During my freshman year of college, Cornel West, the renowned philosopher, had been invited to speak at a campus event. My Black friends buzzed with excitement and rushed to secure tickets to his lecture. When a friend offered to get me a ticket, I hesitated and noted that I didn’t know who West was.
As a Black psychiatrist, I often feel haunted by the prescriptions I offer my patients to salve the anxiety they feel in the face of police brutality or the uptick in hate crimes against Asian Americans. Yet agitation in the face of oppression is healthy. Racism is the disease.
StatNews.com
“You don’t know who Cornel West is?” she asked, incredulous that I was unaware of him and his contributions to American culture. My friend went on to explain that West was one of the most brilliant intellectuals and political activists of our time. As Black students at Harvard, we were standing on his shoulders.
Four years ago, during a sticky New York summer, I anxiously sat in the lobby of the clinic waiting to meet my new therapist. Glued to the torn pleather couch in front of the rattling AC (which did nothing to relieve the heat and I was convinced was only there for show), I wondered what this mysterious person would be like. Will they be nice? Will we get along? Will they really listen? ……………………………..
If the last year or two has left you with a little more weight than what you had planned for this point in your life – here’s the remedy and the plan
Our favorite nutrition expert and a woman with a plan, ChicagoanTracye McQuirter, has a new book and one of the most thorough and appetizing plans to improve your dinner table status than we can remember. We’ve featured her on our home page for years because we feel like you would be in good hands with the food info that she has so smartly put together.
ByAnyGreensNecessary.com’s Tracye McQuirter
Now we know that some of you are not interested in giving up meat but there is little reason to not learn how to make vegetables equal partners on your plate. If we seasoned and approached cooking veggies the way we do meat and seafood, it wouldn’t take long for them to become healthy preferences.
Tracye’s got an even better deal for this year we are stepping into. Check out her site and try out her plan. There is a wonderful guide to download for free. It will get you started on putting some soul in your food, the lite, right way.
Putting fear into perspective can help your child learn how to control their fears & anxieties going forward. This weird COVID experience can serve as a practice run, in which we teach courage and skills for tackling future life challenges.
“In the absence of our comments on the constant stream of COVID warnings, their child-sized worry systems take over.”
Our TVs blare the numbers: “Over 800,000 Americans have now died from COVID-19″, “The dangerous new variant is bearing down on us as we approach the holidays”.
These warnings get our kids’ attention. For some kids, it hangs low in their thoughts. They worry and in the absence of our failing to combat this stream of constant warnings, their child-sized worry systems take over. It may show up as whining, resistance or daydreaming.
They worry if they or you will get COVID. Will they lose you? Will they die? They may shrink from contact with others or use magical thinking to fight off their fears. Although “child-sized” makes you think of something small, when it comes to emotions, childhood fears always loom bigger than life .
If you have lost family members or close friends to COVID, have you had the time to sit and talk with your kids about it? Do you have ways to help them process loss?
This is a good time to firm up your child’s sense of security. Let’s talk about the ways their physical environment can be structured to help them feel anchored. Try starting with these routines.
Put off making any major changes in their rooms. Keep some basic things in place while letting them be somewhat creative in making necessary changes. For example, keep the room color the same but let them change other things. Or let them choose new furniture or arrange the furniture differently, but keep everything else consistent.
Keep to daily routines, i.e., meals at the same times, at the table together. Have daily schedules so that they know what to expect and what you expect of them- and when. Bed times, TV times, homework time can all provide an invisible frame for their lives that make them feel secure.
Set aside individual time – 20-30 minutes (daily, if you can, but at least 3x week) for them to sit down with you to tell you what’s on their minds. They should be your only focus at these times and each child treasures their time alone with you. No phone, no TV. This is an investment that will pay off well in the long run.
Create rituals to mark important passages and events like the holidays, as well as the loss of family members. Rituals can provide them with an opportunity to express their feelings about a one time event. Family game or movie nights can provide weekly bonding times that form the glue for your family relationship. Other rituals, like graduation, sweet 16s and birthdays celebrate their successful passage through stages in their lives. Perform these rituals equally for each child.
