Those of us who work with others who are in crisis (first responders, doctors, nurses, therapists, 911 dispatchers), and those who struggle with life issues (therapists, nurses, doctors, corrections officers, probation and parole officers), are among the strongest in society. To be able to deal with people’s pain day after day and come back for more time and time again is both rewarding (when things go well), and frustrating, defeating and stressful. Others cannot hold a candle to the amount of stress that you go through every day in your work. This cumulative stress will take a toll if you are not careful. I wonder if you thought about that going into your line of work. Most of us go in with such a big heart and desire to help that we do not think about the cumulative effects our job will have on us. Or maybe you went in knowing it is possible, but thinking it won’t happen to you. Or maybe you knew it could happen, and even took precautions (going to the gym after work, taking time off, etc), but still found yourself with difficulty focusing, feeling that life isn’t real, and feeling an anxious fidgetiness.
 
The reality is none of us is immune to the effects of our job. Even when we take care of ourselves, we are still at risk of depression, burnout, PTSD, high blood pressure, GI problems and more. The cumulative stress that we have day after day not only affects our mental well-being, but also our physical well-being.
 
The downsides to this cumulative stress include mental wearing causing apathy, depression, irritability, and more. The truth is, PTSD is not only caused by a one-time serious situation, but can also be caused by cumulative smaller “traumas” such as seeing and hearing the suffering of others daily.
 
Furthermore, the cumulative stress includes physical wearing such as high blood pressure, weight changes, irritable bowel syndrome, other GI problems, and heart problems due to the high blood pressure, weight changes, etc.
 
Additionally, the cumulative stress affects our relationships. Whether it is because we are more irritable, more withdrawn or more passive, eventually what is happening inside cannot stay inside and those around us feel the stress also. A favorite saying of mine is “You cannot throw a pebble in the pond and not get ripple effects.” When we change, so do those around us. Just like the water when a pebble is thrown in.
 
Frequently the cumulative stress is sneaky. It creeps up on us and we don’t even notice it until it is out of control, or until someone points it out to us. Even then, often we have a tendency to “blow it off.” At the time, you might have blamed it on being tired, or “work is stressful.” But how often did you actually look deeper than work is stressful or being tired? Most of us don’t. Unfortunately, by blowing it off, all it does is make the monster bigger.
 
Eventually you wind up in a place of such frustration and depression that you can no longer deny it. Maybe that time came when you noticed behavior changes in your family. Maybe it came when your significant other said they are ready to divorce if you don’t get help. Maybe it came when you blew up more than you ever had before. Maybe it came when you had a suicidal thought. Whatever the case, you landed here in this dark pit.
 
The thing is, this dark pit is a common place for our critical care givers to land. The reality is there are more suicides among first responders and medical professionals than there needs to be. It is unfortunately a very common problem that is very, very preventable. It’s ok to admit you are very stressed. It’s ok to admit that you are overwhelmed or overworked. It’s ok to admit you’re scared. It’s ok to admit you don’t feel like yourself. You are not alone, and often when you speak out, you will find the truth in that statement.
 
Yes, right now you are feeling pretty frustrated and even hopeless that anything will bring you back to your old self. However, when you put into practice just three quick and easy tips, you can get your life back to where you once had it and feel the same passion for work you did when you first started in your profession. When you make just a few adjustments to your daily routine, it is entirely possible to regain your control and passion in and for life.
 
Keep reading for 3 tips so you can start seeing results today.
 
FEELING LIKE YOU ARE JUST SPINNING? FEELING OUT OF CONTROL? FEELING HOPELESS THAT IT WILL GET BETTER?
 
If so, you are not alone. So many people in the helping professions still think they need to be strong and not “cave” to the pressures and experiences of their jobs. The biggest problem with this mentality is you start spiraling down deeper into the pit and it becomes harder and harder to get out. Hoplessness and helplessness set in and try to convince you that it is not worth even trying. Or maybe you did try and it didn’t do what you needed at the time, so you gave up, feeding the hopeless/helpless feelings.
 
At the very least you find yourself feeling alone and completely stressed out. You don’t know where to turn or who to talk to. Everyone keeps telling you how strong you are. How can you admit that you don’t feel strong anymore? It’s a lonely place to wind up. And a dangerous one.
 
Living this way is incredibly painful. Even if you don’t see any changes in loved ones at this time, you are hurting. Frequently others notice our pain before we admit that they do. They hurt to see us hurting. When we realize that our loved ones are hurting because we are hurting, it only deepens the guilt and hopelessness.
 
THERE IS A WAY OUT OF THE PIT. CONTROL, HAPPINESS, STABILITY, LIFE ARE ALL WITHIN YOUR REACH
 
You can stay in the spiral feeling hopeless and falling further and further down, but you are here because you want to feel better. You want to get out of this. And you do have the potential to get your life back to where you want it to be. You can take charge of your emotions and regain the control of your brain and everything that has started to spiral with you.
 
