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In our culture we have grown up to believe that personal freedom equals happiness. Well, is that actually true? Freedom and personal rights are rarely the only thing a person values and prioritizes. You might value your family’s health and well-being, respecting elders, faith, serving our country, honesty, nature, or…. If we refuse to wear […]
In our culture we have grown up to believe that personal freedom equals happiness.
Well, is that actually true?
Freedom and personal rights are rarely the only thing a person values and prioritizes. You might value your family’s health and well-being, respecting elders, faith, serving our country, honesty, nature, or….
If we refuse to wear a mask or receive a well-tested vaccine because “we don’t want anyone to tell us what to do,” then we might have just acted in a way that does not honor our own values. The value of protecting our family. The value of appreciating and protecting the health care workers who are neighbors and there when we need them.
Perhaps making a decision by looking through the lens of “personal rights or freedom” isn’t so useful. Maybe it is most clarifying to ask ourselves – does my action reflect my highest priorities?
Full personal freedom to do whatever we want offers promises of happiness – but it can’t deliver. Being free to do whatever we want can actually cause suffering.
When we get hooked into a compulsive behavior like overeating, the craving part of us that drives us to overeat thinks that if we have the freedom to consume whatever we want, as much as we want, then we will be happier.
Is it true?
If we eat a scoop of ice cream, we will probably experience temporary pleasure with little negative consequence. But if we let the compulsive craving part of us run the show, then we can end up having eaten the whole container every night, feeling bloated and regretful.
Is it possible that being asked to wear a mask to protect our fellow Americans is a patriotic act? It is a form of being asked to serve our country. When someone serves our country in the military – whether by personal choice or because of a draft – they deserve great respect and appreciation. We thank them for their service.
My hope is that you might pass this on to people you know who are unclear about whether they want to wear a mask. I think the whole discussion of “who is making you do what” is a distraction.
I think the real question is: “What are your top 5 values? And do they guide you to wear a mask or not?”
My experience is that almost everyone wants to help their family and friends. So then we can see that it is our own values driving the choice – not anyone else “making” us do it.
Wearing a mask is a way in which you can serve our country and be aligned with your own priorities and values.
Very best wishes to you,
Judy O’Neill, MSW
Judy is a life coach based in Boulder, CO, seeing clients remotely or in her backyard. To contact Judy, email judy@helpingyougetunstuck.com or text or call (303) 819-2099.
Are you scared of conversations where there could be conflict? Are you nervous about setting boundaries in certain situations or with certain people? Here are some insights on why being real and honest might be worth it. I don’t think there’s anyone completely at ease with bringing up challenging topics. What in particular are you […]
Are you scared of conversations where there could be conflict? Are you nervous about setting boundaries in certain situations or with certain people? Here are some insights on why being real and honest might be worth it.
I don’t think there’s anyone completely at ease with bringing up challenging topics.
What in particular are you afraid of? What keeps you silent? Here are some very common and understandable fears that drive us humans to avoid conversations:
HOW WE JUSTIFY AVOIDANCE
There are many ways to rationalize avoiding hard conversations. Do any of the following sound familiar?
Sometimes being thoughtful about timing is very useful. If it continues on for weeks and weeks, it might be more about avoidance than consideration.
If you catch yourself thinking any of these things, there’s a chance you might be avoiding having a talk that needs to happen.
THE COSTS OF AVOIDING HAVING REAL CONVERSATIONS
1. When we hide who we really are – what we really want or don’t want, our relationships can’t be as close. We might miss out on true intimacy. We might have friends but still feel lonely because they don’t really know the real us.
2. Our psyches don’t like to be silenced. When we hide the truth or try to sweep an issue under the rug, we can end up feeling low-level upset because we don’t feel free to talk and to request things. This can lead to lingering resentment. You might find yourself getting passive aggressive or mysteriously irritable with others.
3. Not feeling free to share our thoughts and feelings can decrease our ability to relax and have fun in the relationship.
4. Sometimes we aren’t even consciously aware that we are mad or hurt by someone’s behavior. As humans, our psyche’s can try to distract us from these emotions by creating strong cravings for food, alcohol, video games, etc.
Our bodies are also capable of creating distracting symptoms like stomach upset or an unexplainable back pain in order to help us avoid seeing and dealing with conflict. I will be making a video in the near future about this pattern.
