3 things you can do when you're feeling sad
Hello,
“I understand now that I’m not a mess but a deeply feeling person in a messy world. I explain that now, when someone asks me why I cry so often, “For the same reason I laugh so often, because I’m paying attention.” - Glennon Doyle
If you’re friends with me on Facebook, you’ll know that this past week I was feeling really sad. The news of both Kate Spade and Anthony Bourdain committing suicide and leaving behind young daughters - hit me hard.
Seeing countless follow up posts about friends and acquaintances who were also struggling with mental health, or who had lost someone, really brought home how much we are struggling collectively - in a culture that is making us sick and isolated… and is literally killing some of us. There are some weeks, like last week, where we come face to face with that reality, and I don’t know about you caitlin, I’m left reeling and wondering “Am I doing enough? How can we change this?”
***
A week ago today, on Friday afternoon, in a freak accident, a young construction worker was electrocuted and died on the roof directly in front of my house here in Mexico.
In an instant, so many lives were changed forever.
My friend who heard the cries and saw it go down from her balcony, and called for help.
My other two friends who rushed down from their third-floor apartment ran across the street and up three floors where one performed CPR and the other held the young man's head and prayed and talked to him as his spirit left his body.
The young man's older brother, who was the head of the construction crew and watched his younger brother die.
The neighbour's/owners of the construction site, one of whom was also electrocuted and rushed to the hospital where he remains under observation.
The staff of our hotel, who have been friends with the family for years, one of whom was hanging out on the rooftop during a break, just minutes before the accident.
And of course, the rest young man's family... including wife and 9-month-old baby, and his parents who had to say goodbye to their child.
The grief and shock around were palpable over the weekend. The building site directly across from my patio remains eerily silent and it is impossible not to think about what happened every time I look out my window, as I did numerous times a day.
***
And then on Saturday, I had a consultation call with a guy I had known from elementary and middle school. My initial consultations are usually 45 mins to an hour, and we talked for twice as long.
While a lot of our conversation centred around his experiences, we also talked about mine.
We talked about how we had learned to survive trauma and the culture of extreme and violent toxic masculinity that we grew up with... He became a hockey player, used alcohol to numb and aggression as an outlet for his pain. Though he was a few years younger than the perpetrators of the abuse I experienced, he literally became "that guy" I had to protect myself from.
I held space for him to cry and I could feel him sobbing from across an entire continent.
The conversation brought up a lot for me, it literally so close to home.
I felt deeply sad after. I sat in my office and cried.
I cried tears for the children in both of us, longing to be held and comforted and loved unconditionally.
I wept for the teenagers in both of us, who grasped at all we knew to survive and both resorted to defiantly fighting/fucking our way out... and the resulting, protective shell so thick it is taking years to chip away.
For us as adults and parents, trying so hard to heal and learn to love ourselves so that we can show our kids how to be whole.
***
The layers of sadness felt like a cloud around and inside of me... clouding my ability to think clearly (I kept forgetting things) or move quickly.
I went to see Ocean's 8 on Saturday and was entertained for a couple of hours and yet as soon as I got home, the cloud returned.
I went out dancing for a couple of hours that night and had my moments of joy, but then the sadness would well up in my eyes and my friend/dance partner kept saying "animoCata" ... I felt the old familiar urge to numb/escape creep back. I took myself home and cried instead.
***
I'm paying attention.
I'm refusing to turn away.
I'm also releasing the sense that there is something "wrong" with me when I can't "get over it" or when I feel so deeply
I've felt distracted and can't really concentrate
And I know that this is okay
It's okay for me to be with sadness
It's okay if it takes time
I'd rather be "too sensitive" than tuned out
Learning to show up as I am and truly BE has been one of the hardest and also most beautiful gifts of my life.
***
What can you do if you’re feeling sad?
Be honest:
One of the biggest gifts you can give yourself is to be honest about what’s going on. I used to put on a smiley face to try to convince everyone including myself that “EVERYTHING IS FINE” - when of course, it wasn’t.
It still feels unfamiliar to me to answer the question “how are you?” honestly.
Here’s an example of a conversation with a friend on Monday (over text message):
Friend: “How are you?”
Me: “I’m actually really sad right now.”
Friend: 'How come?”
Me: “I’m not sure. Everything. It feels like a lot right now.”
Friend: “What can I do to help?”
Me: “I don’t know… I think I just need to be sad. Keep checking in… give me a hug later?”