Keep a “Gratitude Journal” as a family, centering the family’s joint accomplishments. Your first home, the birth of a sibling, your new pet, your first game night or your shared attendance at a child’s sports event.
Suicide rates and risks for black children are rapidly rising during the isolation of the pandemic. Here’s 5 things you can do to help your child manage this time in a healthy way
These habits form anchors that will help your child feel secure in a time of uncertainty and disconnection.
Help your child come up with a daily affirmation to remind her or him of what’s great about themselves. For example, if empathy is their strength, they might say to themselves, “I am Correctly Caring. I enjoy being kind to others.” Or simply to associate their name with one of their great qualities, like “I am the Marvelous Marky!” or “I am Awesome Anika!”
Spend 2 minutes in the morning to hold hands and say a prayer for the day. It can be a simple statement of intention like, “Today we will focus on learning one new thing that will help us grow and be wiser”. Then talk about it in the evening to help them become more aware of the value in each day.
Put up a calendar for your child. Decide with them what you are going to track. Maybe finishing tasks, maybe good grades, maybe new ideas they’ve created. Mark those that your child has achieved over each week. As you continue to do this, your child can see a string of accomplishments. Maybe even have a monthly “Awards” ceremony! .
Eat at least one meal together during which each child gets a few minutes to talk about whatever they would like you to listen to. You must not interrupt and you should express appreciation for their statements, whatever they are.
Arrange for either outdoor or video play dates on a weekly basis. Some of these will be with other children but can also be with a grandparent or family friend. The video play date can include a movie, online game, dance exercise, shared online drawing, etc.
The underlying purpose is to give an underlying consistency to schedules and routines that are subject to change. For a child to know that each and every day counts as a new opportunity to achieve, to enjoy and to learn helps them see their purpose. Where they learn and with whom might change but what you have set up at home doesn’t have to. Kids also learn that while some days aren’t so great, there’s always good days to balance life out. We’ll add more later
Most kids get into therapy because the school recommends it, but if you see signs that your child is struggling, why wait?
Parenting is tough! You feel so responsible! And for situations over which you have little real direct control. (Notice I said “direct”). What do you do when your child is treated unfairly and feels picked on? What if the parent-teacher conference starts feeling painful to you? You don’t want to feel that the teacher is trying to imply that you’re not doing your job, but you do. How in the world can you get your child to do an hour of homework when you’re exhausted yourself? You’re still having nightmares from when you were struggling with it yourself.
Routinely, parents seek out therapy in these instances:
When your child is being bullied
When your child has or is being teased about gender identity issues
When your child won’t or can’t do their schoolwork
When your child is fighting and/or verbally aggressive at school
When your child is obviously sad, is anxious or avoids other kids
When your child refuses to attend school or is chronically late
If school staff worry about abuse or neglect
If your child has witnessed a traumatic event
When there is a family change from divorce or death or injustice
When your child exhibits strange and/or self-destructive behaviors
When you want to learn the best ways to strengthen or protect your child
When you want to break a cycle of behavior that you experienced in your family of origin
When your child’s drawings or statements imply that they want to hurt themselves or don’t want to live
Starting your child in therapy may require either courage or desperation
You might be feeling a swirl of emotions when you realize that you need to get your child into therapy. Like fear – what will a therapist ask you? What will he or she ask your child? Anger? Why are you put in this situation when you already have so much on your plate? Being overwhelmed – How will you find the time and will this cost money that you don’t have? Don’t worry. While you will have to be persistent to find a therapist, check out our pages on how to get started. You’ll be on your way to finding someone who will be pleased to take some of those burdens off your shoulders.
Many of us became therapists as a result of our own experiences growing up. We understand these situations. We also know and have great faith in the possibilities of change. Sometimes it’s just a simple or surprising change that can make all the difference in the world. The need to ask for help doesn’t mean that you’re going to just another person to be shown something that you feel you should have seen. Therapists are trained to use a process that allows them to share a number of methods that they have learned and practiced. These methods are the result of years of research and observations that we wish some- one might have shared with our parents.
