Boo!: In Praise of Getting Scared

why would I love this season of intended scariness? Why would I encourage you in the joy of “boo”? Because practicing a little frisson of fear, from time to time and in good company, inoculates us from that very anxiety. Think of it as exercise. We do reps. We do laps. We rest between, and recover. In that way, we build strength without becoming overwhelmed, without injuring ourselves. The scary moment in the movie is followed by a funny one, gets resolved at the end. The scary halloween house is visited and then left, as your children turn towards you for assurance and find it. Fear, unlike anxiety, is based in the present, and the conditions inciting it can therefore be managed, giving us a sense of confidence around scary sensations that can be expanded to those selfsame anxious sensations. The breath we automatically take after the monster is vanquished, the laughter when the loud noise turns out to be a cat, the shiver of delight are all, also, forms of discharge, teaching our nervous systems to handle fear and anxiety more effectively. Continue Reading Boo!: In Praise of Getting Scared

Where is the Humanity?

As a therapist, I deal with individual torment, but as a country, as a society, we must also think of trauma as something socially induced and with cultural impact. Regardless of where one stands with gun control (and I doubt that Las Vegas’ tragedy changed not one NRA mind), this country is subtly changed by each new slaughter, becoming more inured, more tolerant… much as my individual clients survived by dissociating, by learning to live without safety, becoming hypervigilent and chronically anxious.  By learning not to care. Continue Reading Where is the Humanity?

Stress 101: Meditation

Meditation is a discipline. Sometimes, it gets to me. In this video, in which I am upstaged by my dogs, I give a little taste both of the effort I put towards sitting, and how easy it is for me to get distracted from focusing on the present. What is important for all of us to wrap our minds around is that, if you’re expecting your brain to cooperate and stop thinking, you will not succeed. You will get frustrated, and you will give up on an intervention that is free and requires no travel, taking 15-20 minutes out of your day. Continue Reading Stress 101: Meditation

(Not) Having a Sense of Humor is Dangerous: Am I Charlie?

What the massacre this Wednesday leaves us with is questions, including as one correspondent on NPR put it, just how small is God, that she/he/it/they can’t take a little ribbing? That’s not just a Muslim thing, not even a religious thing…a Muslim comic conveyed a story of censorship here in the States, when the network told him to remove the mention of several corporations from his monologue because it might cost them a sponsor. There is not a Sacred Cow anywhere in the world that could not stand the paradoxical benefit of a humorous challenge. Continue Reading (Not) Having a Sense of Humor is Dangerous: Am I Charlie?