Tag: dr stephanie smith

Mental Health Is More Than Mental Illness

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Today I am joining many other bloggers around the world in support of the American Psychological Association’s Mental Health Blog Day #MHBlogDay.   Here’s a bit about why recognizing and talking about mental health in May (and every month, really) is so crucial:

Congress designated May as Mental Health Month in 1949 to illustrate the importance of mental health issues to the overall health and well-being of American citizens. Each year, bloggers will join APA  for a Mental Health Month Blog Day to educate the public about mental health, decrease stigma about mental illness, and discuss strategies for making lasting lifestyle and behavior changes that promote overall health and wellness.
“Mental health” does not mean “mental illness.”  While understanding mental illness is important, a well-rounded understanding of mental health also includes things like parenting, dating, friendships, aging, healthy eating and exercise, financial planning, spirituality, work-life balance and happiness – among many, many other parts of life.  In this way, everyone should be participating in Mental Health Blog Day, because it’s something we can all relate to.
Add your voice to the event or check out what other people are talking about over at APA.

Taking Your Child To A Funeral

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Should we take our kids to the funeral?

That’s a sad question that most every parent will have to ask themselves at one time or another.  We recently lost a dear family friend and my husband and I found ourselves asking this very question.  Now that a few weeks have gone by and I’ve reflected a bit, I have come up with a few thoughts on the topic.  Here goes:

Funerals are important for many reasons: they provide structure to our grief, they answer questions about the meaning of death and what happens after life, they give us the opportunity to grieve with (and support) others; and perhaps most importantly, they allow us to participate in a tradition that humans have been participating in for many, many years.  And just doing something that our ancestors did can be comforting.

The other part about funerals, though is that they are sad, and often quiet, and can bring up lots of questions too.  So, should we bring our kids along? A few things to consider:

  • Kids can be a wonderful distraction from grief.  Lively, healthy, happy children can be a lovely contrast to the pain of losing a loved one.  But not always.  Sometimes they are too much of a distraction, though – like my 3 year old would have been at the funeral – he didn’t join us.  In this case, they might be best left at home.
  • Funerals are part of life.  We are all going to die.  As hard as that is to write down, of course it is true.  Shielding our children from that reality isn’t doing them any favors.  Allowing them to witness others grieving, consoling, supporting, remembering and loving each other is.
  • Life isn’t just about us.  At the recent funeral I attended, I experienced the importance of tradition, history, culture, language, music and food in times of grief.  Just like in times of celebration (weddings, births, baptisms), grieving families benefit from the familiarity of shared family and community traditions.  Life isn’t all about us.  It’s also about the many people who came before us, and all those who will come after us.   And important lesson for all kids (and adults) to learn.
  • Sometimes things are boring, long and uncomfortable.  The funeral we attended was all in Greek (literally), was quite long, and we pretty much had no idea what was going on.  But that wasn’t the point.  The point was to sit quietly and respectfully as we remembered our deceased friend and showed his family our love and support.  Just like life isn’t all about us, it also isn’t always instantly-gratifying.  The sooner and better we learn that, the easier life will be.

 

 

Snack Time with Produce For Kids

The other day my kids and I decided to try a couple new, yummy-sounding snacks from the Simply Summer Cookbook – the new, free, e-cookbook from Produce for Kids.  Get it here!

It was a typical day: coming in from school after a long day, lots of homework, piano lessons, soccer practice, doorbell ringing – you know, the typical.  (Why do we pack our lives so full of busy-ness? I guess that’s another post for another time).  Anyway, 3 of the 4 of us felt like it was a good day to try something new.  One of us spent the entire time moping on the couch – but I felt like 3 out of 4 was as good as it was going to get so we went for it!

The 2 participating children chose the Sunny Breakfast Skewers and the Peach Pie Smoothie as their recipes to try.  Luckily we had almost all the ingredients on hand:ingredients

We made the skewers first.  I must say that the peanut butter-coconut mixture was DELICIOUS all on its own:

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Skewering the fruit and waffles was a fun activity, though the metal sticks I had on hand were a little dangerous.  Wood might have been better.  Oops:skewers

Next we made the smoothies. Super easy:smoothies

The finished product:smoothies

Overall the snacks were delicious.  Preparation took a little more time than I would normally spend, but the results were worth it and we had enough skewers leftover for the next day! Delicious!

Check out these recipes and a bunch of others in the new Simply Summer Cookbook.

 

How To Stop Comparing Yourself To Your Neighbors

Brooke Becker: Shutterstock

Brooke Becker: Shutterstock

Comparing ourselves to others may be one of the most detrimental things we can do for our self esteem. When compared to the Facebook posts of our “friends,” our kids are never as well-mannered or athletic, our spouses never as romantic or wealthy, and our jobs never as glamorous or high-powered. Shutting off all our social media outlets might be one strategy for stopping the constant comparison to others. The problem with that is, comparisons are easy to make no matter where we are. So here’s another idea: Have a little self-compassion.