At the root of almost all conflict – whether between international governments or between intimate partners – is a Lie
Said by a therapist after more than 25 years of mediating, training and transforming communication between conflicting parties.
We feel secure when what we hear matches what we see.
Lies chip away at our humanity
Anger, hostility, suspicion, confusion, denial, jealousy -all of these emotions are the byproducts of lies. It is estimated by psychologist Gerald Jellison, Ph.D., formerly of the University of Southern California, that the average person may lie about 200 times a day. These are not intentional deceptions, but more likely intended to empathize with and support friends and family members or to avoid conflict or to temper embarrassing situations. Others say that the average person lies about 11 times a week, but when one looks at the lies told most often, it moves the probability back towards 200 times per day.
For example, the most frequently told lie, is when a person says, “I’m on the way” or when they text that they’re stuck in traffic or when they say they “don’t mind” something that you’ve asked of them. Lies can be small, and harmless – even beneficial, but lies can take down a democracy when they undercut the rule of law or when they incite the taking of another’s life.
Reporters watched in confusion, when our former president, the person later dubbed “Liar-in-chief” started his reign off with a verifiable lie: that the crowd at his inauguration “looked like a million and a half people” and “was the largest crowd to attend any inauguration anywhere in the world”. Fact checkers noted that the subway usage that day was less than previous inaugurations. Pictures show that the Mall from the Capitol to the Washington Monument showed comparatively sparse attendance.
It was at that point that we were introduced to the term “alternative facts” by that president’s senior adviser, Kellyanne Conway. This concept of “alternative facts” is a head spinner. It delivers the visceral impact of having your reality flipped and the experience of truth shoved down your throat.It’s that feeling, exactly, that many of us feel, when we know we’re hearing a lie. Sometimes it’s a little lie, so sometimes it’s a little twinge that we barely notice. Other times, it’s a big LIE and it’s like a punch in the stomach. We double over, metaphorically, with a feeling of confusion and disbelief in our eyes.
Enter a new age
That was our introduction into the Age of the Lie. That harsh, if not shocking, remaking of the facts into something that one insecure person needed to hear in order to tolerate their reality, pulled out all the stops on lying – on a countrywide stage. And like a bad infection, it has spread. Governors from Texas to Florida, Trump’s attorney general and other cabinet level officials began crafting whopping lies, to serve purposes that we are still trying to understand.
How do lies impact you?
What does it mean to you when someone lies? When you overhear a good friend lying about you? When your husband comes home late with an excuse that doesn’t bear any resemblance to the truth? When you know that a competitor at work had purposely misrepresented your contribution to a shared project? The first thing you feel is that punch, right? Then what? You start going over everything you’ve been told, looking for little signs that you may have missed. You start question- ing yourself, doubting your perceptions. Depending on your own experiences, perhaps as a child, you could even lapse into self-blaming. Your distress may unearth doubts about previously unconcerning social exchanges. Yes. You’ll recall that time that person jumped off the phone quickly when you entered the room or the time they didn’t really answer a question that you asked them. All of a sudden, your security net started to unravel. All because of a lie that probably has nothing to do with you.
Reality check #1: People do what they do, not to hurt you, but to protect themselves.
How does a lie hurt?
How does a lie hurt ? Is it that it prevents you from trusting the other person? Does it keep moving the marker so that you don’t know what’s real and what’s not? Does it signal that the liar is a foe and may have negative intentions? Is that why they can’t tell you the truth? Whatever it is, we know that the truth grounds us. It attaches us securely to a familiar environment, to stable people and reliable expectations that assure us of a place and surroundings that help us and our children remain safe.
The truth, is an essential component of a happy life.
Since 2016, the United States has experienced gutting of our major institutions, political behavior that deserves a spanking at the polls, national indifference to the welfare of the most vulnerable and an under- cutting of almost everything that we knew to be true.
What’s the upside to this?