Then I posted on Facebook about feeling sad. It was really hard for me to do this, as is sharing this blog. After putting on a mask for so many years, it’s still hard to take it off sometimes, even with practice.
Give yourself time:
I’ve come to realize more and more that the only way out is through. As you saw from my attempts to distract myself from my sadness on Saturday, it didn’t really work. Going to the movie and then out dancing was a temporary escape, however, what I really needed was to give myself the time to experience the range of emotions … and to have a fully embodied experience of my grief and sadness. This took a few days, days where I tried to slow right down and take the non-essentials off of my “to-do” list. If this isn’t possible, for example, you are a caretaker and have to go to your 9-5 job and just aren’t able to turn inward, it’s okay… Be patient and gentle with yourself and know that it might take a little bit more time to work through you.
Support:
It can be really hard to reach out for support when you are feeling sad, and even more so when you are depressed. That’s why I advocate setting up a support system when things “aren’t so bad.”
I have a world-class team of support: an incredibly skilled holistic therapist whom I see every two weeks (currently repeating in my calendar “forever” lol), two coaches, my mastermind sisters, several colleagues who truly understand the unique challenges of being an entrepreneur, friends with whom I can be raw and real, family...
If you've been feeling sad, lonely, isolated, overwhelmed, paralyzed, wanting to tune out or numb... Let's talk. I know it can be hard to reach out but I promise you will feel better when you do. Together, we are stronger. Sometimes, speaking with someone can help you see options that aren't obvious when you're "deep in it." I would love to connect. Click here to set up a time.
Hugs,
xoxo
How to eliminate the "shoulds" in Redefining Your Relationship to alcohol
Hi!!
How are you?
A couple of weeks ago in the Redefining Sobriety Immersion program we covered the topic of “releasing shoulds.”
This theme is so important that we dedicate an entire week to it!! It provides the basis for what makes Redefining Sobriety so powerful… eliminating the external noise and stories that don’t belong to us, to get clear on and listen to our intuition.
There are a lot of "should" when it comes to redefining our relationship to alcohol:
- I “should” quit drinking if I have a problem
- I “should” want to be sober if I’ve struggled with alcohol
- I “should” be better
- I “should” be farther along in my healing
- I “should” do what my family wants
- I “should” keep drinking because I’m not an alcoholic and my friends/spouse/family doesn’t think it’s a problem...
In Redefining Sobriety, we learn to get quiet and eliminate the “shoulds” that don’t belong to us.
You can try this too!
Try writing a list of everything you think you “should” be doing.
Once you’ve written a comprehensive list, get quiet with yourself. As you read over the list, you may ask yourself “whose should is this?” Or, “whose story is this?”
Start crossing anything off of the list that doesn’t belong to you.
It’s entirely up to you to decide your story moving forward.
Another reframe is switching to the words “I could” which helps you feel like it’s an option rather than an obligation, or “I can” which becomes a more empowering statement.
During one of our group coaching calls, I shared how “shoulds” have shown up for me in interesting ways since launching my business.
Of course, there’s some of the obvious "shoulds" that come up when we compare ourselves to other entrepreneurs or coaches.
But something interesting started showing up for me recently as I compared myself to the “sober coaches” out there.
There’s a really incredible community of women out there who championing alcohol-free living. They are bloggers and coaches and writers and podcasters and many share super inspiring and powerful content. I’ve interviewed some of them of my summit and have been interviewed on some of their podcasts.
I noticed a question starting to wiggle its way into my consciousness.
Should I be completely alcohol free?
Many of these women have stories very similar to mine.
They don’t identify as alcoholics.
They don’t necessarily feel at home in programs like AA.
They are finding alternative paths to recovery and that’s part of what inspires me.
Yet, the difference is that they chose to completely abstain from alcohol.
It started feeling to me to that they are part of this cool club that I wasn’t really allowed in because I still drink.
And that was triggering a deeply imbedded high school era desire to be invite to the popular parties and to fit in.
I started to doubt my decision, my path…
Imagine that - my entire coaching practice was built around providing my community and clients with the options to CHOOSE THEIR OWN PATH and empower them redefine their relationship to alcohol ON THEIR OWN TERMS and here I was questioning the very foundation of that for myself.
Talk about existential crisis!!
That’s why “getting quiet and getting clear” becomes so important.
Because, the truth is... when I get quiet, and can tune into my inner voice, and get clear, I realize that I actually really LOVE having the option to drink when I want.
I LOVE that I’ve learned to moderate when others said I couldn’t or that’s it’s too hard or impossible.