When we chose to take charge of our emotions and regain control of our brain, there is a possibility for life to completely turn around for you. There is a light at the end of the tunnel which is not a train, by the way! That light is not as far away as it seems. It is within your reach.
 
You have the opportunity, right now, to start taking charge of your life. To bring your mind back under your control. To feel stable and healthy again. To feel happy with your life, family, and career. It is within your reach.
 
3 TIPS TO ACHIEVE CONTROL, HAPPINESS AND STABILITY CAUSED BY WORK STRESS
 
So today you feel out of control, depressed, anxious, angry, and unsure, but there is also a small piece of hope. If you didn’t have that small amount of hope, you would not be here reading this blog, looking for a way out of the pit.
 
The key to achieving happiness in your life, relationships and career is to take it slow. Take it one day at a time. There are no quick fixes. Nothing happens immediately. Drastic changes are hard to deal with anyway. As much as you want to be “your old self” right this moment, if that happened, it would not just be a pebble thrown into the pond, but a boulder. It would be much harder to control and maintain.
 
Despite not being able to be your old self right now, and having to slow down and take it one day at a time, the changes you will make after reading these tips are not as hard as you think. I only have three tips because too much at once is overwhelming. These three tips are relatively easy to put into play during your day without too much disruption or thought process about it.
 
Take a look at these 3 tips to see how you can start to feel the control you have been longing for
 
I’m having difficulty focusing!
 
One of the reasons you’re feeling so out of control is because it is hard to focus. When it is hard to focus, you feel like you’re all over the place. You forget things, you misplace things, you miss details. When this happens, it feels so frustrating and so stressful. Many people start chastising themselves over it as well, which just makes the situation more stressful.
 
Instead of chastising yourself, write to-do lists. When you remember something else, don’t go off and do it, but instead write it on your to-do list. Writing to-do lists helps you feel more organized which will help you focus on what you are doing. When things are written down, you won’t forget to do them, which frees up the brain to think about what you are currently focusing on instead of trying to focus on everything at once.
 
In session with my clients, this is a primary task of getting people back on track. Once we are done with setting goals and identifying needs, we get into task-oriented solutions as the majority of us want to feel better immediately.
 
When you take the pressure off by writing to-do lists and free your mind to think about more necessary things, we are able to do the deeper work that therapy can help with to get you feeling happy and in control again.
 
I’m fidgety, but can’t get things done!
 
It makes complete sense that you are so fidgety but can’t get things done. Your brain is on overdrive trying to do too much at once while in survival mode. It is near impossible to feel calm when your brain is in overdrive like this.
 
When you write your to-do lists, try to break down any bigger tasks that you have into smaller ones. Similarly to the issue of not being able to focus, when you are unable to get things done, but are so fidgety, it is because you don’t feel organized. Breaking tasks into more manageable tasks makes it easier for your brain to focus on the one thing that you are doing, again, freeing up the space in your brain and calming your survival brain down.
 
Together with my clients, we identify the biggest tasks in front of them and help break them down into manageable tasks that do not take much time to complete nor much thought process to understand. The easier it is to understand, the easier it is to do. The easier it is to do, the more likely you are to do it. The more likely you are to do it, the more you will do it and thus feel more in control.
 
When you start breaking tasks on your to-do list down, you will start to notice how much less noise is going on in your head. You will also notice the fidgetiness decreasing. Once this happens, a feeling of control starts to set in again.
 
I feel like I’m in a dream; life isn’t real!
 
I just mentioned that when you’re all over the place, your brain goes into survival mode. One of the aspects of survival mode is making the world not feel real. This is because if you are in such a dangerous place, the brain tries to protect you. The numbing is a way of the brain protecting you. The problem is, you are not in a dangerous place, but the brain is doing this protection feature anyway.
 
You want to get your brain to realize you are currently safe. One way to do this is do something very real: Sing very loudly, scream, or get the heart pumping by doing an intense workout or run. It acts almost as if you are “shocking” your system into reality.
 
When you schedule a session with Meg Young, LCSW, we create a plan tailored specifically to you that will get you doing all of these three tips regularly, thus helping you start to feel more real and in control so we can dig even deeper and make the changes permanent.
 
Adding these three tips to your life will make it possible for you to start changing your life. You will start feeling in control, real, happy, and focused again. You will be ready to face the challenge of digging deeper to make it a permanent change. You will feel stronger both inside and out.
 
Achieving a feeling of control and happiness is a journey which can be frustrating and time consuming, but also so rewarding. It’s like any goal that you have for yourself which was challenging. Maybe you wanted to get through boot camp which was incredibly challenging. Maybe you wanted to get through school, but struggled with your own depression or anxiety making it difficult for you. Maybe there were other challenges in your life that you did not give up on. Remember the feeling when you finally achieved that goal? How powerful and inspiring was that?
 