Books such as Unlearn You Pain by Schubiner and Betzold and John Sarno’s Healing Back Pain are rich resources. Mind Body Coaches Lorraine Faehndrich (radiantlifedesign.com) and Abigail Steidley (abigailsteidley.com) are highly skilled at helping clients undo the pattern of somaticizing our emotions.
5. Silencing ourselves actually takes energy. It can cause chronic, low-level stress which is bad for our health.
6. With someone we are dating, if we aren’t real about what we want and what does not work for us, we can end up staying with or marrying someone who is not an appropriate partner. By not sharing our preferences, we might be pretending to be whoever we imagine our partner wants rather than letting them get to know who we really are.
7. If we aren’t honest with a friend, partner, or family member we love who is sliding into substance abuse or domestic violence, we can end up enabling their decline.
A BIG QUESTION TO ASK YOURSELF
Is this person workable or not really?
When you speak with a workable person about something, they are capable of responding constructively – either immediately or after a sort period of being temporarily defensive. A workable person is able to apologize, show real concern, and make changes in behavior.
Or is this person someone who is self-involved, doesn’t feel bad about mistakes or apologize for them, pulls all the attention back to how they have been wronged, and doesn’t seem to really care about your needs? There’s a chance they aren’t workable.
Sometimes we don’t want to admit to ourselves that a person is not workable. We keep our focus on our hope in their “potential” as a way to avoid the disappointing reality of how they are right now.
Yearning to find her life partner, Sue had a pattern of being attracted to men who did not treat her well. She overlooked red flags, not wanting to see signs that the current guy wasn’t workable. She didn’t want to see that the man wasn’t for her. Tired of being single, she wanted it to work out this time.
Once in the relationship, she would over-function, trying to smooth over conflicts. Nagging her partner in an effort to fix him was a distraction from accepting that she had plenty of evidence that he was not motivated to change, and likely would not.
Hope can at times be hugely harmful – allowing us to stay involved with someone who treats us badly.
When Sue started telling herself the truth of how she really felt about a man, she started moving on quickly from unworkable guys to ones that actually did help her thrive
IF YOU SEE THAT THE PERSON IS NOT WORKABLE
With truly unworkable people, it can be best to take a step back from them rather than trying to have a heart to heart. What does taking a step back mean?
Only you can answer that. Perhaps stepping back means you stop initiating getting together. Maybe stepping back means you stop confiding in the person. Michele realized that her mom was terribly critical around anything about Michele’s weight or fitness. Her step back was to no longer bring up any appearance-related discussion with her mom.
Or perhaps the step back is to stop sleeping with them. Or maybe in your heart, you know that you should stop having contact all together.
GETTING CLEAR
If the person is workable, and you find yourself avoiding an important conversation that you know would benefit you or the whole relationship, here are some questions you can ask yourself to get clarity. Awareness is like gold and can contribute hugely to individual and relationship happiness.
1. What are you afraid could happen if you do bring up the issue?
2. Do you have a story you use to justify avoiding having that talk?
3. With this person or group, what is the cost to you of continuing to avoid?
4. If things go well, what positive shifts could happen?
5. What help or support might you need to help you make the leap of bringing up the issue?
In another blog post, I will cover tips on how to best have these conversations that scare us go well. How you can set things up for as much as success as possible.
If you would like to learn more about working with me, please contact me at judy@helpingyougetunstuck.com or text or call (303) 819-2099. I would love to hear from you. I am currently meeting with clients remotely or in my backyard in Boulder, CO.
Warmest wishes,
Judy O’Neill
The formula for breaking free from struggling with food and weight is different for each person. I can’t sum up all the elements that work for most people in one blog post, but I can empower you with information that could be a missing key for you to be able navigate your way off the […]
The formula for breaking free from struggling with food and weight is different for each person. I can’t sum up all the elements that work for most people in one blog post, but I can empower you with information that could be a missing key for you to be able navigate your way off the painful dieting roller coaster.
Juliet (not her real name) came to see me to lose weight. In her mid-forties, she had tried so many diets – yet, here she was, carrying 60 extra pounds.
Uncomfortable in her own skin, she had tried to keep a positive attitude along the way – but she had suffered a great deal. She has felt unattractive and like a failure because she couldn’t achieve her goal.
Juliet and the rest of us have been trained to think that the key to weight loss is to restrict the calories we consume. We believe that we need to have will power to restrain the part of us that wants the freedom to indulge in fattening foods.