I LOVE that I have an entire toolkit I use so that I don’t turn to alcohol in times of stress, sadness, loneliness or anxiety.
I LOVE that it’s entirely up to me whether I drink or not, and that I can have an experience like the one I had 2 Fridays ago, without guilt or shame.
Last week, I traveled to Miami for the Institute for Integrative Nutrition’s holistic health coaching conference.
On Friday evening, I had an invitation to join some dear, long-term friends of mine for dinner. They announced in the afternoon that they wanted to treat us to caviar and champagne.
Though I’ve tried caviar before, I’ve never been to a champagne and caviar bar as decadent as this one (ok let’s be real, I don’t actually think I’ve ever been to a "champagne and caviar bar" - ever).
I savoured the entire experience and probably over the course of a couple of hours, drank the equivalent of 2 or maybe 2.5 glasses of delicious high end champagne, while nibbling on toast with chives, crème fraîche and of course, caviar.
It was a luxurious experience and one I was grateful to have.
It was special and I’m so relieved that I don’t have any guilt or shame around my decision to partake.
I enjoyed the taste, the flavours and textures, the effervescence of the bubbly.
I wasn’t chasing a “feeling,” reacting to a trigger, or compromising my alcohol agreement with myself (as you’re probably aware, my personal alcohol agreement includes not drinking when I feel like I “need” a drink, or when I’m feeling triggered aka sad, overwhelmed, lonely, anxious or self-critical, and to stay on the sober side of tipsy and not drink more than 1-2 in a sitting, except for rare and special occasions - this being one of them!)
I still had a great night’s sleep and felt clear and energized for the conference the next day.
The following evening, the conference hosting a “networking “mixer” in a trendy lounge. I navigated an “open bar” with absolute ease, having a glass of water, then one drink and then zero desire to partake any more in the flow of vodka drinks being passed across the bar. I also ordered a martini at the following venue that was so poorly made that I didn’t finish it.
It affirmed for me again that I can choose quality over quantity and prioritize an experience over the effects of alcohol.
And I did this mostly unconsciously, without fear of sliding back into old ways and overdoing it. Previously, the free flowing booze would have been a trigger, as with the “high performance” expectations of a conference networking event.
What I love about releasing the "shoulds" and stories that don’t belong to us is that we truly each get to decide our own path and are empowered to choose our own experiences.
Some of my clients and community members choose to live alcohol free because it’s what feels better for them. Others choose moderation, others are very sporadic in their consumption, and others oscillate between the two.
The only “right way” to do this is the way that feels aligned and right for YOU.
That’s what Redefining Sobriety is all about.
I’d love to hear from you - do you struggle with any “shoulds”? If so, what are they? Are you aware of where the story comes from? I’m happy to help you sift through the shoulds. If you'd like to talk more about how this relates to you, set up your free consultation/call here.
xoxo
ps. As we're winding up this round of the Redefining Sobriety Online Immersion program, I have a few 1-1 spots opening up. If you are feeling ready for in-depth support to discover YOUR unique path - let's chat!!
7 Strategies For Overcoming Anxiety
Hello!!
This was a really hard blog for me to write. It brings up so many fears - especially around my competence and whether you can trust me as a coach and “leader.” It was so hard to write, in fact, it took me THE WHOLE MONTH OF MAY to get this to you… (May was mental health month and I wanted to send a specific blog on that theme).
However, anxiety can be so insidious and affects too many of us. There is still a lot of shame and stigma around this topic… and it’s one that I didn’t speak about personally for a long time.
Anxiety, simply put, is a feeling of worry, nervousness, or unease, typically about an imminent event or something with an uncertain outcome. Anxiety is part of “normal” brain functioning and has a very important role - to keep us safe.
The part of our brain that controls feelings such as anxiety is called the amygdala, and it is the part that gets activated when there is a perceived threat. Imagine you are walking down a street at night and all of a sudden, one of the street lights goes off and everything becomes a bit darker. Almost simultaneously, you hear footsteps rapidly approaching behind you. Your breath quickens and your heart rate speeds up. This is your body preparing you for “fight or flight” - which might save your life. Granted, those footsteps could be an evening jogger, or a friend who saw you from a few blocks away and is sprinting trying to catch up with you. However, there is a moment when your brain doesn’t know the difference between a perceived or real threat - and its job is to do what it thinks is best in order to save your life.
Anxiety can be triggered by a number of factors associated with our modern societies and is so common now that it is an estimated 40 MILLION people in the USA who suffer from an anxiety disorder.
