Throughout life it is inevitable that we will face challenges. Perhaps it is the stress from a divorce, anxiety from a move, or grieving the loss of a loved one. It’s obvious in these moments of loss or crisis that there are things that are hard and overwhelming. Our minds naturally give more weight to the difficulties, and I’m in no way encouraging toxic positivity or trying to silver line all your challenges with a “chin up” message, however, there are real mental health benefits of gratitude even during our trials.
What is Gratitude?
Gratitude is the quality or state of being thankful, appreciative, and showing appreciation towards someone or something. It involves recognizing and acknowledging the positive aspects of life, including the things we receive, the people who support and care for us, and the experiences that bring joy and fulfillment.
Gratitude is often associated with a sense of humility, recognizing that we are not solely responsible for everything good in our lives, and that we are interconnected with others and the world around us. It can be expressed through words, actions, or a general attitude of appreciation and thankfulness. Gratitude is often cultivated through mindfulness, reflection, and consciously focusing on the positive aspects of life, even during challenging times.
What are the Mental Health Benefits of Gratitude?
Practicing gratitude has been shown to have numerous benefits for mental, emotional, and physical well-being. It can improve mood, increase resilience, foster positive relationships, reduce stress, and enhance overall life satisfaction.
Here are some of the mental health benefits of reconnecting with gratitude:
1.It Helps Us To Value Our Lived Experiences
When we take time to recognize things in our life that we are grateful for, it helps us to mindfully appreciate that there are good, pleasurable or pleasing in our lived experience. Not that these things erase the hardships we might be facing, but it helps us to make space for pleasure and hardship to co-exist in simultaneously in our experience.
2.It Decreases Feelings of Stress
Stress plays a significant role in our mental wellness. Early in the COVID pandemic, when lockdowns were common, a study examined the impact of gratitude journalling on participants feelings of stress and distress. At the end of ne week and again one month later, people were asked about their distress, their positive and negative feelings, and their physical health. People who wrote about gratitude experienced a significant decrease in stress and negative emotions compared to the other groups, and these effects lasted for at least a month after.
3. It Improves Sleep
A study was conducted with 186 males and 215 females during which they engaged in gratitude journalling before sleep. The study found that engaging in a gratitude practice before bed predicted greater subjective sleep quality and sleep duration, and less sleep latency and daytime dysfunction. This is likely because having positive and soothing thoughts before falling asleep soothes the nervous system and helps shift into the parasympathetic nervous system response.
4.It May Improve Your Relationship
Research has found that giving and receiving remarks of appreciation (ie. feeling grateful toward your partner) can improve numerous aspects of your relationship, including feelings of connectedness and overall satisfaction as a couple, particularly for women.
5.It Helps Motivate Us Towards Self-Care
A 2013 study asked people to rate their levels of gratitude, physical health and psychological health, as well as how likely they were to engage in self care activities such as exercise, healthy eating and going to the doctor. Researchers found that people who practiced gratitude and were more likely to engage in these kinds of behaviours, suggesting that this habit also increases the likelihood of people to appreciate and care for their bodies.
How do I Practice Gratitude?
And while you can write things down in a journal to record what your are grateful for, there are also other ways you can document or reconnect with gratitude. Try taking pictures on your phone throughout the day of things you are grateful for and review them in the evening before bed. Or, you can use your imaginal thinking and put yourself mentally back in a joyful moment that you experienced earlier that day. If you are creative you can use art as a way to reconnect with gratitude by drawing, painting or crafting something that reminds you of something you are grateful for. There are so many ways to reconnect with gratitude.
I challenge you to experiment with practicing gratitude and to take note of what happens. If doing it on your own seems daunting to undertake, consider joining the Mayo Clinic’s free month long
If you’re interested in incorporating gratitude into your mental health journey, or if you need some additional help with your mood, sleep or self care, get in touch with me. I would love to discuss more how counselling may be able to help you with the mental health challenges you are facing. Our experienced counsellor can help you explore the benefits of gratitude and provide supportive counseling services. Contact us at 902-702-7722 or visit our website at https://restorecounselling.ca to schedule an appointment and take a step towards improving your mental well-being today.
Childhood trauma not only impacts the person in their early years, but it continues to impact them into adulthood. The focus of this blog is to explore the effects of childhood trauma on adults.
