Tools, tips, and musings related to all things therapy and mental health.
I often like to ask people I'm coaching: Which of these looks like a more interesting life when you step back at the end of it?
Because many of us have been conditioned for so long in binary and linear thinking, we hate the idea of life as a "jungle gym." We want to get to the "top" of our ladders - to that very small square inch we consider "success" - and we want to get there now…
When we experience something that feels greater than us, it takes us completely outside of ourselves. Out of our heads, out of our worries, out of our feelings of separateness and self-importance. We become overwhelmed by flood of emotion, as if our whole heart, our whole body, was expanding. It can almost be uncomfortable.
Can you think back to a time when you felt a sense of awe and feel it well up in your body, just a little bit again? As if you took a little bit of that place with you, and the experience continues to live on within you...?
Disclaimer: While occasionally I include research and insights from my graduate classes in clinical psychology on my blog, I am not at this time a licensed therapist or mental health provider and therefore no content on this blog or website should not be considered or serve as replacement for therapeutic advice.
Did you know that a lot of goals in therapy revolve around helping people become their more "authentic selves"? In fact, the idea of self-actualization as explained by the great humanistic psychologist and theorist Carl Rogers is nothing more than "to be that self which one truly is." So while it might seem like making it to the top of Maslow's hierarchy of needs is about becoming someone different, someone "better," or someone society thinks you "should" be, it's actually about a deep sense of self-understanding, authentic living, and peeling away all the layers of conditioning that have been added over time so that you can be more uniquely and authentically YOU.
How they treat you is more important than how much you like them.
There's a big difference between liking someone - even loving someone - and being in the relationship you want. But to a great extent (hello rom coms and online dating apps!) we've been trained to focus on the partner, rather than the relationship. Do I like them? Do I find them attractive? Are they smart/confident/successful/interesting/funny enough to swipe right?
"Yes, and" has become my new favorite phrase. It gives us permission to hold two - often conflicting - things to be true at the same time. You don't want to, I know. It's not the world we grew up in, where everything was nice and black-or-white, or for the really enlightened...shades of gray. But sometimes you actually do want two things at the same time, and one is not necessarily more right than the other. Sometimes two people can be equally right at the same time, in their own way…
Easily one of my favorite mantra’s from Elizabeth Gilbert’s Big Magic. The question is: Do you want an easy life, or do you want an interesting one?
Your struggle doesn’t have to be worse than someone else’s in order for it to be valid.
A lot of times we stop ourselves from feeling what we're feeling because we don't think we should be "allowed" to feel that way. We feel guilty for our emotions because "it shouldn't be a big deal," or "somebody else has it worse"…
Questioning where you're ultimately headed in your career? The ikigai is an exercise I did when trying to figure out the next direction in my own. Here’s how you can, too:
Create a Venn Diagram with 4 overlapping circles (I admit 4 is messy, so recommend using a cup to aid your artwork!) Label each circle with the following…
I always find it interesting that no matter what advances we make in technology, productivity, and even standards of living, we somehow only use them to find a way to work more, rather than less. Our companies have become more competitive and often create a culture of fire drills, staying late, and answering emails at night and over the weekend. Even our "leisure time" has become productive - whether it be a side hustle, something we can post on Instagram, or meditating 20 minutes twice a day because we're told it makes us better.
I was getting coffee with another therapist several weeks ago and as I attempted to glean some advice about my future she asked me: "Where are you right now?"
At first I tried to explain that I was still just in my second quarter of grad school, and when that wasn't the right answer, I tried explaining where I was more mentally and emotionally - pretty happy with where I currently am in life, feeling like I made the right choice switching careers, etc.
Build your career around your lifestyle, not your lifestyle around your career.
Have you ever stopped long enough to consider the difference? When we grow up with the question what, rather than who, we want to be when we grow up, it can become easy to conflate the career we want with the lifestyle we want without really realizing it. In fact, the career you want and the lifestyle you want can be really different, and when they come in conflict, intentional choices and compromises sometimes have to be made.
While I’ve been hesitant to add more to the current conversation around Coronavirus for many reasons, not least that I am not an expert, and I am especially not an expert on the wide range of ways people from all walks of life are being affected, as I’ve taken call after call these past couple weeks, it has become clear that between layoffs, hiring freezes, and the great uncertainties of how to plan around so many unknowns, we could all use a few more words of hope and comfort as it relates to the future right now, especially those of whose careers are currently up in the air. While I have encouraged many who have been able to keep their jobs and work from home to use this time for more intentional planning and personal reflection, for many in the middle of a transition already this may simply not be a reality. And so I wanted to offer just a few thoughts that I hope will help some of you who are feeling the weight of a changing job market, even if they cannot necessarily speak perfectly to all.