For a long time, I didn’t know that what I was experiencing was anxiety. I don’t remember feeling anxious as a child, or exactly when it started.
However, reflecting back… I see the layers of stress that started to pile high on top of each other.
The enormous pressure I piled on myself to be “okay” - after going from getting very good grades to almost failing grade 10 and 11, having tons of problems at home and eventually leaving for a time before I graduated high school.
The alcohol-induced blackouts that started around age 16, where I would wake up in a panic trying to fill in the blank around what happened to me… and lasted for another decade and a half until I got my alcohol use under control.
The sexual molestations and rape that started around the same age I left home, and the shame surrounding my inability to speak up or even really know what was happening to me, let alone do anything about it.
The high-performance coping mechanisms I developed after high school, where I over-achieved like my life depended on it, because it felt like it did.
The accumulation of days and weeks and months and YEARS without enough sleeping, pushing myself hard hard harder… or was it running, fast fast faster to stay as far away from the pain as I could.
(When praised for my accomplishments or asked the question “how have you accomplished so much at such a young age?” I would often answer “I don’t really sleep.”)
The excessive amount of pressure, stress and responsibility I felt at a young age led to some pretty unhealthy coping mechanisms and not surprisingly, panic attacks came with them.
I remember the first one so vividly, I was walking to the Commercial drive community clinic where I had to open up on a holiday Monday and supervise a group support meeting. I had been partying all weekend (my “coping” strategy for a very intense work environment and a ton of responsibility at a young age) and was very short on sleep. I started feeling anxious about the day ahead and realized I wasn’t breathing properly. Before I knew it, I was feeling like I was going to pass out and my hands cramped up so intensely they were paralyzed and I couldn’t even use my phone. I remember shaking uncontrollably and vomiting in the ambulance on the way to the hospital. The attending paramedic had to hold the bowl in front of my face while lecturing me about the drugs I had told him I was taking. I was put under observation for a few hours and then sent home with some lorazapam. I had to call sick to work because I couldn’t get out of bed for 2 days… and I was too ashamed to talk about the reason why.
The crazy thing about anxiety is how quickly it tries to convince you that you’re going back to “that place.”
Like recently, while I was sitting on a comfy couch next to someone who cares about me, and I forgot to breathe because we were watching a scary movie, and I stood up to walk outside to get some fresh air and the bright light blinded me and I started to feel dizzy, my body and brain wanted to take me back to “that place” and within seconds I felt completely out of control and terrified.
For me, anxiety can both be a mental trigger or a physical experience that takes my whole body hostage at times.
It’s the shallow breath that seems to get stuck in my throat, no matter how hard I try to breathe deep into my chest.
It’s the dizziness and lightheadedness that follows the shortness of breath.
It’s the nausea that sets in along with the panicked fear that my body is taking me to a point of no return.
It can be triggered by external factors or seemingly “nbd” nuisances like get startled awake by shouting or dogs barking aggressively or any loud noise really… and it’s really hard to explain to anyone else who doesn’t have experience with this exactly how hard it is to climb back out of the spiral.
Or it can be triggered by legit fears or made up ones, and the pressures of being a good mother, coach, business owner, friend, partner, etc..
Sometimes it is literally paralyzing, like the inability to follow through on what should be a simple task or email.
I think I spent so many years running and performing and self-medicating that I am only just coming to terms with my anxiety.
Becoming a mother has brought it even closer to the surface on a daily basis, and becoming a single parent (and single person) brings me face to face with my fears, like, next level.
There are a variety of tools that I’ve been using to help me manage my anxiety. At this point, I’m not trying to be “anxiety-free” as that feels like a lot of pressure, but I am trying to get through the day without a meltdown. Some days that feels more doable than others, and I practice a whole heck of a lot of self-forgiveness on the days that fears and forgetting to breathe spiral into an uncontrollable attack.
REMEMBERING TO BREATHE
This might seem obvi but it’s actually something I have to remember to do. When I realize how shallow I’m breathing and that I haven’t taken a belly breath for a while, I stop what I’m doing (if possible) and place one hard on my heart and one hand on my belly and breath all the way into my lower abdomen. I often to this parked in front of my office, after I’ve dropped my daughter off at school and before I head upstairs to the office, or when I’ve escaped into the bathroom at home trying to get my emotions under control. I find counting my in and out breaths really helps, and gradually increasing the count. For example, if I’m feeling short of breath, I start with one count in and one count out. Then after several breaths, I increase to two, then to three.