Childhood trauma is a common problem that affects many people in Canada. Indigineous people, older adults, folks in the LGTBQIA+ community and immigrants are more likely to have experienced trauma in childhood. Statistically, 3 out of every 10 Canadians over the age of 15 has experieced physcial or sexual abuse before the age of 15.
This is significant because trauma in childhood can have a profound impact on an individual’s mental, emotional, and physical health, as well as their ability to form healthy relationships. The long-term effects of childhood trauma can be devastating, leading to a wide range of mental and physical health problems that can affect a person’s quality of life for years to come.
For individuals who have experienced childhood trauma, the effects can be especially challenging to overcome. Many people struggle with trust issues, intimacy issues, and difficulty forming close relationships. They may also experience chronic health problems, such as heart disease, diabetes, and obesity, and may be at increased risk for mental health problems like depression, anxiety, and post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD).
How Childhood Trauma Affects People in Adulthood
Here are some of the most notable effects of childhood trauma in adulthood;
1) Forming Healthy Bonds and Relationship
Childhood trauma can have a significant impact on adult in love relationship and on attachment styles. Secure attachment is characterized by a sense of safety, trust, and comfort in relationships. However, childhood trauma can contribute to developing insecure attachment styles; anxious or avoidant or disorganized attachment. Research suggests that our early experiences with our caregivers shape our attachment styles and strategies. Often people who have experienced childhood trauma engage in behaviours from one of the 3 forms of insecure attachment styles.
In adulthood, anxious attachment patterns can play out in romantic relationships, leading to difficulty forming secure and healthy attachments. Anxious attachment in romantic relationships is characterized by a strong need for intimacy and fear of rejection, abandonment, and separation. Individuals with anxious attachment tend to rely heavily on their partners for emotional support and reassurance, and may become highly distressed when their partner is not available or responsive to them. They may also struggle with jealousy and clinginess, and often experience feelings of insecurity and doubt in their relationships. They may become overly dependent on their partners for emotional support.
On the other hand, adults who have experienced childhood trauma may also exhibit avoidant attachment, characterized by a tendency to withdraw from relationships and to avoid emotional intimacy. These individuals may struggle with trusting others and may feel uncomfortable with vulnerability and emotional closeness.
Avoidant attachment is typically formed in childhood through experiences of neglect or emotional unavailability from caregivers, or through traumatic experiences such as abandonment or loss. In adulthood, these attachment patterns can continue to play out in romantic relationships, leading to difficulty forming secure and healthy attachments.
Avoidant attachment in relationships is characterized by a tendency to avoid closeness and emotional intimacy with a romantic partner. Individuals with avoidant attachment may feel uncomfortable with emotional closeness, may have difficulty expressing their feelings or needs, and may prioritize their independence and self-sufficiency over their relationship. Avoidant attachment can make it difficult to form deep, meaningful connections with romantic partners, and can lead to a sense of emotional distance or disconnection in relationships.
Someone who grows up in an environment where their caregiver, who is meant to nurture and protect them, is also a source of fear can develop an fearful/avoidant or disorganized attachment style. Disorganized attachment perhaps less often spoken about than secure, anxious or avoidant, but it equally important type of attachment to be aware of.
This style of attachment behaviours can develop in response to experiences of trauma or abuse in childhood. Disorganized attachment is characterized by a lack of clear patterns of behavior in relationships, as individuals with disorganized attachment may display both avoidant and anxious behaviors in relationships. They may also exhibit erratic or unpredictable behavior, and may struggle with self-regulation and emotional expression. People with a disorganized attachment style still want (and I would argue, need, since we are wired biologically for connection) to have someone to be close emotionally, however they struggle to to ever let their guard down and be truly vulnerable with their partner.
It’s important to note that the impact of childhood trauma on attachment styles is not universal, and individuals may develop different attachment styles depending on a variety of factors, including their experiences after childhood and their personality traits. It’s also important to remember that insecure attachment styles are not a life sentence, and it is possible to develop more secure attachment patterns in adulthood through therapy or other forms of personal growth and self-awareness.
