Bored in your relationship?? Maybe it's because you're boring!!

A cause of stress, complaints, and unrest I hear is usually because couples feel bored with their relationship. At its best, it leaves people feeling stale. At its worse, it leaves people leaving the relationship, having affairs, or creating excitement/numbing boredom with addictions (food, gambling, drugs, alcohol, shopping...).

So how can we avoid that, or at least decrease the likelihood of that??

Don't be boring! Create excitement. Create novelty.

When people first start dating, their brains are lit up by the newness of the relationship. You're meeting a new person and finding out about their personality, their quirks, their interests. You're exploring your chemistry and how to be intimate and sexual with each other. You're probably going on dates and trying new restaurants or hikes or vacation spots. New new new!

Then familiarity and routine set in. While this can provide comfort, it can lead to neglect of people's need for novelty and excitement. Enter boredom!

So, here’s a hot tip to help when you are bored in your relationship: proactively create novelty! Go on dates! Experiment with sex! Tell different stories! Work on new projects together!

Other, not so sexy, tip: practice beginner's mind. Beginner's mind is a mindfulness concept of dropping preconceptions and engaging in life and interactions as if it’s your first time. Don't be a know-it-all. Don't buy whatever same old boring story you come up with about how the day or activity will go. Just be in the moment. Even if it’s just cooking dinner, see what you can learn or notice. See how you can find excitement. Create novelty in the mundane.

Holidays are a great time to get un-boring! Plus novelty and beginner's mind are the gifts that keep on giving. Enjoy!

Open Letter to my Niece after Womens March Denver 2017

Hi Buddy!

Today you, your mom and I were part of something big and my heart is swelling with pride for us, for our city, and for the goodness of human spirit that took to the streets today in unity to protest the state of our country. History books will have their story, but in this moment I can tell you that, after the 2016 election, we found ourselves feeling scared, overwhelmed, divided, and silenced by a big part of the country and by our new government with Trump at the helm. But while that's how we felt, what we did was take action. We felt scared and we stayed awake and engaged. We felt overwhelmed and we organized movements and marches. We felt divided and we joined our sisters and brothers in supporting women and minorities, 200k marchers took to the streets in Denver alone. We felt silenced and we spoke, make signs, chanted, cried, and roared. I dont know what will happen tomorrow. I dont know if laws will change or our government will listen. But I do know that lives were changed today. No matter the final outcome, we made a difference.

I hope your mom and I continue to show you by words and actions that you matter, that it is important to stand up for yourself and for your rights and for what you believe is right, that the worth of your actions isnt in outcome but in intention and kindness, and that you should not pass up an opportunity (no matter how small or insignificant it might seem) to participate in an empowered life. 

With your big heart, smart brain, and kind strength, I know you will be a part of whatever your generation's Womens March 2017 might be. I will be proud stand with you (figuratively or literally) when that day comes. 

Love you!

Aunt Erika

Too Busy to Feel

I come by it honestly. My Dad was a well-intentioned workaholic and my Mom both loses and finds herself in helping others. I’m good at staying busy. It’s brought some amazing adventures, a sense of confidence and independence, and varied nerdy interests and intellectual pursuits.

But what happens when life slows down and gives you more time than you know how to fill? If you’re me, you panic! The panic goes in waves (the waves calm when the smallest bit of distraction helps me avoid the darkness that my fear tells me is looming in the distance, waiting to pounce if I slow down enough for it to catch me). I didn’t think I actively avoided being still, but at the same time I certainly wasn’t comfortable in it and had created patterns and habits that kept me from finding an uncomfortable amount of it. But those patterns of staying busy had been changed and weren’t available and I got scared.

Oh, and to further normalize aversion to stillness, Im a therapist! Im supposed to like this shit! Im into mindfulness and stillness and emotions and all that uncomfy stuff. Wasn’t I supposed to start a prolonged state of levitating bliss when I got my MFT license!?!

So I did what any enlightened person does…I judged myself, I denied my feelings, and I found new ways to get busy again. Until I hit a brick wall and got buried under depression and anxiety. Until I started crying at small, seemingly random things. Until I struggled to get out of bed. Until I was with my favorite people doing my favorite things and still felt numb because disconnecting from painful emotions had disconnected me from the more fun ones as well.

Begrudgingly, I took my own dumb advice and leaned into the stillness. I got really intentional about keeping up my yoga practice, mediating, listening to music, journaling, letting myself lay in bed and cry if I felt like it. I got intentional about being curious about my thoughts and feelings and simply observing and labling what I saw.  At that time, what I found, was lonliness. In hindsight, all my previous busy-ness that had been an effort to avoid feeling lonely had kept me from connecting to others, mostly because I hadn’t been connecting to myself.  Without truly seeing my emotions and lonliness, I had not been effective in helping myself feel better because you cant fix a problem you refuse to identify. Once I got in touch with my lonliness I was able to take action to connect to friends and family, connect more meaningfully to activities, and, most importantly, connect to myself.

This stuff isn’t magic. I still had times (and currently have time…lets be real, this stuff is part of life and still happens) when I missed people or was bored. And those times hurt, but I find myself practicing being more open to acknowledging that hurt rather than running from it. I firmly believe that being separated from others is painful, but being separated from yourself is suffering.

I encourage you to join me in this practice of daily slowing down enough to see yourself. It’s a scary idea and takes a lot of bravery. And its worth it. You’re worth it.