GETTING UP EARLY + MORNING RITUAL
My mornings used to be super rushed and chaotic (before having a kid). As I started to redefine my relationship to alcohol, I realized how important it was to start the day calmly and in a way that nurtures my mind, body and spirit. Then I had a kid, and my morning routine went to shit for awhile. I’m now committed to waking up early, doing deep breathing while still in bed and listening to the birds and centering on a feeling of gratitude, drinking my water and lemon and taking my supplements, doing my Thrive Threesome journaling practice and prepping a smoothie because I wake my daughter up. This takes between 30-45 mins. I notice a huge difference on the days I have time to do this versus the days I wake up at the same time as she does or when she wakes up early and I’m immediately in “reactivity.”
RESTING
If I’ve been in a high state of anxiety or have experienced an “attack” - I often need to rest a lot afterwards. “Pushing through” is sometimes necessary (I do have responsibilities outside of myself) however I try to allow myself time to rest as soon as I can… sometimes that’s laying down on the sofa in my office or on the floor for 10 minutes (at this point I don’t really care what anyone else in my office thinks though I realize this might not be possible for everyone) and I plug in soothing, chakra balancing music. Or I simply try to get to bed earlier, especially as I’m prone to waking up a lot. Michelle Cady, a former client and author of the recently released “Self-Care in the City” talks about the importance of rest in our interview about alcohol and adrenal fatigue. Here’s her interview from the Redefining Sobriety summit.
USING ESSENTIAL OILS and AROMATHERAPY
While I’ve used essential oils off and on for years, I really began to understand their power while I was hospitalized during my high-risk pregnancy, with haemorrhaging and the threat of a mid-term miscarriage. I used “tranquillity” and “serenity” blends pretty much non-stop… trying to calm my fears and adrenals so as to not put more stress on the little one who was fighting for her life inside. The oils used in the picture here are the ones I used most frequently now. I put cedarwood and vetiver on the soles of my feet and use a mantra that “I am grounded/rooted, I am centred, I am safe.” When I feel myself “spiralling” into what feels like an anxiety attack, I used Purify to bring me back to myself. Balance transports me into a feeling of being protected and in the forest, from which I draw strength.
TAPPING AND AFFIRMATIONS
Using “tapping” or emotional freedom technique (EFT) has done wonderings. There is something very powerful about acknowledging what I’m feeling and loving myself through it. Affirmations such as “Even though I’m feeling really anxious and fearful right now, I totally love and accept myself just the way I am” combined with tapping on the meridians that have been shown to help calm the amygdala and reduce cortisol has been super powerful. I’m also grateful to Jackie MacDonald for teaching me about “finger tapping” which you can do anywhere. Here is her interview from the Redefining Sobriety Summit where she shares several really practice tools and takes me through a tapping exercise to deal with overwhelm (aka anxiety trigger).
CHANGING HOW I TALK ABOUT MYSELF, TO MYSELF
I learned this technique from Tree Franklyn. Instead of saying, “I’m anxious” or “I’m stressed,” I try to shift the language to “I’m feeling anxious right now” which shifts the internal conversation from labelling myself to making a statement about how I’m feeling right now, which both separates my identity from the experience and helps remind me that it is not permanent. Another affirmation I use often is “I love you” on the inhale and “I am safe” on the exhale.
I've also included Tree's interview from the Redefining Sobriety Summit.
SEEKING SUPPORT
I see a therapist twice a month who supports me with healing trauma (and who also works with tapping and other emotional freedom techniques and herbal/flower remedies), I have coaches who support me through the fears and pressures of being a healer and a coach, and running a business, and a small group of friends I can call on for support and who help remind me to breathe. I have colleagues who are also people who experience anxiety and can relate without minimizing or dismissing what I’m recalling or experiencing. I’m particularly grateful to Dr Perpetua Neo’s work and our many collaborations on this topic. Here’s an article she wrote that talks about the connection between alcohol and anxiety. Dr Neo also has a lot of other great articles on anxiety so make sure to check out her profile on Mind Body Green.
I hope the videos and links I’ve included in this blog are helpful. If you’ve experienced anything like what I’ve described here, please know that you can reach out and that there are tools that can help. I’m happy to talk about this anytime. Here’s a link to my calendar to set up a time to chat.
If you want to hear from the other summit experts (several of whom talk about trauma and anxiety in different ways and share a variety of tools), you can purchase the entire summit for $47 and there’s a ton of value. Let me know if this interests you and we’ll send it your way!
xoxo