Rachel Thomasian was recently featured in an article on the HuffPost, which discusses the stress people can experience about hobbies and shares some insight on how to reframe the idea of having a hobby.
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By: Emma Eskildsen  Although the time-change can lead to confusion and sleep loss for many people, we are approaching the less-disruptive change of “falling back,” which can sometimes help people to catch up on sleep and feel more alert during the day. As pleasant as the extra hour of sleep is, this time of year can be frustrating when it comes to leaving work after the sun sets and missing out on time to spend outside. Whether you need to adjust your evening strolls, or you need to make sure you wake up at the current time, there are certain steps you can take to ease your body out of Daylight Saving time and protect your mental health during the shorter winter days.
Sunlight Getting yourself out in the sun in the morning can be a great way to kick-start this season. Since we “fall back” this time of year, it can be helpful to aim to spend time outside when possible to boost your mood, maintain your circadian rhythm, and combat dreariness that can arise when you don’t see much daylight for too many days in a row. This can also be helpful the day before the time change - spending an extra bit of time moving around outside if the weather permits! Activity Going on a walk during your lunch break, getting in an extra workout over the weekend, or stretching before bed - these are all small examples of how we can care for our bodies while we adjust to the new time. Engaging in a mindfulness or relaxation practice, lighting candles, gentle stretching, and putting away screens an hour or two before bed are ways to emphasize the intentionality of your evening routine to support healthy sleep. This is also a good time to re-evaluate your schedule to make sure you’re able to budget time for exercise. For example, if you typically go on a run after work but don’t feel comfortable running in the dark, it may be helpful to plan your exercise for before work or on your break, if you have time. Clocks To prepare for the change of time, you’ll want to adjust your clocks the evening before we “fall back” to gently introduce your body to the new time & save yourself the trouble the next day. The actual date of the change is November 6th at 2 am. You can also set an alarm for your normal wake-up time on Sunday to help your body adjust and make things a bit easier for the following evenings and mornings. No need to stay up an hour later than you’d want to on Saturday night - your body will thank you for the extra time to rest! It can be frustrating to have to change your schedule when the sun starts setting earlier than you’d like it to. Being intentional about the use of your time can help soften the blow of shorter days. Remember to treat yourself gently and with kindness as we enter colder months and shorter days. By: Mandi Duncan  Imagine this. It’s date night. You and your partner have been waiting weeks to finally hit the town. You are steps away from grabbing your coat and being out the door when your partner looks at you with eyes you’ve seen before. “Oh no,” you think to yourself, “an argument, right as we are walking out the door. How?!” You panic and brace for impact. As you suspected, a full blown argument keeps you stuck under the door frame for longer than either of you could have expected.
In those moments, how can we quickly and genuinely bring about solutions to a conflict? It takes a level of self awareness, self soothing, and rehearsing these three steps over and over. 1. Go to the Balcony This first step is all about self soothing. You may not have the availably to quite literally take time away and go to a balcony. Instead, imagine a figurative balcony where you can disconnect from intense emotions and take a few breaths. This will give you an opportunity to respond rather than react. 2. Step to their Side This second step is about empathizing with another’s feelings. You may not agree with their point, but you may be able to acknowledge a feeling and summarize what you heard. This may look something like this, “I know you are frustrated right now because me working late caused us to leave later for dinner. I know how being on time is important to you and I might also be frustrated if I were in your shoes.” 3. Build a Golden Bridge This final step is about offering an olive branch. How can you suggest a compromise, if fitting, or be apart of the solution. This might sound something like this, “If we do miss our reservation, l will take full responsibly in finding a new restaurant for us tonight. In the future, I’ll also will try to communicate when I might be late in getting home.” This shows that you desire to reach a conclusion that serves both people. After all, the only “win” in an argument, is when two people who love each other can maintain love, respect and understanding through compromise. By: Emma Eskildsen  With Halloween and the rest of the holidays fast approaching, now may be a good time to reflect on ways to stay grounded during the hustle and bustle that comes with the holiday season. Although this time of year can be filled with joy and celebration, it can be easy to get swept up in the stress and shame that sometimes creeps into our yearly festivities. Once the costumes come on, we find ourselves rolling straight into holiday dinners, family celebrations, gift exchanges, and even discussions of how to avoid gaining weight during this season.