2) Challenges with Parenting
Individuals who have experienced trauma may face unique challenges when it comes to parenting. This can show up in many different ways, but a few examples of the impact of childhood trauma on parenting include;
1. Difficulty regulating emotions: Trauma can make it difficult for individuals to regulate their own emotions, which can impact their ability to respond calmly and effectively to their children’s emotional needs. If somone is cut off from their own emotions it can also be very difficult to attune to someone else and according to relationship expert Dr. Erin Leonard, attunement and empathy are what helps children to trust and open up to their parents.
2. Re-experiencing trauma: Trauma can cause individuals to re-experience traumatic events or have flashbacks during moments of intense emotions with their own children which can make it difficult to be fully present with their children. Perhaps loud noises, like a child banging a toy on the floor or an infant’s prolonged crying can be distressing to a nervous system that has experienced trauma. This can lead to the parent reacting from being triggered rather than a more mindful parenting response.
3. Negative self-image: Trauma can impact a person’s self-esteem and self-image, which can make it difficult to feel confident in their ability to parent effectively. The Postitive Parenting Project explains that when parents have high self-esteem, they tend to be more optimistic and to transmit that positive mindset to our children. These parents have more likely been raised in an environment of praise and warnth and it tends to feel more natural for them to offer the same positive reinforcement to their children. Conversly, people who grew up in homes that were high in criticism may be more likely to point out to children what they have done wrong or how they could have done better or forget to celebrate their successes.
It’s important to remember that people who have experienced trauma can still be effective and loving parents. Being aware of our past and the potential impact that it may have is part of developing self awareness and can be what motivates people to learn new skills and strategies and to heal their past trauma.
3) Developing Health Conditions
Have you ever heard of an ACE score? Your ACE score tallies the number of adverse events you experienced in your life before the age of 18. Take the quiz here. In fact, an NIH study found that found that adults who had experienced 4 or more ACEs showed a 12 times higher prevalence of health risks such as alcoholism, drug use, depression, and suicide attempts.
The link between experiencing adverse childhood events and chronic disease is also becoming increasingly clear. For every increase in the ACE score of 1 point, risk for developing an autoimmune disease such as type 1 diabetes, lupus, rheumatoid arthritis and many others goes up by 20%.
An ACE score of only 2 increases the chances of being hospitalized for an autoimmune disease by 70 to 80%.
For this reason it is very helpful to work with a holistic mental health practitioner who is able to help you explore the physical and mental health aspects of having experienced adverse early live events.
4) People Pleasing and Lack of Boundaries
Because as humans we are biologically driven to form an attachment with a caregiver, even when they also a source of critical, shaming, neglectful, or abusive behaviour, children learn to adapt to their circumstances. This can often present as people pleasing, perfectionism and appeasing that has roots in childhood which carries into adulthood and relationships.
This behaviour is often described as the fawn response. This term was coined by licensed psychotherapist Pete Walker, MA in his book “Complex PTSD: From Surviving to Thriving.”
which describes a way of responding to a threat by trying to ‘disarm it’ becoming more appealing to the threat. Dr. Arielle Schwartz noted that In many cases, children will then turn their negative feelings toward themselves. As a result, the anger fuels self-criticism, self-loathing, or self-harming behaviors. In adulthood, this process can evolve into depression or somatic symptoms of pain or illness.
Getting the Help You Need to Move Through the Trauma
The impact of childhood trauma on adults can be profound and long-lasting. Trauma can shape our beliefs, behaviors, and relationships in ways that can be difficult to overcome without proper support and intervention. However, it’s important to remember that healing and recovery are possible. By recognizing the ways in which trauma has impacted our lives, seeking out professional help, and building supportive relationships, we can begin to address the underlying issues and work towards healing and growth. It’s important to approach the healing process with patience, self-compassion, and a willingness to confront difficult emotions and memories. With time and effort, it is possible to overcome the effects of childhood trauma and move towards a more fulfilling and empowered life. Remember, it’s never too late to seek out help and begin the journey towards healing.
If you or someone you know has been impacted by childhood trauma, know that help is available. At Restore Renew Revive counseling & couples therapy, we specialize in providing supportive, compassionate therapy services to help individuals and couples heal from trauma and overcome life’s challenges. Marcy is trained to use evidence-based techniques to help clients build resilience, work through difficult emotions, and develop the skills they need to live their best lives. To learn more about our services or to schedule an appointment, please call us at 902-702-7722 or visit our website at https://restorecounselling.ca
Don’t wait to take the first step towards healing – reach out to us today.
