My Year End Top Ten: Things I Tell My Therapy Clients (and also try to practice myself)

What do you need the end of the year and start of the next to be?  What do you want it to be?  If you are like me, I want it to be EVERYTHING, and I need it to be SUPER relaxing.  Hence, a list of gentle reminders for mental well-being!

I love looking at the top 10 lists of albums, books, films, and art at the end of the year.  I find so much to follow up on, even if only a smidge of the discoveries make it into my rotation.  Here is me giving it a go at the ever-growing genre of the top 10.  May one (or more) of these mental well-being tips and trips make it into your rotation for the holiday season and the year ahead!

1.     Expand your window of tolerance.

This concept is a foundational strategy that will support you in times of increased anxiety, no matter the situation.  That is why it is here in the #1 spot on my top 10!  To feel anxiety is to be human.  It is helpful to normalize it.  We all feel anxiety from time to time.  However, when heightened anxiety gets the best of us, we shut down or amp up in all the wild and uncomfortable ways our triggered nervous system may respond.  We can foster the capacity to breathe into our window of tolerance, which is a space of groundedness, flexibility, and resilience, to help find some peace and calm in the middle of the storm. 

The concept of the window of tolerance was coined by Dr. Dan Siegel, and is often talked about in relation to healing trauma.  I find it to be helpful with both the everyday variety of anxiety, and anxiety that is a result of trauma and loss.  How to expand your window of tolerance?  Name that which is causing you anxiety that feels a little extra-extra (or a lot).  See it and say, “I see you.”  Ask yourself what you need in the moment for support, and allow yourself to be supported.  Of course, this is easier said than done, so talking about it with a trusted friend or therapist can be very helpful.  With patience and practice your window of tolerance for uncomfortable emotions will expand. 

This is meant to be a brief introduction to this concept.  There are many resources out there that explore this idea in more depth.  Here is one I like from Positive Psychology.

2.     Open up to your noticing practice.

I tell all of my therapy clients about this strategy and I practice it, too.  Emphasis on practice. Related to mindfulness, certainly, with nuanced intentions around what noticing can do for us.  In noticing we hold the thought a little longer, long enough to learn something from it, or at least to bookmark it.  “Huh.  That’s weird.  I keep having that thought” (or feeling or sensation).  We open up to noticing our thoughts and feelings in particular contexts, with particular people, in the midst of particular memories or longings, and we note it.  Write it down or say it out loud, without judgment, which of course, is the tricky part.  This is a chance to recognize that your thoughts and feelings hold clues for you to navigate your emotional life and your relationships.  I cannot overstate how helpful this is!  Do not ignore yourself.  There is deep wisdom in your lived experience.

3.     Commit to your discernment practice.

I have really come to love this one.  It is about doing the research and fostering your intuition.  It is about considering the expansive field of perspectives, which is a foil to binary, black-and-white thinking.  You will know what answer is best for you when you feel into how an answer to a question resonates.  I tell my clients that the discernment practice is a follow-up to the noticing practice.  They can be paired in the moment, or you can come back to the discernment after a period of collecting noticings.  Whenever I ask my clients questions about their discernment when exploring noticings, they almost always instantly know what feels to be right for them in that moment and context.  Nurture your intuition.   

4.     Grow your self-compassion.

Oh my gosh, this is so key.  Not just for you, but for healing in the collective, too.  Practice self-compassion in small and big ways.  Tell yourself it is ok that you fucked up.  Tell yourself that you are just a spiritual being having a human experience, if that language resonates for you.  Tell yourself that you are worthy of love from others and from yourself.  Dr. Kristin Neff, a self-compassion guru, writes that “self-compassion is simply the process of turning compassion inward.”  If we can have compassion for others, we hold the capacity to have compassion for ourselves.  We could all likely use more gentleness in talking to ourselves.  How would you talk to a friend?  This is a good guide for talking to yourself. 