Meg Young can help you feel that same feeling of accomplishment with this goal you have for yourself. Sometimes we need a bit of extra support to help us meet our goals. It is not a weakness or a failure to ask for help. On the contrary, it is a sign of strength. We all need help from time to time. Therapists, doctors, and nurses should always seek consultation. First responders, and court professionals should always have backup.
 
All of our critical care givers are strong people. You deserve to enjoy yourself, your life, and your career. I look forward to helping you achieve this goal for yourself. Call me today 941-462-4807 to schedule the initial appointment that will start the deeper digging of making this change permanent for you!

Nobody likes negative feelings. Feelings such as sadness, overwhelm, irritability, and fear are uncomfortable and it is natural to want to avoid discomfort. The fact is, these emotions are part of being alive and all emotions have a purpose. The problem is when the negative emotions seem to come more frequently than the positive ones. When this happens, we try even harder to avoid those feelings.
 
However, when we spend so much time trying to avoid our feelings, it will end up affecting us anyway. We can only stuff emotions for so long before the bottle overflows. We can only pretend something isn’t wrong for so long before it becomes obvious to others.
 
The snags to stuffing our emotions and pretending they don’t exist include angry outbursts, relationship problems, sleep problems, headaches, gastro-intestinal problems, and more. It is not only an emotional problem, but a physical problem and causes strain in our friendships and in our families.
 
Not only does stuffing our emotions affect our relationships and health, we start to withdraw from things we once enjoyed, we start to see only the negative sides of life, we start to feel hopeless, irritable, stressed, overwhelmed, and often we start to feel “crazy.”
 
The problem with stuffing emotions is it always seems fine to begin with. It is even easy to do at first. It seems logical and even helpful. You are able to go about your day, and enjoy your work and your family. Bit by bit things start to change, and you may not notice the small changes. You go to sleep a few minutes earlier, your clothes are just a bit tight, you miss one family activity, but due to work conflicts. Over time these small changes start making an impact on you and start happening more and more until your significant other points it out. Or maybe your children’s behavior changed. Unfortunately, you still didn’t see it as a problem and continued what you were doing.
 
At the time, it might have been easy to blow off…until now. At this point you realize that they are right; that you have changed; that you are not yourself. However, it is still easier to externalize the blame – work is very stressful right now. This or that has changed. Once xyz slows down, things will go back to normal and so will you.
 
Unfortunately, externalizing the blame and not letting yourself release the pressure is just causing more and more stress to build up. It is just making it worse. You continue to stuff the emotions and explain away the behaviors and don’t look at the root cause.
 
Eventually it caught up with you and you start looking for a solution to the tip of the iceberg. You try over the counter sleep medication, meditation, relaxation, music, no screen time before bed, but nothing is working. You found yourself in a place of utter chaos and upheaval. Nothing seems to be helpful anymore. You are willing to do just about anything to feel normal again. Maybe you went so far as to do something unethical or inappropriate already. Or maybe you’ve just thought about it. “Wouldn’t it be nice if I just…”
 
The truth is, nobody likes to feel this out of control. Nobody likes to feel the intense, ongoing, negative emotions. It completely normal to want to do something you know you “shouldn’t” or otherwise would never do. It is completely normal to have “crazy” thoughts about doing something to make the pain stop and feel normal again.
 
When the stress and chaos in your mind has become this intense, you are willing to do anything to make it go away. We are not meant to struggle with this much. Who can handle all of this? How am I supposed to do this for the rest of my life?
 
Here’s the deal. If we can learn how to take stop putting bandaids on the problem and start stitching the cut, the bleeding will stop. If we can understand why this is happening, we can prevent it from continuing. When we do just a few things every day, we can take care of the wound and stop the bleeding. It takes only a couple minutes per day to start feeling “normal” again. When you set aside just a few minutes every day, it is entirely possible to regain control of your mind and your life.
 
Keep reading for 3 tips so you can start feeling like yourself again quickly
 
WORK IS CRAZY, KIDS ARE OUT OF CONTROL, YOU’RE FORGETTING IMPORTANT DEADLINES…THIS DOES NOT HAVE TO CONTINUE
 
One of the worst parts of feeling this overwhelmed is the hopelessness that often goes along with it. The fact is the brain cannot focus on being overwhelmed and happy at the same time. Additionally, the brain is wired for survival, so if the options are happy and overwhelmed, the brain will focus overwhelm in order to help you stay alive.
 
The problem with the brain being wired for survival like this is it can take over. The overwhelm not only does not take a break, but often compounds on itself until it weighs too much. Then hopelessness often sets in. This can take the form of depression, irritability, sarcasm, lack of energy, lack of motivation, lack of desire, frustration, an “I give up” attitude, or other feelings and thoughts.
 