For some people, counting calories with will power is an effective formula that truly allows them to drop extra weight. But for a lot of people, following the rules of a diet is actually a recipe for a painful diet/regain cycle. America’s standard approach of dieting and calorie-counting has led more than half of all adults in America to be overweight or obese.
With any compulsive behavior (like overeating, drinking, or smoking), once the pattern gets triggered, it develops a life of its own. It can feel like we are no longer in control – as if we have a crazy, craving person inside us that has power over us.
This craving part of us can get us to sabotage our heartfelt goals and priorities. Back when I struggled with terrible binge eating, I would promise myself in the morning that I would be “good” and eat healthy and light today. Then just hours later I would find myself most of the way through a package of Oreos, feeling bloated, scared, and ashamed.
What if we could integrate the two parts of ourselves – the craving one who wants the freedom to eat whatever he or she wants whether it makes us feel sick or not – and also the part who wants to take good care of ourselves and lose weight?
Why do you want to lose weight? Maybe you are motivated by the desire to feel attractive or more confident? Maybe you want to lose weight to have better health or to be able to do activities you used to love?
I think we want to feel attractive, confident, healthy, or be active because the end result we all crave is simply to feel good. Feeling attractive or confident feels good emotionally. The absence of weight-related health issues and being active feels so good physically.
“Feeling good” is a common goal most every person and inner part of us can rally around. On the other hand, “losing weight” comes loaded with all kinds of cultural conditioning, shoulds, and shame.
To get free of the whole struggle around food and weight, Juliet and I decided she could experiment with placing her long-held wish to be trim on the back burner. She started prioritizing her desire to feel good over her desire to be thin. Juliet focused on eating what tastes good and focused on following her body’s signals to eat the amount that will make her feel good for the hours after the meal.
You might say, “But she will go off the rails! What if her craving self wants a whole pint of Cherry Garcia every night?”
But here’s what often actually happens…. When we slow down and give ourselves permission to eat whatever we sense will feel good in our bodies in the moment and also afterward – big shifts happen. We start to eat like trim people who don’t obsess about their weight. We begin to build evidence that we can relax and trust ourselves to not overeat.
The craving part of us starts to see that he or she is not going to be made to feel deprived. He or she starts to feel heard and cared for – starting to relax and quiet. The part of us that wants to lose weight and the craving part of us can integrate. There can be a cease fire in the war over being “good” or “bad” with food.
You might be asking, “How do I actually pull this off? The first step is to eat slowly. I don’t think you have to be mindful of every bite. But when you eat slowly two things happen:
The second key to be able to follow the priority of eating to feel good is “pausing with permission.”
You know when you are eating a fabulous plate of food and you get the first sensations that you might soon be getting full? But you don’t want to stop because it’s so good? Well, for many people, pushing your plate away and pausing for a couple minutes to wait and see if you still really want to keep eating is empowering. It can keep us in the place of being able to choose whether to eat more – rather than just feeling compelled.
If after the pause, eating still feels good, then go ahead and enjoy. You can give yourself permission to eat whatever will feel good physically. You can continue to take more pauses, which gives you the ability to stop before you become overly full. How you feel in your body is the guideline – not how many calories or ounces.
You know how healthy kids can dive into a cookie jar and then abandon the third cookie part way through because they’ve had enough and another activity looks more fun? I love to help people find that flexible freedom.
You might be thinking, “But I have been so out of control for years – that won’t work for me.”
Personally, the permission to eat what I wanted and pausing and listening for my body’s input – is a huge part of how I got free of the obsession with food or weight. After 13 years of binge-eating disorder, I slowly learned I could trust myself around food. It still amazes me that my issues with food have been gone for 21 years.
I will write more about the other pieces of my journey in other posts.
This approach isn’t about control – it’s about maximizing pleasure. If we try to maximize pleasure, we will naturally stop when we are getting full. Being overly full simply doesn’t feel good.
Back to Juliet…. Week after week, Juliet kept her focus on listening to her body’s signals of hunger and fullness. She ended up eating a pretty balanced diet because that is what felt best. She gave herself permission to eat a treat when she really wanted one.
It used to be that whenever Juliet would eat ice cream, she would eat it really fast with a lot of guilt. With the new approach, when she wants an ice cream cone, she walks to her favorite ice cream store and sits outside in the shade and enjoys that cone slowly and completely. When savored and fully enjoyed, treats can actually help clients lose weight. If our inner craving self knows that he or she can have a rich dessert without guilt, he or she relaxes and doesn’t feel deprived. Knowing that having a treat isn’t a problem, the cravings can start to calm. Our inner self relaxes and doesn’t feel deprived.