Treat yourself as you would treat a close friend or family member.

For example:

Set realistic expectations for yourself. You would never expect a friend to raise 2 perfect children, work 50 hours a week, maintain a HGTV-worthy home at all times and still fit into her prom dress. So why do you expect that of yourself? Keep your expectations real and do-able in this lifetime.

Accept your idiosyncrasies. We all have them: weird, quirky things that make us who we are. For example, I have a friend who can’t tell a joke to save her life; she always gets the punchline wrong. It’s one of the things I love about her. Embrace the parts of you that make you, you – even if they are, technically, imperfections.

Understand that you will make mistakes. Why are we so much more accepting of other people’s missteps, failures and screw-ups than we are our own? I’m not sure. But I do know that most of us could stand to be as gracious to ourselves as we are to others.

You never know what’s behind the front door.  When all else fails, and you still find yourself comparing your life to the other, fancier people in your life, know this: Everyone has struggles of some kind.  What looks perfect rarely is, and everyone (yes, even the most confident, beautiful and rich among us) have our foibles and weak spots.

Portions of this post originally appeared as part of a series on Personal Development Genesis

Why “Reparative Therapy” Is Wrong

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President Obama recently announced that he will work to ban the use of “reparative therapy.”  In case you’re not sure what that is, it’s a sort of therapy that claims to change someone’s sexual or gender identity.  Sometimes it’s also called “gay conversion” therapy.

Why don’t these sorts of therapies work?

Check out this statement of support of President Obama from the American Psychological Association:

“So-called reparative therapies are aimed at ‘fixing’ something that is not a mental illness and therefore does not require therapy. There is insufficient scientific evidence that they work, and they have the potential to harm the client,” said APA 2015 President Barry S. Anton, PhD. “APA has and will continue to call on mental health professionals to work to reduce misunderstanding about and prejudice toward gay and transgender people.”

I love this statement because it sums up the problem with “reparative therapies” perfectly – they are trying to change something that isn’t broken, wrong or a mental illness.  In fact there is nothing at all that needs to be changed, except perhaps a society that isn’t as supportive as it could be to all of its population.

Want to read more about the topic? Check out this informative story in the Washington Post.  Or check out all of APA’s statement of support.

 

How To Talk To Your Spouse About Something Other Than Kids Or Money

KellyandGarienWebDetails_068Marriage is a business.  Included in this business are the:

  • Finance Department (paychecks, bills, etc)
  • Logistics Department (getting people where they need to be, when they need to be there)
  • Human Resources Department (managing relationships inside and outside the “business”)
  • Facilities Management (everything involved with keeping the home working, and the people within it fed)
  • Research and Development Group (planning for the future, rearing children and pets)

I’m sure I’m missing a few key departments, but you get the idea.  It’s so easy to fall into the trap of treating your marriage or partnership as only a business – and not a romantic, intimate relationship.  In fact, keeping a marriage romantic and intimate can feel like taking on another part-time job.  Luckily, it’s a part-time job with lots of rewards.

One of the first and easiest (though not always easy) ways to keep your marriage out of the business-zone is by talking about things that have NOTHING to do with the business of marriage.  That means no talk about:

  • money
  • kids
  • pets
  • in-laws or extended family
  • carpools
  • work

Well, what else is there to talk about, you say?  Luckily there are lots of things.  Probably all the things you USED to talk about before you entered into business marital bliss together.  And believe it or not, those topics still exist.  They might include things like:

  • books
  • politics
  • religion
  • movies
  • sports
  • dreams/fears/hopes

You get the idea.  There’s a whole world of things to talk about.  So next time you’re having a date night or find yourself alone together give some non-business conversation a try!

 

 

 

How To Forgive Yourself

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As a parent I have about a million opportunities to screw up everyday.  When I do, it can be important to do a little self-forgiveness so that I can move on to the next challenge without the weight of guilt around my shoulders.  We all make mistakes (in parenting and otherwise), so naturally are all in need of forgiveness at one time or another.  Sometimes we seek forgiveness from others, but it’s from ourselves that forgiveness is also desired.

Some ideas about how to forgive yourself and move on:

Be Intentional. When thinking about forgiving yourself a transgression, it can be useful to be organized about it. What is it that you have done? Why would you like to forgive yourself? What will that forgiveness mean in the long term? Writing these things down might also be useful as a way to keep your thoughts clear and organized.

