Fill Up this Winter with Positive Change: Lessons from the Practice of QiGong

by Karen Steinbrecher

As the ground hardens and the air chills, we are drawn to go ‘inside.’  In Taoist traditions, winter is the season when you are called to explore what lives below the surface, to pay attention to the internal workings of your intuition.  In Traditional Chinese Medicine, winter is the time to focus upon the Kidneys, Yin, and the Bladder, Yang, as well as the adrenals.  This is a crucial time to nourish, warm and fuel your physical, mental and spiritual energy.  These winter practices have a cumulative effect upon your physical health, mental clarity, and innovative spirit. 

Infuse yourself with positive change by practicing and dancing Qigong!  Qigong is an invaluable tool to unite and align your thoughts, heart and physical body.  One of the best ways to infuse your being is with your intention, to bring in and initiate positive change.  May this Winter Solstice and all holy days that celebrate the light in one way or another feed your soul, your heart, your being.  May our Qigong practice help us call this light, this Qi into a joyful dance arounds us, our world, your world.  May we see the light in one another and joyfully acknowledge it with a smile or a hug.  

Winter in TCM celebrates the Water Element.  The waters of the earth and the waters of your body are one. As we dance and practice Qigong together, we are one in dynamic flow and movement.  Let us fuse with the Universe this New Year with Peace and Love and Light, bringing in positive change.  Feel yourself as you dance Qigong, grounded and home in flowing change.  Abundant Blessings to all of you with Gratitude and Peace and Love.  

Join Karen Steinbrecher at the Resiliency Center each Thursday at 2 P.M. or at 6:15 P.M. in the open workspace.  Learn more at http://www.meetup.com/Resiliency-Gatherings-for-Movement-Inner-Strength-Joy/ 

A Meditation for the Holidays

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC

Setting an intention for what you want this holiday season and expanding it through meditation can help you to stay grounded in what you are seeking.  Begin by finding a comfortable seat and either close your eyes or relax your gaze on something that is not moving.  Take a deep breath in for a count of three and out for a count of three.  Repeat that for another deep breath in for three and out for three.  Begin to notice what comes up for you as what you want to cultivate this holiday season.  Maybe it is peace, joy, or abundance.  Notice where in your body this intention resides.  And begin to imagine that it has physical characteristics.  Maybe it is a certain color, shape, or texture.  Watch the intention expand as you connect with it throughout your entire body.  And as you continue to connect with it, it expands past your body and grows and grows.  Feel its strength and power.  And know that this intention is grounded within you no matter what external stress the holidays bring.  Stay present with this for as long as you desire, then slowly blink your eyes back open or back into focus.  Connect with this meditation daily through the holiday season.

Thrive this Holiday Season

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC

The holidays are a great way to celebrate gratitude and spirituality and to connect with loved ones.  They are also a time that can be emotionally difficult and stressful.  There are many things that contribute to the difficulty of this season and also many ways to support yourself and thrive this holiday season.

The winter season is a time to slow down and turn inward.  The holidays in our culture ask us to do the opposite.  People tend to overbook themselves, stay up late, and engage in unhealthy habits.  We can decrease our stress during this holiday season by maintaining a schedule that honors what our body and emotions need.  It is also important to maintain healthy habits and practices that maintain grounding.

Because the holiday season is a time when we focus on friends and family, this time can be difficult for individuals that are isolated, in conflictual relationships, or have experienced a loss.  Feelings of isolation can be exacerbated by the push to constantly connect during this season.  There are times when silence and time alone are beneficial to an individual.  This can also exacerbate depression or grief.  It is up to the individual to determine what best serves them during this time of year.  Generally, a balance is ideal.  This can be difficult if those we are “supposed” to connect with this time of year can be difficult to be around.  Prioritize connection with individuals that build you up and leave you feeling positive and nourished.  And when planning to spend time with individuals that drain your energy, visualize boundaries or protection surrounding you prior to connecting to support your resilience.  It is also important to maintain healthy boundaries within interactions with individuals that trigger you.  Individuals that have experienced loss often experience intense feelings during the holiday season. For those that are going through a recent divorce, breakup, or transition within the family, this also applies.  Lives in transition can be especially difficult during the holiday season because of the focus on traditions.    It is important to maintain traditions that you choose, without trying to keep everything the same.  Another significant practice is to honor your loss.  This can be especially important if you have lost a loved one.  This can be done with a candle, doing something that person loved, or partaking in a tradition that they enjoyed. 