When most people commit to a fitness routine, they do so to improve their physical health. Perhaps they need to lose weight or find a natural way to lower their blood pressure or blood glucose. And while exercise definitely impacts a person’s physical health, it also significantly impacts their mental health as well!
Here are just some of the ways fitness positively impacts your mental health:
Helps to Relieve Stress
Have you heard that regular exercise is one of the best ways to beat the effects of stress? Physical activity is thought to reduce stress by reducing the levels of stress-related hormones such as cortisol and adrenaline. And studies have found exercise can even make us resilient to stress.
Promotes a Better Night’s Sleep
We tend to overlook how important proper sleep is for our overall mental health and well-being. While a variety of factors can impact our quality of sleep, physical activity appears to be particularly influential. It seems exercise not only helps us fall asleep faster, but helps us stay asleep longer as well.
Improves Cognitive Functioning
Exercise is also thought to boost our mental clarity and improve our memory. Those who have suffered from depression, anxiety or PTSD and CPTSD know that our cognitive function can take a hit when our mental health takes a hit.
Movement vs. Exercise
Some people dislike exercise, but often feel more open to the experience of movement. Consider moving your body in ways that bring you a sense of joy and feelings of pleasure in your body. Maybe it is stretching, yoga or going for a walk. Maybe you’d feel pleasure in your body while dancing in the living room when no one is watching. Consider exploring some of these movement practices to find out what feels good in your body.
These are just some of the ways regular exercise or movement can improve your mental health. You might find after some time of doing these practices, that there are still areas of your life you’d like to work on. If this is the case, I encourage you to speak to someone about the challenges you are facing. Just as you often need a trainer to show you how to exercise properly, you may need a trainer to help you get into the best mental health of your life! I specialize in helping women learn to cope more effectively with challenges in their lives and to help them become more engage in tending to their physical health needs
They say there are only two things in life you can count on: death and taxes. I would add a third: changes. Every person goes through changes in life. And some of those changes can be significant.
Whether you are graduating, starting a new job, moving to a new city, or ending a relationship, you may find dealing with change to be stressful. But there is good news. Counselling can absolutely help you navigate these big life changes so you can make the absolute best decision for you.
Here are some ways counseling can help with big life changes:
Managing Expectations
There’s the change itself, and then there’s what we expect life to be during and after the change. Often we can feel stress when reality does not align with our expectations of reality. Counselling can help you manage your expectations so that the transition is peaceful and realistic.
A Positive Framework
Change means one door closes as another one opens. But many people put all of their focus and attention on that closing door. Focusing on an ending can make us feel depressed and anxious.
A counsellor can help you focus on the new opportunities ahead of you. This can improve your state of mind, which will ultimately help you make the most of the current situation.
Self-Care
For many of us, change means burning the candle at both ends and not taking care of ourselves. Counselling can remind us that we need to make our physical and mental health a priority during this transition.
Now that you see some of the ways counselling can help you through the biggest changes in your life, you might feel that it would be helpful to find a therapist who can help you find insight and fresh perspective. If you’d like to explore counselling further, please consider reaching out to me. I specialize in helping women navigate changes and challenges in their lives effectively so that they can grown though these circumstances to be aligned with their values and what matters most to them.
Notice the way you talk to yourself when you are struggling to juggle “all the things”. Would you talk this way to a friend? Probably not.
Instead, try reminding yourself how tough it is to keep all these things on your plate. Take a few slow, deep breaths. Place a kind hand on your heart. Self-compassion can help you respond better in a crisis.
If you need some guidance, try listening to these self-compassion meditations as a way to build a self-compassion practice so you’ll have something to draw on next time a difficult moment hits.
2. Give up the Quest to do it Perfectly:
Being a busy mom means that you are not going to be able to keep the standards that you wish in all the different parts of your life. Part of lightening the load of motherhood is refusing to put unrealistic expectation on yourself.
What if the dishwasher isn’t loaded perfectly, kids clothes are jammed in drawers rather than being folded neatly or they don’t take xyz lessons this season?
Once you get used to the discomfort of “good enough”, it is quite freeing. It allows you to delegate; not just to your spouse but to your kids too. Not needing things to be done to such a high standard also helps your to set better boundaries about what you are and are not able to take on.