5.     Honor your sensitivities.

As a highly-sensitive person with a lot of quirks, and as a woman who was diagnosed with ADHD later in life (like at 50!), I have been advocating for myself, my clients, and my friends to honor our sensitivities.  Many of us (at least 15-20% of the population) are wired to be sensitive in ways that allows for depth of feeling.  This is not all bad, though some of it is challenging, to say the least.  We are not “too sensitive.”  This is just how we are wired.  Many artists and creative folks are quite sensitive, which in part allows us to experience intense beauty and limitless curiosity.  I tell my clients who are deep feelers that we can model sensitivity as a way of being that centers empathy and compassion.  And, that would be a gift for all of us.

Two helpful books I recommend: 

*Divergent Mind: Thriving in a World That Wasn’t Designed for You by Jenara Nerenberg

*Self-Care for People with ADHD: 100+ Ways to Recharge, De-Stress, and Prioritize You by Sasha Hamdani, MD

6.     Make space for your needs and desires as priorities.

I know a lot of people giving a lot of themselves to a lot of other people.  Which is important and admirable on many levels, though it is just as important to question the sustainability of giving so much if you are not also making space for you.  On the face of it, prioritizing your own needs and desires may sound selfish to some, when so many others need us, including our children, our parents, our friends, our colleagues, students, clients, and neighbors.  But, if you are not well-resourced, you will not have enough energy and inspiration to support others.  How well-resourced you are, or are not, determines how you feel.  Well-resourced means to prioritize sleep, eat nourishing food, allow time to relax and play, allow space to move your body, and make a commitment to connect in joyful ways with the ones you love and the practices that make meaning for you (ahem, artists and creatives).  

7.     Cultivate and nourish connection.

I am sure you have probably heard or read that loneliness is an epidemic.  With all of our day-to-day responsibilities and potential for exhaustion, it can be easy to stay in and chill out.  Which I highly recommend, unless it is turning into isolation.  Perhaps when you are having a hard time, as we all do in difficult life moments, you don’t want to be a bother and reach out.  You don’t have to go all out to reach out.  Find a few minutes to connect by sending a meaningful text to a friend or a quick phone call to say hi.  It is not necessary for it to take an hour to nourish a connection.  When you do have more energy, make time for that long call of laugh-crying with a dear one, or a night out getting your groovy groove on with your beloveds.  It has the potential to add happier years to your life. 

8.     Find purpose and make meaning.

I do love a deep and fertile existential investigation that wanders through surprising portals and questions perceived walls around finding purpose and making meaning.  What is important to you?  What are your values?  Can you name them?  Can they help direct you in finding purpose and making meaning in your livelihood, creative practices, and relationships?  Lean into your questions.  One of the best books I read this year is Stay True by Hua Hsu.  It is a memoir that explores compelling existential themes told through the lens of friendship and loss.  I have suggested this book as bibliotherapy to clients as a way to inspire their own questions around identity, values, purpose, and meaning, as it did for me.

9.     Believe in your creative power.

I believe deeply in the power of experiencing art and making art (in whatever form) to both heal our broken hearts and bring more joy in.  It does not matter if you identify as an artist or not.  Make a beautiful feast; write a beautiful letter; create a beautiful space for relaxing; sing and dance in your living room or yard; draw a beautiful abstraction in the margins.  All humans have the capacity to be creative.  Tapping into this birthright can be transformative.

10.  Allow yourself time for future dreaming.

Therapy often focuses on the past as we sort through our problems in the present.  I do think it is important to reflect on the roots of our coping strategies, patterns, and beliefs to shine light on how they are either still serving us well in the present, or how we have outgrown them and they no longer serve us well.  That said, I also believe that future dreaming is a critical part of this work, too.  It is a way of planning.  It is a way of preparing.  It is a way to be curious and inspired.  Sort through future anxieties by experimenting with perspectives and visions that you want to see come true.  Future dreaming can foster hope and support healthy choices.  It can also be a lovely mood-booster, like a piece of dark chocolate!  

Reflect on where you have been and how much you have grown.  Write yourself a letter or a list.  Where and how have you grown, healed, and/or dreamed something into reality?  To write it is to see it and to remember.  Your written reflection can act as encouragement for the year ahead!