A final way that the holidays can be difficult is when we set our expectations very high.  Every family and life has “stuff.”  Few people survive a holiday without a kitchen conundrum, drunken relative, or spat between loved ones.  Often individuals imagine a picture perfect holiday, which may heighten disappointment when life is closer to normal.  Setting realistic expectations based on history may help to decrease stress in the upcoming holiday celebrations. 

Holidays can be stressful for a myriad of reasons.  The most important tool in setting yourself up for a healthy holiday season is awareness of the aforementioned things that exacerbate stress.  To enjoy yourself this time of year, prepare yourself and honor what you need.  Happy Holidays!

Elizabeth Campbell is a licensed professional counselor providing an empowerment and strength-based approach to support individuals in personal growth and change. She specializes in play therapy with children, family therapy, creative counseling for adolescents, and trauma-informed treatment. She utilizes an integrative, mindful approach to address the whole individual and promote healing and wellness.   For more information or to schedule a session, please call Elizabeth at 610-757-8163 or email at elizabethannecampbell8@gmail.com

Helping your Child to Manage Anger

by Elizabeth Campbell, MS, LPC

One of the most beautiful aspects of parenting is your relationship with your child.  In this relationship, you are an attachment figure, and are responsible for shaping a child’s life in many ways.  Attachment influences identity, self-esteem, future relationships, and emotional regulation.  In other words, your child learns from their relationship with you how to calm themselves down when they feel intense emotions.  Often adults immediately go to behavioral means to manage troubling behaviors that come with anger, and although structure is imperative for a child’s development, the parent-child relationship is the foundation for change.

One of the ways that children develop so rapidly in their early years is through modeling.  They utilize mirror neurons within the attachment relationship as a means to grow.  Awareness of these mirror neurons in parenting can be extremely helpful.  The phrase, “actions speak louder than words,” is very accurate in parenting!  Modeling is the most effective way for your child to learn from you.  Therefore, if you use self-care by going to the gym, meditating, spending time with friends, baking, etc., you are providing an excellent model for a child to learn how to regulate themselves.  Controlling anger is not just in the moment, it is a practice of regulating stress overall.  The opposite is also true.  If you are struggling with taking care of yourself and juggling the demands of family, your child sees that and learns from it.  In prioritizing your own self-care, you are also prioritizing your child’s emotional health.  This can be done as an activity to also foster attachment and your relationship with your child.  Self-care can be a family activity such as a family nature walk or sharing a hobby with your child.

Mindfulness is another great skill to teach your child for general emotional regulation and anger management.  This can take many forms.  This may be creating a “comfort corner” in which various senses are stimulated.  For instance, there may be a comfy blanket, a book, calming music, a scented lotion, or a stuffed animal.  A child can visit this corner not just when upset, but frequently to again lower their overall stress level.  Another option is a mindful scavenger hunt, where a child notices things via their senses around them.  A final mindful tool that is very effective with anger management is deep breathing.  Children can learn to take deep belly breaths by putting a stuffed animal on their stomach while laying down, then making it move up and down with their inhales and exhales.  There are also fun breaths such as balloon breath, where a child “blows up” like a balloon with their inhale then exhales like a balloon letting go of its air. 

Another important part of teaching our children anger management is our response to their anger.  Garry Landreth’s Child Parent Relational Training advocates that parents act as a thermostat rather than a thermometer.  You set the temperature rather than reacting to them.  When adults react to anger with anger, the emotionality of the situation increases exponentially.  If you respond calmly and set consistent limits, the child begins to learn parameters and how to regulate themselves. 