Living this way is exhausting. The longer an electronic device is left on, the sooner it dies. Similarly, the longer our brains are on overdrive, the sooner we get burnt out. There is so much energy usage by our brains and bodies when we are dealing with constant overwhelm.
 
CONTROL OF YOUR LIFE IS WITHIN YOUR REACH
 
Nothing goes 100% smoothly all the time, but the one thing I know for sure is when you let go of the stress and buildup of your day, your life will go more according to YOUR plan. You have the potential to bring some relief to this crazy life.
 
When we make a conscious effort to stop doing what we’ve been doing and start taking care of our needs, we find that the wound is no longer just temporarily being dealt with, but more permanently being dealt with. Although this may leave a scar on our minds, scars are just wounds that have healed. We have the possibility to live life according to our terms again.
 
You have the opportunity to make a change in your life that will make things better for you. It will take time. It will not be easy. But many of life’s worthwhile lessons take time and are difficult. One thing I know for sure about our critical care givers (first responders, medical professionals, court professionals) is you have strength many people only dream of.
 
3 TIPS TO KEEP IN MIND TO ACHIEVE CALMNESS, CONTROL, AND ORDER IN YOUR LIFE
 
Whereas you may be feeling like it is pointless to try and do anything; after all, you have tried several things to no avail, I promise there is a way back into the calm, control and order you’ve been longing for. The key to achieving this calmness and control is to not give up too soon. The brain is set to survival. Anxiety tells the brain that something is wrong, which makes the brain go on overdrive to keep you safe. We just need to convince the brain that you are safe and in control.
 
This is not as difficult as it may seem. The important thing to keep in mind is don’t give up too soon. You have been putting bandaids on for so long, it just seems like the only rational thing to do. However, as you can tell it is not working. It is time to stich it up. The techniques are relatively easy, but there is no overnight cure. Nobody likes feeling this way all the time, and I know that you want to have a quick fix. If you understand that it will take time, you will achieve the freedom you’ve been longing for.
 
Take a look at these 3 tips to keep in mind when you are ready to do just about anything to get rid of the pain and stress
 
One of the problems with anxiety and overwhelm is stated above: Your brain is set to survival. When you are anxious, it becomes stuck in survival mode and all you can think about is the issue(s) at hand. Being the brain is set to survival, it does not want to stop being anxious. It wants to protect you. It makes complete sense that it feels near impossible to stop these thoughts.
 
Instead of feeling hopeless and believing that nothing will change, try setting aside 5 minutes in the morning and 5 minutes at the end of the day thinking of 3 things you are grateful for. There is a lot of research proving when you sandwich your day with positives, it calms the stress in the brain. My clients and I figure out how to carve out this time regularly as doing new things is never easy at the beginning.
 
It doesn’t matter how small or obvious what you are grateful for is, it still interrupts the hamster wheel your brain is in at the moment. Chemical reactions happen in the brain when you think of something positive. Add smiling to this techniques and it increases the chemical reactions in the brain making the technique work even better.
 
Another very helpful technique to calming the anxious brain is to practice some quick relaxation techniques (taking 2-3 deep breaths, doing a quick full body stretch, etc) 200 times per day. It takes less than 5 seconds to do these techniques and they can be done anywhere anytime without anyone thinking anything odd about what you are doing. The more you do something, the quicker you improve.
 
We need to retrain the brain to realize everything is ok and constantly being in anxiety/overwhelm mode is not only unhelpful and unproductive, but damaging. When we get anxious, we unconsciously tense our muscles as this helps prepare us for action if we are in danger. When our muscles are frequently used like this, muscle memory takes over and the new normal for the muscles is to be tight.
 
Retraining our muscles to be relaxed takes a lot of practice. Survival is so important that the brain likes to ensure we are ready at a moment’s notice. My clients and I discuss the rationale for doing these techniques in more detail, then come up with several quick, easy techniques that they can practice 200 times per day.
 
When you practice these techniques frequently throughout the day you will start to feel different. You will notice a difference in your mind as well as in your body. Once you start to notice this change, you may be tempted to stop as things are getting better. Now is not the time! Your brain will go right back to its old behaviors. Now is the time to ingrain these new behaviors into your mind. Keep it up!
 
Finally, when you are ready to just throw in the towel and do just about anything to make this all go away, it is vital to get out of this hamster wheel through distraction. Force your thoughts in a different direction.
 
The first thing you need to do when noticing anxiety/overwhelm brain taking over is do a very quick relaxation. After that, it is time to move your thoughts to something else. The more you allow your thoughts to stay where they are, the more the brain is convinced that it needs to stay in anxiety mind.
 
I help my clients work through the barriers such as “I’ve tried this” and “It won’t work” so they are ready, willing, and able to do this distraction. It does work. This I promise.
 
The first technique here is something to do every single day as a new lifestyle. Our thoughts guide our emotions. The more positive thoughts we insert, the more positive we will feel. The second technique adds value to the first technique and should be thought of as a mantra. It is quick, easy, and important. The third technique will pull everything together and make your brain fully regain control of calmness and control.
 