Juliet and I discussed whether she wanted to weigh herself or not. She decided to experiment with proceeding without. They numbers on the scale had been a part of the huge struggle over the years.
After three weeks she noticed that her pants felt looser and going up stairs felt a little easier.
Juliet ended up losing 50 pounds by the time we stopped working together. She and I were both thrilled. She lost a lot of weight – and she lost the pre-occupation and shame around food. In our last session she said, “I can’t believe this has happened to me. I have become a trim, healthy person who doesn’t stress about food. I feel free.”
The ironic secret is this: If you prioritize feeling good, you will actually lose weight. This worked for me and for many clients. I love to help people lose weight and get free from the dieting roller coaster. I would be honored to speak with you so that you can see if working with me feels like a good next step.
Warm wishes,
Judy O’Neill, MSW
Our society can shame us for having anger. It is often deemed unsightly, not loving, and certainly not spiritual. This kind of belief can lead many of us to deny our anger, and much research tells us that denying or suppressing anger can be bad for our health. Anger can be a wake-up call that […]
Our society can shame us for having anger. It is often deemed unsightly, not loving, and certainly not spiritual.
This kind of belief can lead many of us to deny our anger, and much research tells us that denying or suppressing anger can be bad for our health. Anger can be a wake-up call that we are allowing someone to treat us badly. Anger can let us know that it is time to set a firm limit or get support to change a pattern.
Say you see your husband, Sam, at a party complaining to his friends about something you did. He was rolling his eyes in exasperation at “the old ball and chain.” You might respond in several ways. See for yourself which one feels most familiar and which feels most useful…
1. You go into denial that it bothered you. You aren’t consciously aware of any problem. When you wake up the next morning, your back is out. You end up spending the next few weeks completely stressed and occupied with pain relief, doctors’ visits, and coping. Your well-meaning subconscious has protectively tucked this disappointing piece of truth about your relationship away underground.
2. Or you lock yourself in your host’s bathroom and sob, feeling victimized, and trapped in the relationship. You then pull yourself together and put on a pleasant face. When you get home, you initiate love making to feel close again. Later you proceed to take it out on yourself by eating three pieces of cake and a whole carton of ice cream. You feel depressed.
3. Or maybe you simmer with resentment for days, acting icy, highly irritable, running late to meet him at an important business dinner. You are being really passive-aggressive – trying to get him to feel your anger. You don’t directly tell him what upset you. You complain to your friends about what an ass he is.
4. Or after the party you lose it – screaming at him and shaming him for being such a terrible, flawed husband. You end up feeling ashamed that you treated him like that.
Or…
5. You see his eye rolling and public complaining about you, and you feel anger arise inside. You think to yourself, “Oh that is so not OK.”
You approach him, “Hey Sam. Could I talk to you a second?”
Once you are away from the party: “What the heck! That was so not acceptable. I love you and I’m pissed!”
“I don’t want you to ever show disdain for me in public. It is disrespectful. If you have an issue with something I have done or said, bring it to me privately so that I can address it.”
So what went right with #5?
You were aware of Sam’s behavior and the anger that arose inside you.
You didn’t go to blame or shame. Instead you stayed with what is true for you and made a direct request. And you kept it about his particular action and didn’t go to drama about who he is as a husband.
You leaned into the relationship with sharing your feelings rather than pulling away.
You channeled the anger into empowerment. You took care of yourself by setting a clear boundary and expectation of respect. You raised the bar for the relationship.
The irony is that Sam isn’t to blame. It’s not really about blame – it’s more about choice and preference. Because we have free will, we get to choose what behaviors we will tolerate in life and which we won’t. .
Anger can be profound. I know it is so not always easy, but anger offers us a gift. It gives us guidance on how to navigate a life where we can thrive.
Best wishes,
Judy O’Neill, MSW
We all crave security and stability – some of us more than others. Human beings are like geese – we mate for life (or at least plan to). And we are pack animals like wolves and gorillas – we form tribes, societies, and groups to belong. Security can look like a steady job, being in […]
We all crave security and stability – some of us more than others. Human beings are like geese – we mate for life (or at least plan to). And we are pack animals like wolves and gorillas – we form tribes, societies, and groups to belong.