By interacting with your child in a ways that demonstrate effective means of regulating your own emotions, modeling self-care, and teaching skills in fun ways, you can set your child up to independently regulate themselves.  Your relationship and your interactions with your child are building blocks for change.

The Anger of Unmet Needs

by Kim Vargas, LCSW

Why does a particular situation bring up anger for one person, and a laugh for someone else? Why is it that some people respond to the words of others with fury, and others can just shrug it off? The answer is two-fold: Each person has different perceptions of any given situation, based on his/her own history, background, and upbringing. In addition, each individual has unique needs that must be met in order for that person to operate optimally. When perception combines with each individual’s needs, interpretations of a situation differ, leading to very different reactions.

When a person perceives that his/her needs remain unmet, feelings of anxiety, loneliness, fear, sadness, and shame develop. Unfortunately, we are not always aware of these underlying feelings, known as the “primary emotions”.  Instead, the conscious manifestation of unmet needs is often a feeling of anger, which is actually the secondary emotion. To visualize this idea of primary and secondary emotions, picture an iceberg with only anger peeking out at the top.  The anger is the tip of the iceberg, and it’s often all that we see. However, this is only a small part of the entire iceberg. The rest of the iceberg, which consists of the primary emotions, lies beneath the surface and is often more difficult to see.  Once primary emotions are identified, unmet needs become evident.  

In 1943, Abraham Maslow proposed a hierarchy of needs that starts with the basic physiological necessities including food, water, shelter, and clothing, and goes on to include the needs for safety, love and belonging, esteem, and self-actualization. 

When any of these needs remain unmet, two things may happen.  The first is that we are generally at higher risk to feel anger.  For example, if our need for food and sleep is currently unmet, our coping mechanisms may diminish in that moment. The second result is that long-term unmet needs lower our anger threshold and make us more prone to angry feelings and behaviors. For example, a person who lives in an emotionally and physically unsafe environment suffers from many primary emotions, including fear, loneliness, and anxiety.  As a result, that person experiences important unmet needs on a daily basis. These needs for safety, companionship, and lowered stress frequently manifest as a shortened fuse and quick anger.

There is some great news in all of this: When used to its best advantage, anger feelings are an excellent warning mechanism alerting us to the fact that a need is not being met, a primary emotion needs attention, and action is required to remedy the situation.  Once we grasp the true root of the anger, it is easier to address the actual cause rather than just responding to what appears on the surface. Understanding your needs in any situation increases the likelihood of a productive, rather than destructive, response.

Is Your Teen Stressed? Mindfulness Can Help!

by Katie May

Kylie and her mom got into a fight.  Kylie screamed, “I hate you!”, ran to her room and slammed the door.  She threw the folded pile of laundry from her bed and it scattered onto the floor. Then she curled up on the bed and cried. She noticed an emptiness in the pit of her stomach.  She began to recognize the thoughts going through her head like, “It’s not fair.  She never lets me do what I want!”  Kylie decided to take out her journal and free write. After a few minutes, her heaving sobs turned into calming breaths and she decided to go downstairs and talk to her mom about coming to a compromise with her curfew.

In all my years of working with teens, this situation has come up again and again in many similar ways.  Your teens are gaining independence and figuring out where they fit into the world.  Along with these developmental tasks comes the challenge of navigating intense emotions and being mindful of thoughts that result in a variety of wanted and unwanted behaviors.  

Mindfulness skills have proven very beneficial in helping teens with these challenges. When teens are mindful, they can:

·       Notice thoughts without being overwhelmed by them

·       Make planned decisions rather than acting impulsively

·       Feel more calm and in control in stressful situations

The first topic I teach teens when we work on practical mindfulness skills is to become more aware of the three states of mind.  Your state of mind is your outlook or your perspective.  These states of mind have a big impact on what emotions you experience and what decisions you make.