Something I’ve been reflecting on quite a bit recently (yes, also in light of reading Designing Your Life), is my life’s “mission.” The thing that drives the choices I make in everything from my career to my free time, and I have to say, it never fails to be incredibly motivating every time I return to it.
In my Intentional Careering course, I have our exercises culminate into a final “career” mission statement, which serves as a guide to provide direction and inspiration, but is also flexible enough to apply to many potential roles (including the one you might currently be stuck in). I generally propose coming to one by putting together your personal strengths and unique gifts with a greater aim or goal.
But I’ve recently been taking it one level higher and more largely framing the mission of my life - a statement of intent that reflects my fundamental beliefs about the world, a framework under which my work and the rest of my life falls, and an idea that captures how I personally view the meaning of my life (for now, anyhow)…
I recently picked up a copy of Designing Your Life by Bill Burnett and Dave Evans - in part because it felt like a slightly more inspirational balance to some of my heavier reading in grad school, and in part because I thought it would be a helpful resource to eventually offer others or integrate into my lil’ career course.
I was excited to return to some of the exercises I had done throughout my whole quarterlife crisis, such as really intentionally outlining what my priorities were (i.e. work, relationships, health, spirituality…) and making sure they were in balance, but as I opened the book I found myself thinking: “Haven’t I done this already?”
It seems therapy has recently grown quite a bit in popularity, and you need look no further than bestselling books like Maybe You Should Talk to Someone by Lori Gottlieb, shows like Couples Therapy with Dr. Orna Guralnik, or podcasts like Where Should We Begin with Esther Perel (all of which I personally recommend). Therapists have even taken over Instagram with bite-sized recommendations for managing burnout and anxiety, or gentle reminders that you are not defined by your trauma.
So, while my first quarter was not yet focused as much on treatment or applicable takeaways for the everyday person, I thought that given the newfound interest in therapy as a field I’d still share some of what I learned from the therapist-side of things in my classes this past quarter.
Yes, I am one of those people who sees the word "break" and immediately thinks: just how much can I squeeze in? And I'm working on it. Despite constantly reminding my yoga students that the end of the year is a time to slow down, take a step back and reflect the before the new year - like that brief but oh-so-rich pause between inhale and exhale - with my precious time off between quarters in grad school I wanted to fit in everything I possibly could before I lost all those extra hours in the week again.
Feeling stuck? Something I've been thinking about lately is the idea of plateaus. As I personally get further into the weeds of my own transitions this past year - including going back to school, teaching yoga, and deepening new relationships out here in California - I once again catch myself often just going through the motions. When I take a step back I know that everything I'm doing now is so much more in alignment with my values and wouldn't think about giving it up for a minute, but it's a good reminder that the work never just ends.
Yes both optimists and pessimists alike have tended to earn bad reputations in different ways over time - from the Debbie Downer or cynical New Yorker scrooging through life, to the Pollyanna type that gets into trouble for being unrealistic and naive.
But when we dig a little deeper into the actual differences in mindset between more optimistic people and more pessimistic ones, we start to see how we, too, are constantly choosing between the subtle differences in these approaches in our everyday challenges and decisions, and just how tangible the effects of two very different perspectives can have on our greater lives.
“There are very, very, very many people in the world today who will not have had the kind of breakfast that you had. Many, many millions in the world today are hungry. It’s not your fault, but you woke up in a warm bed, you were able to have a shower, you put on clean clothes, and you are in a home that is warm in the winter.” - The Dalai Lama and Desmond Tutu, The Book of Joy
Puts things into perspective pretty quickly, doesn’t it? When I returned from Southeast Asia last year, everything was a blessing. The amount I wanted or “needed” diminished immensely; I was grateful simply to be born in a country where 3 meals a day and functional plumbing were conveniences we could afford to take for granted. But - not unexpectedly - over time this newfound sense of perspective faded, and keeping up with those around me started to take precedence once again.
Kim (Bielak) Slipski, Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist #143946
(310) 734-8140 | kimbielaktherapy@gmail.com | 32 S. Raymond Ave, Suite 3B, Pasadena, CA 91105
