinking are:
Eat NO cookies OR the WHOLE bag
My spouse and I will NEVER argue. We will live happily ever after OR get a divorce.
I’m either an ALWAYS patient Mom OR an abusive terror.
NEVER, do I ever drink OR I am an alcoholic.
I follow my budget to the penny OR max out the credit card for the month.
I have to be perfect (which is impossible) OR I’m doomed to Hell.
Who Thinks Like This?
All or nothing thinking is common among people who are depressed. Creative people, persons who have PTSD, and many with autism are also likely to struggle with this constrictive thought pattern.
Interestingly, this type of thinking triggers one our body’s most primal instincts: fight or flight. The body responds to stress, leading to anxiety and sensory overload. When emotions fall, exhaustion takes over. The thought process is self-perpetuating. The body is either on high alert or too tired to function.
Writer and psychotherapist John Tsilimparis, featured on A&E’s Obsessed, explains,
This type of thinking colors all of our experiences and pressures us to live in the irrational realm of extremes.
Identifying The Problem
If we want to see the world in colorful choices, we first have to realize we are living in black and white extremes. Tsilimparis tells us to ask ourselves: Am I…
Thinking in terms of extremes?
Reacting emotionally when things don’t look right?
Judging myself as strong or weak? Smart or stupid?
Over-monitoring my decisions as right or wrong? Good or bad?
Looking for too much certainty in a world full of uncertainty?
Ways To Think In Gray
Psychotherapist Renee van der Vloodt has three in the moment, physiological ways to interrupt this thought pattern:
Change your breathing. Breathe in for 7 counts and breathe out for 11. This interrupts the physical stress reaction in your body.
Do a body scan. Where are you holding tension? Lower back? Jaws? Shoulders? Even 15 seconds is enough to distract your body from the emotional pull.
Park your mood. Use your thinking against itself. Park ALL of your all or nothing thinking in a time out.
To make a lasting change, Tsilimparis says we must sit with the anxiety. When we identify an all or nothing thought, he recommends we take five minutes to respond differently by:
Locating the balanced gray area of any stressful situation
Giving up the need to be right
Accepting all circumstances are neutral
Being more reflective than reactive
Accepting the subtle balance and varying degrees of life
Accepting that I cannot have certainty about most things right now
Recovery teaches me to first become aware. For years, I didn’t realize how often I succumbed to these rigid choices. Now that I know how to spot my all or nothing thinking, I can accept that I’m not the problem. My thinking is. I don’t have judge myself as either:
Right or wrong
Good or bad
Strong or weak
Smart or stupid
A success or a failure
Finally, I can take action. Along with the tools listed above, I am going to challenge myself to brainstorm other options that fall somewhere in between my initial extreme choices.
All or nothing thinking might be a sign of depression. Find counselors and psychotherapists near you at Recovery Guidance.
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Super Bowl Fans At High Risk For Flu
From Julie Mazziotta @ People: The linesmen and tight ends throwing themselves at each other on the field aren’t the only ones at danger in the upcoming Super Bowl this year — with the deadliest outbreak of the flu since 2009 making its way around the country, the tightly-packed fans in the stadium are at a heightened risk of contracting the infection.
Organizers at Minnesota’s U.S. Bank Stadium, the host site for the 2018 Super Bowl between the Philadelphia Eagles and New England Patriots, are taking steps to reduce the flu risk for the 1 million football fans expected to come to Minneapolis for Super Bowl-related activities over the week. Workers at Super Bowl Experience events, which are open to the public, are instructed to disinfect all of the exhibits multiple times a day, according to KSTP.
And as the 65,000 fans start filling U.S. Bank Stadium for the game on Sunday, the close quarters will make it easier for the flu to spread.
“Think of influenza almost like a lottery,” epidemiologist Mike Osterholm told CBS News. “If a normal day you’d only come in contact with 10 people that’s one chance, 100 or a thousand you just upped your chances that much more.”
Flu activity is currently at a “widespread” level in Minnesota, the highest possible. The CDC currently lists the 2017 to 2018 flu season as “moderately severe,” and warns it could get worse. Thirty children have succumbed to the virus across the nation so far, PEOPLE confirmed with the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention. The CDC recommends that everyone 6 months and older get the flu vaccine, which also limits the disease’s spread throughout the community.
The flu has even reached the Patriots. Cornerback Malcolm Butler was hospitalized Monday for flu-like symptoms, according to the Boston Herald. He’s now recovering and is expected to play on Sunday.
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