Every family has different holiday traditions and customs, but it is not uncommon for individuals to feel strained by social and cultural expectations, especially related to family gatherings and diet culture. Although this time of year is meant to be filled with gratitude and generosity, many people find themselves feeling criticized or judged. This is also a time of year when it may become especially hard to maintain boundaries with friends and loved ones. If you find yourself feeling overloaded with responsibilities and expectations this time of year, it may be helpful to introduce a regular practice of mindfulness alongside your daily to-do list. Journaling about what’s important to you during this season, reaching out to trusted and compassionate loved ones, or taking a walk to step out of a bustling childhood home for a few minutes - these are all ways to ground yourself and take care of your emotional health. As we move towards the end of the year, remind yourself that you deserve compassion and gentleness - from others, and especially from yourself. By: Mandi Duncan  You have probably heard the phrase “everything in moderation” a couple hundred times
and maybe even used it yourself to bring some balance to your lifestyle. As our society continues to become more “screen-obsessed,” why is it that this moderation barometer seems to fade into the distance when it comes to daily social media use? Social media has been in the hot seat for a number of years; receiving a lot of shame, criticism, and negativity. What if, instead of counting all aspects of social media as harmful, we managed our usage in a way where social media is serving us rather than the other way around. Social media can be a wonderful place of connection but let’s make sure we are moderating our wellness up against social media regularly. Physical Wellness vs. Social Media Often when we think of scrolling social media, I am sure you think of the same picture I do - someone on a couch, shoulders hunched, neck lowered, tense face, and a speedy thumb. Typically a user is not walking around, moving their body or focusing on great posture. The average person in the United States spends around 2 hours and 30 minutes on social media alone... imagine how much strain this puts on our body as we lower our neck to read about our pal’s backpacking trip to Costa Rica. With so much pressure on our spine and shoulders, it is important we stay mindful of the time spent, not only on social media, but also on screens below our sightline so we do not put our physical wellness at risk. Emotional Wellness vs. Social Media Be intentional. Mindless entertainment is such a gift after a long day, but how often do we consider that in those moments, our minds are still receiving information? In the morning, before we take on the stresses of the day, is it helpful to be so intertwined with hundreds of other people’s lives while still in bed? Or could it be helpful to meditate, read an inspirational quote, or spend time drinking coffee with a loved one before you scroll? Being mindful of when we scroll, for how long, and for what purpose might put healthy boundaries around the right amount of time to spend on social media. Social Wellness vs. Social Media Facebook, Instagram and platforms of the like, are a great way to stay connected and enhance the relationships we choose to keep in our lives. We can not always stay up to date with every person in our circle, so getting to watch our best friend’s baby take her first step becomes a moment we feel we were apart of. Apart from the positives, if you feel that you may have lost social relationships outside of liking a few pictures here-and- there, try pulling up that person’s contact after seeing a picture and shooting them a text to bring things to a more personal level - start a longer conversation. Maybe it’s been a while since you’ve hoped on the phone with that person or met for coffee, could you pursue that interaction? Humans are hardwired with a need to belong and feel accepted, pursing this outsider of social media might bring you a deeper sense of connectedness that you desire. By: Emma Eskildsen  Turning towards your partner is a simple but vital way to strengthen the connection and intimacy of your partnership. Looking into your partner’s eyes when they tell you about their day, asking them for their opinion on a tough situation, winking at them from across the room - these are all examples of turning towards your partner.
When two people are dating or in a relationship, their interactions are filled with bids for connection. Being receptive to and responsive to these bids makes our partners feel heard, appreciated, and loved. No one has the capacity to turn towards their partners one hundred percent of the time, and that’s okay! Sometimes we are preoccupied with other thoughts or responsibilities and miss opportunities to turn toward our partner. When there is disconnection or frustration in a relationship, it can be difficult for people to tap into their vulnerability and turn toward each other. At Playa Vista Counseling, we work with couples to understand their communication styles and habits of interaction. Talking with a therapist can help couples attune to each other more effectively and more often. As a couple becomes more receptive to each other’s bids for affection, they are able to turn towards each other more frequently and foster a more intimate and fulfilling connection. Watching these connections grow is a true privilege that comes with couples therapy work!  Dating Therapy in LA Something that has changed significantly since I started providing therapy more than a decade ago is the kind of couples that enter my office seeking help for their relationship. What we’re seeing more of as therapists are couples who are dating or engaged seeking professional guidance to improve their relationship. What gets me most excited about this shift is providing dating therapy to start a young relationship on the path to success before negative patterns are created and established. Counseling for a dating or engaged couple provides the opportunity to establish healthy habits and behaviors. When providing dating therapy, we can practice positive communication, conflict resolution and emotional attachment that will help a relationship long term. With dating therapy, we’re providing tools, skills and scaffolding to help prevent or work through problems in a healthy way in order to prevent the corrosion that can come from resentment or unhealthy habits.