3. Automate and Delegate:
No doubt you’re busy as heck and feel like you are being pulled in five different directions at any given moment; planning dinner, supervising homework, driving to sports, running the bedtime routine, keeping up with cleaning and anything else that has found its way onto your plate. In the midst of this, it feels like an extra task just to ask for the help you need.
Don’t fall in the trap of just doing it yourself!
Finding ways for things to be repeatable and clearly communicated is super helpful for lightening the mental load of motherhood. Plan to do this ahead of time, not in the moment. Once everyone knows what to do, then completely turn that task over to them and take it off you plate.
I am sure you can find a million different ways to do this, but here are some things I love to help me organize, automate and delegate:
*Detailed cleaning routine from Clean Mama which is great for explaining what to do and when.
*A free app called COZI linked to the cleaning routine above. I set it up on my phone and on my older kids devices so it sends them reminders about when to do chores. I don’t have to ask again!
*Meal planing & shopping list app called Plan to Eat. It stores my recipes, makes meal plans and grocery lists.
*Free meal plans every two weeks from the Better Mom so I don’t have to think
4. Be Real With Your Close Mom Friends: Are you feeling overwhelmed? Struggling with mom rage? Being real with you close friend will help you feel less alone and validate what they are going thru too. You may even be able to find creative ways to work together or support each other.
5. Prioritize Self-Care: Self-care is a long-term strategy focused on preventing burnout. Often moms are so exhausted taking care of themselves seems to be the last thing on the list. Other times, they are just uncomfortable with prioritizing their needs and feel like a “bad mom” or guilty for leaving the “to do list” if they take time for themselves.
Look for small ways, like pouring a nice cup of tea, smelling your favourite lotion or sitting down for a few minutes to listen to music or read a book to tend to your needs. Intentionally set aside even 5-10 minutes every day to recharge and care for yourself.
The mental load of motherhood can be so exhausting and overwhelming. Especially at time of high emotion and transitions like we are in this week, as we prepare for back to school, our “mom brains” can feel especially stressed. Remember to respond to yourself with compassion when you can’t get it all done. Expect less of yourself. Proactively find some ways to delegate and automate the sharing of tasks. Cultivate a good group of mom friends to commiserate with and prioritize caring for yourself.
Sometimes motherhood can feel so overwhelming and stressful that self- help is not enough. Counselling can help you process your feelings and find more effective ways to cope. I specialize in working with moms who are feeling stressed, overwhelmed and anxious to help them learn new ways to thrive in their lives.
A few months ago, in the thick of pandemic isolation, articles about ‘mom rage’ began appearing in my Facebook feed and in my inbox.
Intrigued, I felt drawn to read what I could find about this term that I had never heard of.
Don’t get me wrong, I’ve certainly experience feeling angry as a mom, but I had never heard of the experience described in such a raw way.
In case you haven’t heard of it, ’Mom rage’ is the term to describe the intense anger many women experience during pregnancy, postpartum and beyond. It is a fitting description for venting of the daily emotional and logistical pressures moms face, that have a way of building up and building up until we lose it.
‘Mom rage’ does not sound at all like the kind of patient, fun mom you’ve envisioned being, which makes it especially hard to talk about without feeling guilt or shame. If you’ve struggled with anger as a mom, I want you to know that you are not alone.
What contibutes to ‘Mom Rage’?
‘Mom rage’ can be linked to social isolation, lack of support, managing high levels of stress as well as maternal depression and anxiety.
Being a mom, for many, can intensify our experience of anxiety. Am I getting this right? How do I keep my kids safe? Are they getting all that they need?
Grief can also contribute to feelings of anger. Becoming a mom, while it can be a wonderful experience, is also an experience of loss. As moms, we might grieve the loss of our independence, losing control over our own schedule, decreased social connection, lack of sleep, our pre-baby bodies, etc.
During this pandemic, this experience of loss has only been amplified; when you stop and consider all of the changes that we have had to adapt to over the past few months, grief is a normal emotional reaction to have.
Part 1 of this blog series, highlighted the importance of recognizing your triggers and addressing them pro-actively to help you cope more effectively with stress and being overwhelmed.