Achieving this level of calm and control will take time, but it will be the best investment of your time every day. You will feel better emotionally and physically. You absolutely can get the control back that you have been longing for at this time. Meg Young, LCSW, PLLC can help as I specialize in first responders, medical professionals, and court professionals, all who deal with people’s pain every day and have unique needs to get your goals met.
 
Call me today to start gaining control back. I look forward to hearing from you!

You see the emotional and physical pain people are going through every day. As a medical professional, you may see injuries caused by one’s own doing, or inflicted by another. As a court professional, you see the injuries your clients cause other people and the broken backgrounds many of them come from. As a therapist, you also see the effects a broken background can have on a person. As a first responder, you see the emotional and physical pain people are going through in the moment they are going through it. And you all think that you are so strong; that seeing this day after day will not impact you. Or maybe you know that it can impact you, but you don’t know what to do to prevent it from burning you out. Or you just stay in denial about the whole thing. Whatever the case, you are here reading this because it has impacted you.
 
Unfortunately, at this time, seeing people’s pain day after day has taken its toll. You feel like you are going to cry at the drop of a hat. Life doesn’t seem to have the same excitement it once did. You still make plans, but you don’t enjoy following through with those plans the way you once did.
 
For awhile you were able to ignore the issues. You pushed aside the feelings, ignored the impact, made excuses for it, hoped it would just go away and pretended everything was ok. Now it’s gotten to the point where not only did it not go away, it’s gotten worse. You are not sleeping as well anymore. You are not eating as well. You have to push yourself to do just about anything, even the things you once really enjoyed. Even going to the gym feels like a chore.
 
Perhaps it came on slowly, over a period of years. You may not have even noticed when it all began and when you look back, you cannot pinpoint when you started to feel this way. You remember “years ago” you weren’t like this…but cannot figure out when it changed exactly or why. This is frustrating in itself because nothing “happened.” If nothing happened, why am I feeling this way? Many people don’t think about the effects of accumulated stress. Many medical and court professionals as well as first responders don’t think of their jobs as traumatic, but the reality is, the brain takes in the other person’s suffering as our own and the brain makes an imprint of it along with either the real story, or one we make up because we don’t know the real story.
 
As you saw more and more suffering, your brain started connecting these people’s stories until they became a strong, hard mass of negative memories. Change takes a lot of time; it does not happen overnight. You do not know when you started to feel this way because of the slow process of the brain making more and more connections over time.
 
Unfortunately, if you do not stay on top of this slow transformation, all it does is make you wind up in a place of despair, unhappiness, and discontent with everything in life. It can be a very dark place. The truth is, it is a natural process of our brain to make this transformation. The more negative we hear, the more negative we feel. The more positive we hear, the more positive we feel. It is completely normal to feel jaded or unhappy when 8+ hours a day we live negative (this does not include what we see on the news, or hear about from our loved ones jobs, or things going on in our own lives that are not working well).
 
It is normal to feel unhappy and like you just want to cry at any moment. It is normal to have no energy or desire to do anything. It is normal to feel the way you do.
 
This apathy may or may not have started to impact your family. However, if we can learn just three tips to help us feel happier in our daily lives, we can prevent it from impacting our families, we can start to re-engage in life, and we can continue to do the career we were called to do. When we make just a few tweaks to our daily lives, it is entirely possible to feel happy and enjoy life again.
 
You are currently feeling apathetic, tired, worn-out, and irritable
 
The biggest downfall to not overcoming this downward spiral is that it will not only take you down, but your family with you. As you and your family spiral down, it often gets worse faster and faster. Everyone brings their own backgrounds to the table and as stress builds up, our interpretations may be very different and often make the situation worse.
 
Take for example, Tracy, whose parents divorced and she heard more than she should have about her mother’s feelings regarding the divorce. As an adult, Tracy worries that her spouse, John, is going to leave her. It almost never bothers her, but when they argue, she gets a nagging feeling in the pit of her stomach. John, who is a critical care giver, is starting to get a bit cynical. As a result, he was more sarcastic for awhile. Then he just started to withdraw more. As he was withdrawing more, Tracy thought he was upset with her or their relationship. She started to get anxious. She asked questions that made no sense to John, and he answered them more sarcastically and irritably because “what in the world is she talking about?!” His tone of voice confirmed her fears and she started spiraling, looking for help for their marriage and stressing about him leaving her even though this was never the issue. Tracy and John were on completely different pages due to Tracy’s background and John’s job. Because they were not on the same page, their relationship struggled significantly.
 
At the very least, it drains you daily. Your energy level gets less and less as the days go on. This is often the beginning of compassion fatigue which then leads to burnout. Professionals who work with others’ pain have a very high burnout rate in their fields (this includes therapists, nurses, doctors, probation/parole officers, police, fire, EMT, 911 dispatchers, etc).
 