If you’re struggling with overwhelming emotions, Im here to help.  Get in touch via email ErikaHolmesMFT@gmail.com, or phone 818.919.2253

Square Breathing

"Four Square Breathing"

Step by step instructions:

1. Breathe in for a count of four

2. Pause for a count of four

3. Breathe out for a count of four

4. Pause for a count of four

5. Rinse and repeat. Do 4 cycles.

Four Reasons to Try "Four Square Breathing"

1. it’s easy. If you can count to four and breathe, you can do it.

2. You can do it anywhere. One DBT skill for distress tolerance is distraction. For this you can go for a walk, watch TV, squeeze silly putty, smell flowers, etc. The list is endless (and having all those options is empowering). But you don’t always have the time to go to the gym, or the money to buy an adult coloring book. And, if you’re in a meeting or on a date, let’s face it, playing with a slinky or going around chanting in lotus pose is just plain weird. But no one needs to know that you are controlling your breathing, refocusing, and calming your nervous system as you do four-square breathing.

3. Turns on parasympathetic nervous system. I will spare you the nerdy science, but let’s just say that four square breathing can help take you from frenetic fight/flight/freeze to calm rest/digest/process mode.

4. Gives anxious or obsessive brain a task. If your brain is going a million miles an hour in circles, sometimes it is soothed by doing something basic and concrete. Instead of letting your monkey mind swing from thought to thought, you can focus on counting your breathe and noticing your inhales and exhales. It is difficult for a brain to obsess about the talk you’re about to have or taxes or germ while simultaneously counting your breaths.

Now all you have to do is try it!

Check Engine: a practice of radical acceptance

I'm a runner. Sometimes I place in my age group but I'm not setting any records out there. But that doesn't mean I don't have an ego that's competative gets off on praise and validation. And that ego, that competative and reward dependant ego, likes to call the shots and set the pace or milage or duration for my runs.

And my egos no dumb-dumb. It studies. It likes to peek at the speeds of fellow runners in my orange theory class. It likes to look at course records and race results for marathons and 10ks. It likes to people watch at the park and analyze what all the speedy kids are doing out there. It likes track my time on a course on strava and delights when I can beat that time. It can get caught up in the latest article or study on "the ten best ways to breathe" or "the new way to tie your shoes that will improve your vo2max" that grace the pages of facebook running blogs and runners magazines. Oh, its no dummy!

But it has blinders on. It doesnt see, doesnt listen to, or doesnt rioritize my body. It doesnt like to think about how I may be stressed at work or maybe didnt sleep or I ate too much or too little or I have this little niggle in my ankle. "F*** it!" My ego has a plan to keep, a record to beat, a person to impress. Which is fine. Those arent bad things. They just cant be the only thing. 

This may be western thinking and idealistic, but our ego brain and body operate best as a democracy. Each having its own say and right to free speech, but working for the good of the whole. It does not work out well when the ego (one muscle in our body) tries to be a dictating tyrant. The oppressed body always, one way or another, stages a revolt to overthrow the mean over-lord. This often comes in the form of fatigue and/or injury. Or the overlord gets drunk with power and developes a neurotic addiction to exercise, food, calorie counting, isolating, panic disorder, etc. 

So what do we do? How do we stay competative and improve and not let the ego (literally) run us into the ground!?! 

Answer: Mindfulness. Mindfulness of your body and mindfulness of your values. 

Most of us got into running, at least partially, for health, for energy, for the love of moving. But we lose sight of that. Too often, I see friends, clients, and fellow runners ending up sick or injured, too tired to socialize, and dreading the next long run. Its time to come back to values and let your run serve you instead of you being a slave to your run. 

Dont be a slave to the run

I'm a runner. Sometimes I place in my age group but I'm not setting any records out there. But that doesn't mean I don't have an ego that's competative gets off on praise and validation. And that ego, that competative and reward dependant ego, likes to call the shots and set the pace or milage or duration for my runs.

And my egos no dumb-dumb. It studies. It likes to peek at the speeds of fellow runners in my orange theory class. It likes to look at course records and race results for marathons and 10ks. It likes to people watch at the park and analyze what all the speedy kids are doing out there. It likes track my time on a course on strava and delights when I can beat that time. It can get caught up in the latest article or study on "the ten best ways to breathe" or "the new way to tie your shoes that will improve your vo2max" that grace the pages of facebook running blogs and runners magazines. Oh, its no dummy!

But it has blinders on. It doesnt see, doesnt listen to, or doesnt rioritize my body. It doesnt like to think about how I may be stressed at work or maybe didnt sleep or I ate too much or too little or I have this little niggle in my ankle. "F*** it!" My ego has a plan to keep, a record to beat, a person to impress. Which is fine. Those arent bad things. They just cant be the only thing. 

This may be western thinking and idealistic, but our ego brain and body operate best as a democracy. Each having its own say and right to free speech, but working for the good of the whole. It does not work out well when the ego (one muscle in our body) tries to be a dictating tyrant. The oppressed body always, one way or another, stages a revolt to overthrow the mean over-lord. This often comes in the form of fatigue and/or injury. Or the overlord gets drunk with power and developes a neurotic addiction to exercise, food, calorie counting, isolating, panic disorder, etc. 

So what do we do? How do we stay competative and improve and not let the ego (literally) run us into the ground!?! 

Answer: Mindfulness. Mindfulness of your body and mindfulness of your values. 

Most of us got into running, at least partially, for health, for energy, for the love of moving. But we lose sight of that. Too often, I see friends, clients, and fellow runners ending up sick or injured, too tired to socialize, and dreading the next long run. Its time to come back to values and let your run serve you instead of you being a slave to your run.