Here are some steps you can take to help you in the moment, to help you get a grip:
1.Stop “Should-ing” All Over Yourself:Albert Ellis, the founder of Rational-Emotive Behaviour Therapy coined the term “should-ing all over yourself” to describe our tendency to criticize and judge ourselves with shoulds. Guilt and anxiety are amplified the more ‘shoulding’ you do.
When you catch yourself mentally beating yourself up for all of the things you “should” have done, ask yourself “who says this is important or how it has to be done?”.
Often the things that we feel we “should” do come from external pressures and are not even what really matters to us. Perhaps it’s our mom who says it should be a certain way or our friends who are all enrolling their kids in some program or another.
If there are some “shoulds” that really matter to you, don’t feel that you need to carry the burden alone. Enlist help from a spouse, friend, family member, or older child to help share the load.
2. Put Down Your Phone: The madness of social media is that on one hand you use it to try and distract yourself from whatever unpleasant emotions you are feeling (boredom, anxiety, overwhelmed, etc.) while it simultaneously makes you feel worse when you see the highlights of everyone else’s day.
Even if you’re watching the latest Kristina Kuzmic YouTube Video while you’re trying to parent your kids, you’ll likely be interrupted on multiple occasions, and what sort of mindset will you be in then?
Being distracted by your phone makes it even more difficult to regulate your emotions or to help your kids deal with theirs. Try putting your phone out of sight, at least for part of the day, so you can be fully present.
3. Notice What is Happening in Your Body: Become more aware of what it feels like in your body before you become unhinged. Where do you feel the frustration, overwhelm, anger, sadness or helplessness in your body?
Take a deep breath, exhale slowly and focus on what your body is feeling.
You might notice how you shrug your shoulders up towards your neck, or tighten your jaw muscles when you are feeling overwhelmed. Maybe you notice how hot you feel when you feel angry.
Noticing and naming the tension you feel and the emotions that are coming up may not make the difficult situation it go away, but it puts you back in control and allows you to take a minute and think about how you’d like to respond.
5. Respond To Yourself With Compassion: Kristen Neff, who is a leading author and researcher on self-compassion has found that when caregivers (yes, that is you, mom!) pour themselves out for others without being kind and supportive towards themselves, they eventually burn out.
After a decade of research, Neff has found that held-compassion is associated with good mental health, protects caregivers from compassion fatigue and increases satisfaction in the caregiving role.
She defines self-compassion as having 3 main components; self-kindness, common humanity, and mindfulness. Self-kindness refers to the tendency to be caring and understanding with oneself rather than being harshly critical or judgmental. Common humanity involves recognizing that all humans are imperfect, fail and make mistakes. Mindfulness involves being present in the moment with an awareness of ones painful feelings without ignoring them or holding on to tightly to them.
Here is a self-compassion exercise from the book Self-Compassion for Parents by Susan Pollack that you can try:
-Notice your experience (This is really, really hard. I feel so overwhelmed) -Validate your feeling; like how you would talk to a good friend (ugh! Moments like this completely suck! Parenting is full of these tough moments. Other moms definitely feel this way too! I am not alone experiencing this; this is part of parenting.) -Add words of kindness (You’ve got this! You can get through this. Let me be kind to myself today.) -Try putting your hand on your heart and notice the warmth and gentle pressure.
There are going to be days that you blow it! Have some compassion for yourself. Instead of feeling forever horrible and mentally beating yourself up for the rest of the day, see it as an opportunity to reset.
Ask yourself what you need in that moment to get back on track.
Apologize sincerely to your kids.
Begin again.
Motherhood will present you with the ‘opportunity’ again and again to learn to deal more skillfully with your emotions. Many moms have never been taught to handle their feelings effectively. As you learn to experience sadness, anxiety, anger and other emotions in new ways, you can also share this learning with your kids to better equip them.
If you’ve been struggling with stress, anger or anxiety on your own and don’t feel like you’ve been making progress, counselling can be a very helpful part of the puzzle. I invite you to reach out for a free 15 minute consultation to see if we’d be a good fit to work together, to help you learn to navigate your emotions more effectively.
Helpful Resources:
How to Stop Losing Your Sh*t With Your Kids by Carla Naumburg (*has a lot of ‘salty’ language, but is a great book!)