Make a moment out of it. Give yourself the time and space to really think through what forgiveness means, and then give it to yourself. Instead of trying to accomplish this difficult task while driving kids to soccer practice or making dinner, try carving out some time just for yourself to sit and process it all. Preferably time when you won’t be interrupted – but instead have the luxury of spending some real, quality time with yourself.

Let yourself move on. Forgiving ourselves doesn’t mean we have forgotten what we have done, but it does mean letting go of the anger, guilt and shame associated with event. It will likely take some practice, but true forgiveness means allowing yourself to move on from the past with improved knowledge and behavior.

Want to read more about forgiveness? Check out my posts:

What Is Forgiveness?

How to Forgive Someone

Parts of this post originally appeared on Personal Development Genesis.

How To Forgive Someone

The other day I posted about forgiveness.  Actually, I wrote a lot about what forgiveness is NOT.  Take a look.  Now that we know what forgiveness is (because there are a lot of misconceptions out there), how do we do it?

  1. Forgiveness can’t be forced.  We forgive people in our lives because we want to, and have gotten to a place where we are emotionally able to.  Forgiveness doesn’t happen because a) Someone apologized to us b) We feel like we should c) Someone bullies us into it.  Insincere or coerced forgiveness just isn’t the real deal.
  2. Forgiveness is about moving on.  When we decide to forgive someone, it means that we have decided that we want to move on from the experience, and actively release its hold on our emotions and behaviors.
  3. Forgiveness does not equal forgetting.  Most of us have pretty good memories, meaning that there is no way we will forget the harm that has been done.  Luckily, that’s not what forgiving is.  Instead, forgiving is saying something like: “I know exactly what happened to me and what it meant, but I am going to choose to look forward and move on with my life.  I realize what has happened in the past, but I am going to build my future in a different way; and not let that past hurt continue to cast a shadow over me.”
  4.  Forgiveness doesn’t always mean relationship.  Just because you have forgiven someone, doesn’t mean you have to stay in a relationship with them.  Forgiveness simply means releasing yourself from the power of the past event.  It has nothing to do with continuing on in a relationship.  When you choose to forgive AND stay in relationship with the transgressor, it does mean you will be making yourself vulnerable to future hurts.  Vulnerability is a big part of relationships no matter how you cut it.  But that’s a topic for another time.

Forgiveness is something that affects all of us as one time or another.  In fact, just about everyone experiences both sides of the coin: being the forgiver and the forgivee.  It’s an important skill in overall mental health.

 

What is Forgiveness?

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Forgiveness is tricky business. So tricky, in fact, that I rarely use the word.  I find that it’s too complicated, too misunderstood, and too emotionally charged to be used very often.  For example, does forgiving someone mean you have forgotten their transgressions?  Does it mean that what they did to hurt you doesn’t matter anymore? Are they free to do it again?

I don’t think so.

Sometimes it is more useful to consider what forgiveness is NOT.

  • Forgiveness is NOT forgetting a past hurt or transgression
  • Forgiveness is NOT something that comes easily or without much thought or effort
  • Forgiveness is NOT something that happens automatically when the transgressor has apologized.  Instead it is something solely in the hands of the person who has been hurt.  It is their decision and action alone.
  • Forgiveness does NOT equal a continued relationship.  Meaning: you can forgive someone of something, and also then choose to terminate your relationship with them.  The two actions have nothing to do with one another.

Forgiving someone else (or even oneself) can be an important piece of mental health, particularly when it comes to some of the bigger hurts in life.  But it can’t be rushed; and it definitely isn’t useful when it is insincerely given, or bullied out of us.  Stay tuned for tips on how to forgive.

 

 

How To Stop Being So Hard On Yourself

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One of the things many of us often take for granted is how changeable our thought patterns are. It’s easy for our thoughts to get stuck in ruts, and often those ruts are negative. “I’m so fat,” “Everyone else is smarter than me,” “I’m a crummy parent.” These sorts of thoughts can begin to feel automatic. But they don’t have to be.

Just as we move and challenge our arms and legs when we try to get into good physical shape, we can also move and change our thoughts to improve our mental health. Choosing one thought to change at a time is a good place to start. Say, for example you want to change the thought “I’m not as good as the people around me.” Try the following steps:

  1. Create an alternate thought to replace the old one. Something like: “My life is just as important as everyone else’s.”
  2. Each time the old, negative thought pops up, say (either out loud or to yourself) the new, more positive thought. This may be a bit time-consuming at first. You may find that you have to repeat the old thought over and over again. But don’t give up, with time, the new thought will become more automatic.
  3. As you notice the old, negative thought decreasing in frequency over a period of time, pick a new thought to tackle. Repeat.

This article originally appeared on March 17, 2015 on Personal Development Genesis as part of series on how to silence your inner critic.