There’s a good side to this, as there is to any tragedy. It captures our attention. We have to think through our positions, plan how we are going to improve the result and commit to being agents of change. It pulls us together. The assumptions under which we operate have been exposed and demand our examination and refinement. We’ve had to think of alternatives to the way we live. We have to prepare for changes in our expectations. We have to focus on what’s really important and do what we have to do to make that happen.
The Pandemic has made us stay home, sit still and look at the facts. People are reevaluating their jobs and the assumptions under which they have been operating. They’re trying to make sense of their lives. We’ve had to get real with life, with each other and with the planet. If we do this right, and live up to our potential as equal partners in stewardship over the earth, we’ll come out of this stronger, truly secure and able to usher in The Age of Love.
Marijuana has been legalized and people are lighting up everywhere. A weekend stroll to the local town center on a Saturday night revealed an overhead cloud shared by teens, senior couples and bemused Gen-Xers. Grandparents hosting their visiting grandchildren seemed confused.
That’s nice that a cause of life limiting incarceration of people of color can no longer be used to create criminal records that block them from accessing college finances and any hope of a good job. On the other hand, even if you’ve smoked for years, there may be alot you don’t know about marijuana. Questions like these:
What’s in it?
Isn’t it harmless?
Will it affect fertility?
This couldn’t effect my moods, right?
If I’m high, that’s not the same as driving drunk, is it?
Will marijuana affect my brain, long term?
It’s not as dangerous as cigarette smoke, right?
What if I smoke when I’m pregnant?
So many questions. Let’s start with the last one. What if you smoke while you are pregnant?
Turns out researchers have been investigating this now for 40 years. A new study shows that the children born to mothers who smoke during or soon after pregnancy are twice as likely to become anxious, hyperactive or aggressive as other kids.
There is a growing body of evidence that indicates connections between cannabis use during pregnancy and psychiatric problems in children. Mothers who smoke to ease morning sickness and anxiety can end up with longer term anxiety in response to ongoing problems with their children.
2016 research is showing that in California nearly twice as many women reported smoking pot while pregnant.
Is there one habit that makes a difference in whether relationships endure?
People are drawn to each other for all sorts of reasons. There are plenty of books, pamphlets, websites, magazines and perfumes that are read in hopes of finding some secret attractant. Lots of classes that run the spectrum from bible study to pole dancing. And yes, more hair has been bought, more eyelashes and fingernails glued in hopes of attracting a man who will stay around longer than the hair or the nails.
And by the guys: more fancy cars, weight lifting and high protein drinks, money flashing and Caribbean trips offered and practicing sweet talk. In short, singles spend a lot of time trying everything, to attract a partner that they hope will stay. But a lasting relationship is created by the connection between your “inner selves”. The fact that you find the same activities to be interesting and are truly able to laugh about the same things. That you can both push and praise your partner to achieve their desired goals creates an effective team.
None of the distractions or embellishments listed above can hold a relationship together. There are several other behaviors that can. In this post we will talk about one: Having a mutual interest and activity that you both enjoy on a regular basis together.
Among couples that have been together more than twenty-five years and those who can see their way to being together that long, partners light up when they speak of common activities. It can be bowling or running, cycling or video games, season football tickets or even political campaigning – anything where they can plan ahead regularly to have the activity to look forward to.
Some couples rely on regular cruises or other group tours that give them novel places to discover. These experiences give them memories to share and common friendships that develop with other couples that they travel with. They grow their network of friends and that network reinforces their image of themselves as a couple. The activities they do with married friends or committed couples are geared towards “safe” fun that won’t encourage flirting and other temptations that can occur when surrounded by available singles.
So think about what interests you share with your partner and find ways to build them into you quarterly or monthly schedules. Punctuate those events with annual trips for conferences, retreats, sports events and family reunions. Have you always wanted to learn to play golf? Do you have a wish to visit as many islands as possible? Do you both love jazz festivals or local theater? Being a couple shouldn’t mean being bored and it shouldn’t be the end of your exploring new things in life. Do it together. It may be the “glue” that keeps you together.