Continuing to live this way is exhausting. We only have so much energy every day and the more negative that we see, the less energy we have. Our brains are set to protect us. As we see pain day after day, the brain is processing a lot of very difficult input, which is taking a great deal of energy to “file away.”
 
You want to feel energetic, excited, and ready to take on the day
 
Although you struggle with low energy and apathy, you have the potential to get your drive back. This does not have to be what life looks like for the rest of your career. There is a way out of this mess. When we choose to take just a few new steps per day, there is a huge possibility for you to find joy in your life again. You have the opportunity to live the life you want, even if your job does not change.
 
Imagine feeling rejuvenated when you come home from work. Imagine having energy to do what you enjoy on weekends. Imagine not feeling so irritable at the end of the work day. This is all possible with just a few changes to your daily routine.
 
3 tips for professionals seeing people’s daily pain increase happiness in their own lives
 
Whereas you might currently be feeling hopeless that you will be able to find joy in your own life again, this is so far from the truth. The truth is there is no reason why you cannot feel fulfilled in your personal life despite the demands of the job.
 
The key to achieving happiness in your own life is to tweak just a few parts of your daily routine. It isn’t quite as hard as you think because you do not need to make huge shifts or take a large amount of your precious time away by making these tweaks.
Take a look at these 3 tips to see how you can feel happy in your daily life again
 
1. Feeling like you are going to cry at the drop of a hat.
 
One of the reasons you struggle with happiness in your own life is because between your personal and professional lives, you are so overwhelmed you don’t know how to relax anymore…and if you do relax you feel guilty about it because there is so much to do.
 
It makes sense that you want to cry so frequently. Crying is a great outlet and releases a great deal of pressure in our bodies and minds. When we’re not letting the stress out in other ways, it wants to come out this way.
 
Try this instead: When you want to cry, stop what you are doing for a moment. Take some deep breaths to center yourself and turn logic back on in your mind. Identify everything that is going on right now; everything you are currently doing. Ask yourself, is it feasible to do all of this? Is it necessary right now? What can I let go of? Who can I delegate some of this to?
 
Even if you do not let any of it go, by stopping and thinking like this, you are allowing your brain to refocus, which will help you feel les stressed. Together, with my clients, we often go through a timeline of their day to identify everything that they did that day, then prioritize it – what was important, what wasn’t? What could they have delegated and what couldn’t they have? Etc.
 
2. Life doesn’t seem as exciting as it once did
 
When the brain is stressed or depressed or anxious, we are set to survival mode. We cannot enjoy what is happening if we are about to die. The chemicals released in the brain associated with happiness are not active when we are stressed, depressed or anxious.
 
This is why it makes sense that when you are chronically stressed, you do not feel as happy as you once did. The brain is set to survive, not relax.
 
Try this instead: When you are doing something you used to enjoy, but are not currently enjoying, take a moment to be in the moment. What do you see? Say it to yourself: “green leaves, blue sky, white clouds,” etc). What do you hear? Again say specifically what you hear to yourself: “car went by, airplane in the sky, birds chirping,” etc. Do this with what you smell, taste, and physically feel. After you go through all of your senses, go through again with something tangible (hold a blade of grass for example) and tell yourself what this blade of grass feels like, smells like, looks like. Then get back to what you are doing and do the same thing. Just notice and just let whatever other thoughts come to mind go as you focus on your senses.
 
Here at Meg Young, LCSW, PLLC, we will often do this technique together, comparing notes when we are done. This makes sure that we both pay as much attention to the object(s) as possible.
 
When you really stay in the moment, you will start to notice feeling a bit lighter. You might start to notice a sense of calm pretty quickly or it might take some time. You may not notice feeling “happy” immediately, but the light, calm feeling will transition over to happiness as you allow your chemical receptors in the brain to reactivate.
 
3. Feeling tired and worn-out
 
As I said above, it takes a great deal of energy for the brain to process what you see and hear day after day. This constant stress takes a toll and you end up feeling worn out and tired. It starts at the end of the day, but eventually it seeps into the next morning until you’re feeling worn out before you even start your day.
 
The daily accumulation of stress and negativity wears everyone down. Some people get worn out faster than others, but this is a normal feeling when we see human pain every day.
 
Try this instead: Choose how often you want to do this throughout the day, but remember the more you do something, the faster you’ll see results (the more you stick to your diet, the faster you’ll lose weight). Several times throughout the day stop, close your eyes, lean back, and rub your head, neck, and jaw with your fingers. As you do so, tell yourself a couple things you are grateful for right now. (You can use the same ones all day if you’d like).
 
Adding this to your life will help you to balance the positive with the negative in your day. Also, the massage will be reminding your body to let go of the stress while you are thinking of good things. The thoughts along with the physical relaxation work in conjunction to help re-energize you throughout the day.
 