When you are in Emotion Mind, you are driven by your feelings and urges. You can be in Emotion Mind for both pleasant and difficult feelings. In Emotion Mind, you are not focused on facts; you are immersed in feelings.  Some situations that trigger Emotion Mind include getting into an argument, listening to music or creating art.

When you are in Reason Mind, you are focused on the facts.  That means you are thinking logically and analyzing a situation.  In Reason Mind, you are NOT focused on your feelings.  Some situations that trigger Reason Mind include doing schoolwork, writing a list or following a recipe.

Wise Mind is the balance between your emotions and reasoning.  When you are in Wise Mind, you are able to feel your emotions AND focus on the facts.  In Wise Mind you have a balance that lets you make decisions based on how you feel AND the facts in a situation.  Wise Mind helps you to make healthy choices and act effectively.  Some examples of Wise Mind include asking for help when you are frustrated or talking to someone when you feel sad.

You can help your teens at home by pointing out when you see them in each state of mind, or discussing examples of when they have been in each state of mind.  In the example above, Kylie began the argument in Emotion Mind.  She was driven by her emotions, leading her to yell at her mom, slam the door and throw her clothes.  However, she used mindfulness to become AWARE of her body sensations and her thoughts, allowing her to make the Wise Mind decision of using her journal to cope with stressful feelings, then act effectively by going back and speaking to her mom more calmly to develop a solution.

You can also be a powerful teacher for your teen by modeling your own use of the three states of mind.  When you feel frustrated and act on this by snapping at a family member, you can catch yourself by stating, “I’m sorry I snapped at you.  I let my Emotion Mind take over.’  

I have heard lots of parents say that practicing mindfulness is embarrassing, or that it doesn’t work.  This typically happens when they try something once and don’t get the desired response right away.  Mindfulness skills take LOTS of practice and do NOT come naturally at first.  I wouldn’t write an article about how to run a marathon then expect you to go out and do it after reading about it!  Mindfulness takes time and practice, so stick with it!

This article is part one of a three-part series.  In my next article, I will show you exactly how to help your teens pay attention to what is happening inside and outside of themselves and be able to put words to what they notice to help you get a REAL answer to the question “What’s wrong?” when your teen looks stressed.  You won’t want to miss it!  Click here [insert link to:  www.creativehealingphilly.com/teen-mindfulness] for more.

Katie K. May is a Nationally Certified, Licensed Professional Counselor who specializes in working with children and teens.  She uses mindfulness-based practices, play therapy and expressive arts  to help clients communicate difficult emotions and decrease problem behaviors.

A Five-Minute Stress-Reducing and Mindfulness Technique for Parents

by Kathleen Krol, LCSW RPT-S

Do you find yourself rushing home from work to pick up your child from aftercare or your teen from after school sports practice? Are evenings or weekends spent juggling between one child being dropped off at soccer practice and the other being picked up from dance class? If not hustling to get a child somewhere, then it may be juggling two jobs or running multiple errands. We all know the feeling of being pressured and stressed.

I found a technique that helps me, as I am leaving my house, driving in the car or before opening the door to something new. It helps me by focusing my attention on what I am about to do and check with myself to see if I am carrying stress in my body or mind. I call it "Five Senses." I take 5 minutes as I am moving or driving to be aware of my environment by using my five senses. I ask myself, what do I see around me? What do I hear? What do I smell? What do I taste or feel in my mouth? And what do I feel? If I am driving, am I clenching the steering wheel and if so, can I relax my grip? If walking, I might notice that my body is moving fast and my chest is tight. I pause and take a couple deep breaths.

As I transition to another activity, I do so consciously. I tell myself to be aware, that I am here and I can relax now. This technique might not eliminate all stress, but it does remind me to bring my attention to what is currently happening. It refocuses a distracted or racing mind and reminds me that I do have the ability to slow myself down and breathe rather than remaining on automatic pilot.