Security can look like a steady job, being in a long-term relationship, having a growing 401K, staying in the same town or church, having the approval of those whose opinions matter to us, and more….
But safety doesn’t make us happy all on its’ own. We all have varying degrees of needs for….
· Finding meaning in our days and lives
· Fun or enjoyment
· Love and authentic connection with others
· Good health
· Adventure
· Rest
· To be respected for who we truly are
I feel best when I honor all of these – in their own time. When I walk the dog of my friend who just had surgery, I honor my need for meaningful contribution and connection. When my husband and I sit on the couch and watch Wanda Sykes, it’s not terribly meaningful – but her outrageous humor makes me laugh so hard I cry. Or when I go to get scraped at the dentist next week, it isn’t fun, but it honors my need for good health.
We all sacrifice and deny these various needs as a price for security. And our wise bodies and emotions will send signals that we are off-track from heading toward our best lives.
· You might notice that the longer you stay in that well-paying, unfulfilling job, the more depressed you get.
· Maybe you sacrifice a healthy weight for security. As you try to not upset your spouse who gets angry when he drinks too much, anxiety and emotional eating grows.
· Or you’ve noticed a correlation between back pain and visiting critical in-laws.
· Perhaps you aren’t going on a dream trip to Alaska because you want to be a “good son” and your mom doesn’t want to hire any help even though she can afford it.
· Or you find yourself irritable each time you see the kids’ principal and realize it’s because you really don’t want to volunteer for the PTA fundraisers anymore.
So here’s the question to ask ourselves regularly: “Today, where might I be squashing my needs or wishes in order to protect the status quo or to not lose others’ approval?”
The great news is that we don’t have to do anything drastic – don’t have to blow up our lives – in order to start tending more to our non-security needs. Maybe you trim that trip to your mother-in-law’s from 4 nights to 3. Or you start opening up to a trusted friend about your husband’s drinking. Perhaps you experiment with not signing up to volunteer at next month’s event at the kids’ school and see how that feels.
Judy O’Neill, MSW
I woke up this morning feeling kind of heavy, a bit depressed, and not particularly excited about my nicely planned yet spacious Saturday. Then I felt an extra layer of disappointment that I wasn’t feeling good on such a nice day. I spent some time trying to get clear on why I was feeling low […]
I woke up this morning feeling kind of heavy, a bit depressed, and not particularly excited about my nicely planned yet spacious Saturday. Then I felt an extra layer of disappointment that I wasn’t feeling good on such a nice day. I spent some time trying to get clear on why I was feeling low – and clarity didn’t come.
The image arose of my putting my disappointing mood in a purse and inviting it to come along with me into my day. This helped to bust up the sense of my feelings being the ruiner of my day. I found myself feeling less struggle, feeling lighter. I became more able to enjoy my husband’s outrageously funny remarks about something at work, more able to enjoy how soft our Molly’s fur is. (Doggie, not child, by the way.)
What else needs an invitation to be included in my day? What other feelings need some tenderness? I am going on an international trip in 6 weeks and could admit to myself that I’m not just excited – I’m nervous! That fence between excitement and nervousness is awfully narrow to walk on. I prefer to be excited – but it might make me feel best if I push down the protective fence and allow both.
I once heard that expanding the size of your personal world is stressful. That stress might look like difficulty making decisions, being fussy or irritable (I prefer the non-pathologizing word “fussy”), or simply a physical, shaky feeling of anxiety.
I didn’t make the decision to go on the trip just by listening to my heart and gut feelings. I also asked myself three questions:
· What was the joy per dollar ratio? This would be fulfilling a lifetime wish of mine and Michael’s. It was a risk, but we think we could have an enriching, hugely fun time. It could be a very high joy per dollar ratio.
· “What works?” is a question I ask myself daily when I am choosing how to spend my time, money, and energy. “Does the trip work right now to make my life happier?” At this particular time, could the cost create enough long-term stress that might outweigh the joy of going? After a realistic look at finances and checking in with our nervous systems, we concluded that the trip worked. Michael and I committed to going to Africa.
· Another question that helps me step back and see the big picture is “Would I truly regret not going this year?” The answer was yes.
So with my nervousness, excitement, and now-faded low mood, I step forward into my day feeling a bit more whole.
Warmest wishes,
Judy O’Neill, MSW