When you schedule a session with me, we come up with a daily plan that will incorporate these skills. It does not take much time to do them. Our thoughts guide our emotions. If we think “This is impossible” we may feel hopeless. If we think “This is incredibly difficult, but not impossible” we may have a bit more drive as we don’t feel quite as hopeless about it.
 
Just a few tweaks to our thoughts throughout the day can have a huge impact on our emotions and our happiness with our own lives. Achieving a sense of happiness when you once thought it was impossible is such a gratifying feeling. You absolutely can have the life you want without feeling drained and irritable. Meg Young, LCSW, PLLC can help because I specialize in people just like you: first responders, medical professionals, and court professionals move from internal turmoil to internal control every day.
You were called to your profession and I was called to help you maintain your passion.
 
Call me today: 941-462-4807 to schedule an appointment! I look forward to working with you to get your goals in life met.

You may be thinking that therapy cannot help you. You may be thinking that nothing will help at this point. Or you may think that nobody will understand. Possibly you think that you don’t even need therapy at this time despite what others say to you. You may have even tried therapy with little to no success in the past. You may have talked to other first responders who have not had the most success with therapy. It is true that therapy is not easy and will not provide a quick fix; you very well may not feel better after the first few sessions you have.
 
Unfortunately, if you have noticed that your life just isn’t the same anymore or if others have told you you’re not the same anymore, and you decide not to go to therapy, nothing will change for the better. Your life will not only not improve, but is likely to continue to get worse.
 
You may notice a steady decline in your emotional well-being, you may notice becoming more sarcastic, you may notice you are more jaded, you may notice changes in your relationships, and you may even notice behavior changes in your children.
 
Not only does living life believing that therapy won’t help won’t make your life better, it will impact the lives of others around you. You cannot throw a pebble in the pond without making ripple effects and you cannot change without others around you feeling that change and adapting to that change. If that is a downward change, the adaptation of those around us are likely to also be a downward change.
 
Perhaps your relationship with your spouse is just not the same. Perhaps you are arguing more. Perhaps you are having more trouble sleeping these days. Perhaps you are spending less time with your children. Or perhaps the change you’ve noticed is at work – you have less desire to go to work, or you’re more sarcastic after the calls you go on.
 
At first you might have blamed it on everything external – work is stressful, you’re just tired, work is demanding more of you, there’s changes in the personnel at work, etc. You might have even felt like people are picking on you or chastising you. It is true that when we are stressed, we have a lower tolerance for criticism, even if it is accurate.
 
Unfortunately, when we ignore the symptoms or blame it on something else, it keeps the cycle going and we continue to feel worse and worse. The downward spiral becomes overwhelming. And by the time we believe that maybe we do need help, our brain convinces us that it’s too late; that therapy won’t help.
 
Eventually, we wind up in a place of extreme exhaustion and hopelessness. This may continue to play out in sarcasm, or it may play out in anger, or depression, or something else. However it plays out, we start to feel like things will never improve. Once the brain starts this line of thinking, it is hard to get out of. The train of “and then” or “what if” can get completely out of hand.
 
The truth is, it is completely normal for this to happen. When we are stressed, the very primitive part of our brain responsible for survival called the Amygdala, gets activated. The sole purpose of the Amygdala is to keep us alive. It acts like a smoke detector – it does not care of you burned the bread or if the house is burning down; it just sets off the alarm. The Amygdala does not care if you are truly in danger or not, it sets off the signal in case you are in danger – THEN it communicates with the Hippocampus which has surveyed the environment and determined you are not in danger. But, like the smoke detector, the alarm has already been set off. Once the Amgydala activates, the “survival” train takes over. You no longer think logically and you no longer think of the “good” – survival is only needed in times of “bad.” It is completely normal for negative thinking to get out of hand at this point.
 
Although it is normal for this to happen and although it is true that you may be feeling pretty hopeless that therapy can help, all you need to do is learn a few tricks to convince yourself therapy is worth trying; not convince yourself that therapy will work. Once you convince yourself that therapy is worth trying, it is entirely possible to find the right therapist who will help you feel like yourself again.
 
Keep reading to learn how to start making changes to convince yourself that therapy is worth trying today
 
RIGHT NOW YOU ARE FEELING HOPELESS, HELPLESS, AND UNSURE OF THE FUTURE
 
Quite honestly, the biggest downside to not overcoming the downward emotional spiral is the potential for suicide. You may be thinking “I’d never do that” but I promise you that most first responders who commit suicide did not think they would ever get to that point in their lives either.
 
But, let’s back it up some. At the very least, if you don’t work through your feelings and thoughts about therapy and do not come to therapy, you will find yourself no better off than you are now. Can you imagine what life would be like for you if you felt this way for the next 10, 20, 30 years or more? Think about it, where you are today did not happen over night. It got worse over time, right? So logic would tell you that if you are feeling this way now, it is likely to only get worse. Can you imagine feeling worse than you are 10 years from now…and worse than that 20 years from now? And worse yet 30 years from now?
 