Another approach our therapy practice takes in helping clients is by providing individual therapy focused on their dating concerns. Our therapists work with people who are struggling to find fulfilling relationships as well as helping those who need guidance in their existing relationships. Dating therapy can be an excellent resource to those seeking support and skills to help make their relationships healthy and successful. We love working with individuals and couples at every stage of their relationship. If you are curious about dating therapy and would like to learn how a Marriage and Family Therapist can help, please contact us to start a conversation! By: Emma Eskildsen  Whether you’ve just been given another demanding project at work, or your child just spilled something on the carpet, everyone has moments in their day where they would benefit from taking a moment to reconnect with themselves and feel grounded. When someone is grounded, they may feel less tense, more centered, and more balanced in their emotions. Grounding is an excellent tool for when we need to take a step back or take a breath after dealing with something frustrating or stressful.
Grounding can also be a vital practice for working through conflict with your romantic partner or your family. Studies have shown that when couples attempting to resolve a conflict are asked to take a twenty-minute break and read a magazine, they come back together to have a much more productive, empathetic conversation. Although sometimes in our society couples are encouraged to “not go to bed angry” and so on, sometimes it can be beneficial to take some time to cool off and ground yourself to re-enter a discussion with a clear head. If a situation is particularly distressing, specific grounding techniques can be used to calm our nervous system and center on our breathing. One of these is the 5-4-3-2-1 exercise, where you take deep breaths while counting 5 things around you that you can see, 4 things you can hear, 3 things you can feel, 2 things you can smell, and 1 thing you can taste. Another way to ground yourself is to simply count your breaths, either with box breathing (5 seconds in, 5 second hold, 5 seconds out, 5 second hold) or counting 10 deep breaths and then starting over. However you prefer to do it, deep, intentional breathing helps us to regulate our emotions and indicates to our bodies that we are safe. Utilizing grounding to work our way through tough conversations and stressful situations becomes more intuitive and natural the more that we practice. Even if we’re coming out of a casual or less hectic day, grounding is a skill that can help us connect to our bodies and our surroundings in a mindful, balanced way.  Rachel Thomasian was recently featured in an article on the HuffPost, which discusses how to address going to therapy with your parents. The article breaks down different ways to talk about going to therapy and how to help parent's with this process.
By: Stella Michon  When I start working with new clients they often struggle to identify language that properly captures their emotions. Most of us are able to determine if we feel negative or positive/pleasant or unpleasant/good or bad, but the specific feeling gets lost. The Feeling Wheel can be an amazing tool to help individuals increase emotional literacy, emotional awareness and resilience. Putting language to our experiences can be a powerful way to harness our resources and strengths. Once we are able to access that we feel angry (or more specifically disrespected etc.); we are more able to identify the unmet need. Identifying the need can then allow us to understand what we can do for ourselves, or ask of our loved ones and community. If I know I am feeling scared or anxious, I may then recognize that my need for safety or security isn’t present. If I am feeling lonely or rejected, I may have a desire for connection or to be understood that is absent. Through the process of more accurately identifying, articulating and expressing our feelings we can then take better care of ourselves. I recommend folks start by trying to access the core emotion found in the inner circle and work outward to find the more specific descriptor. Then pause, do a quick body scan, and ask a few questions. What does it feel like in your body when you are ____ (feeling word)? What thoughts accompany this feeling? What was the first sign this feeling was coming forward? Does this point to an unmet need or potential boundary violation? And finally, can you find a way to tolerate the discomfort of this feeling or do you need to find a coping skill to manage it and move through it? Is there something you can do (or not do) that will allow you to get some space if this feeling is negative or distressing? Deepening your understanding of your inner emotional world can allow for emotional freedom. Give this process a try The Feeling Wheel was developed by Gloria Wilcox Image sourced: https://imgur.com/gallery/q6hcgs |