Living with this downward spiral all because you have convinced yourself therapy won’t help you is literally making it worse. What if you ignored someone’s injury which is clearly life threatening? What if you said to them “you’re ok. I’m just going to go over here and not pay any attention to you.” They may literally die, right? So you may not physically die from your emotional upheaval, however, your body and brain work together. If your brain thinks you are in danger, it sends the signal to the body to stop all functions that are not needed for survival. When that happens, people end up with digestive problems, heart problems, high blood pressure, headaches, fatigue, and a whole host of other physical problems.
 
THERE IS A LIGHT AT THE END OF THE TUNNEL. YOU CAN AND YOU WILL FEEL LIKE YOURSELF AGAIN
 
Although you currently struggle with the belief that therapy won’t help, you have the potential to get your life back. You have the potential to get yourself back. You have the potential to get your health back. When we choose to try something even if we don’t have 100% conviction in, there is a real possibility for improvement. Even if you don’t believe it.
 
Right now you have the opportunity to try something and possibly get everything back that you are losing. You also have the opportunity to do nothing and let this downward spiral continue. What’s the worst that will happen if you convince yourself to go to therapy? The worst that will happen is nothing changes and you’re where you are now. What’s the best that will happen? You’ll feel like yourself again.
 
YOU DON’T HAVE TO CONVINCE YOURSELF THERAPY WILL WORK. YOU JUST HAVE TO CONVINCE YOURSELF TO BE OPEN TO TRYING
 
Yes it’s true you’re feeling confused about therapy. Yes it’s true you may be thinking it won’t work; nothing will help. However, as I said above, what’s the worst that will happen if you go to therapy? The key is my heading above. You do not have to convince yourself that therapy will work. You just have to convince yourself to be open to trying.
 
Making this change is not as difficult as you may think. There are a few things for you to think about and work on honestly with yourself. You don’t even have to tell anyone that you are doing this. You don’t have to share your thoughts with anyone at this point. When you follow a few simple steps, you will start to see that maybe the risk is worth it. Maybe you are worth it.
 
Take a look at these next steps to see how you can start working on convincing yourself to give therapy a try
 
One of the biggest reasons you struggle with not going to therapy is because of your thinking. “It’s not going to work.” “Others have tried it and don’t feel better.” “I shouldn’t need therapy.” “I’ve tried it before.” It makes complete sense that you’re feeling hopeless. Our thoughts guide our emotions. Do you remember The Little Engine that Could? “I think I can, I think I can, I think I can.” His attitude and thought process helped him get where he was going. If we think positively, we feel good. If we think negatively, we feel bad. Our thoughts are so incredibly powerful.
 
The first step I want you to take, right now is: Identify your thoughts about therapy. What is your reason for not believing it will help you? Write those thoughts down.
 
Here at Meg Young, LCSW, PLLC, I help my clients narrow down what their negative thoughts are. Often they don’t know at first “It just won’t work.” Other times they know “I shouldn’t need therapy.” Either way, once you clarify what the thought is, you can start to not only understand the reasons behind not going, but you can start to challenge those reasons. This leads me to step 2.
 
Next, I want you to challenge each of those thoughts. Something as simple as “Is it possible…” “Is it possible it will work this time?” “Is it possible my experience will be different that John’s?”
 
Remember how powerful thoughts are? Together with my clients I help them challenge negative thinking; reframing their thoughts to something more positive. “Is it possible this will work” actually puts hope into the brain. It changes the feeling from hopeless to neutral. We are not trying to convince ourselves that it WILL work; we are trying to convince ourselves that it MAY work; that there is a POSSIBILITY it will work.
 
When you schedule a session with me, we will work on overcoming your hesitations which will help you begin to notice a shift in your emotions. You will start to see a shift in the way you think and feel about this and other situations. It starts a train of possibilities.
 
After you challenge these thoughts, my last step for you is to do some research. There are a ton of therapists out there, each with different approaches. Maybe one approach didn’t work for you. Or maybe one person’s personality didn’t jive with you. See who else is out there. I have a client who is in his early 70s and has been seeing therapists for years. He always saw men his age because they “understood” him better. Then he came to me. A female much younger than him. He has told me several times that he has gotten more help from me and has moved forward in improving himself more with me than with every male therapist he ever saw. All this means is one type of person might work better than another for you.
 
One thing I know for sure is that changing our beliefs is incredibly difficult. When we truly believe something, it is often very difficult to change that belief. There are no quick fixes, but therapy does work and achieving the feelings of control and stability that you so desire is possible. You absolutely can feel like your old self again. Schedule a session today. It is time to get on the road to feeling like yourself again. It is not only possible, but likely to change your beliefs and your life with Meg Young, LCSW, PLLC as I specialize in working with first responders just like you.