by Nathalie Edmond, Psy.D.- E-RYT

​IMAGINE…That’s my word for 2020. Today is my mother’s birthday.  She died two years ago at the age of 66, right before her 67th birthday.  Just two years after retirement.  I recently read an article that said that people who retire after 60 from their full-time, stressful jobs lower their life expectancy significantly.  My mother worked hard until right before her 65th birthday.  I remember how stressed she was the last few years of working.  Her body was tired from many years of overnights and an irregular sleep schedule, stressors around selling her home, the harsh NJ winters, but she wanted to get to her full retirement so she could have plenty of money for retirement.  She didn’t even know she had cancer until the last weeks of her life and she spent her life as a nurse.  Her sudden death was a turning point for me.  Her mother also died young as did my father’s mother.  Both I believe were in their 50s when they died.  I don’t know how much life I have left but I am clear that I want to spend time doing the things that matter. That requires me to IMAGINE my fullest life right now. Not in a few years. Not in retirement.  Right now.  I can do that responsibly financially while also shedding the scarcity mindset I adopted long ago. The part of my brain that tells me that I can’t rest for long periods of time.  That there is more money to be made and more goals to accomplish before I can be free.  IMAGINE….I am enough. I have enough. 

What step can we each take this new year, new decade to live our most authentic, freeing, and purposeful life doing the things that we value. What matters to you? What do you value?  I want you to imagine a year of taking care of yourself. Taking care of your mental health and your wellness.  Making time for therapy, meditation, yoga to care for your whole self.  Imagine having more energy, loving yourself more, having more resources available to deal with life’s daily stressors.  Imagine working through childhood traumas and hurts that impact how you see the world now and how you are in relationship with others. Imagine changing your relationship to the should.  Imagine having more purpose and meaning in your life. Imagine a life with less addictions.  Imagine feeling more connected to yourself and others. Imagine feeling less depressed, less anxious, less angry.  Imagine more time exercising, relaxing, doing hobbies, having pleasurable experiences.  Imagine seeing all the gifts you have rather than focusing on what is not working.  Imagine juggling your multiple roles with more ease.  Imagine a different relationship to your body.  Imagine a space for forgiveness and peace in your life. Sometimes you need a therapist to help you sort through your life and your feelings so you can make choices that support your well-being.  Moving from surviving to thriving.  Imagine thriving…What does that look like for you?

What are some of the barriers?  Do you think therapy isn’t for you? We know so much more about the connection between mind, body, and spirit and how taking care of one aspect can positively impact the other areas of your life.  Are you concerned about seeing a therapist when you are available, cost, location?  What if you could get your needs met in one place?  Mindful and Multicultural Counseling offers all these services.  We value making therapy, meditation and yoga affordable and inclusive.  We are in network with Horizon Blue Cross Blue Shield.  We offer sliding fee scale.  We are a group practice located in Ewing, NJ.  That means a team of diverse women available six days per week during the day, evening and weekends.  Not ready for individual therapy.  Check out one of our groups- learn skills to manage your emotions with DBT or join our Mother’s Circle if you need postpartum support.  Want a women’s group therapy to explore relational and self esteem issues? We have that too.   Or check out one of the monthly meditation workshops or the upcoming yoga for depression series. 

What do you IMAGINE for yourself in 2020? What’s the tone that you want to set for this new decade?   Give us a call 609-403-6359 or check here for therapist bios and availability.

 by Nathalie Edmond, PsyD, E-RYT

I had just submitted the written requirements for my 300 hour advanced yoga teacher training and was  preparing for the oral component which is to teach a class to 22 yoga teachers that I had spent a lot of time with over the last 15 months when I noticed all the sensations of anxiety.  I felt the tension in the body and the mind that kept exploring different sequences, music options, variations of a theme.  Even though I was an experienced yoga teacher, having taught over 1000 hours I couldn’t escape the anxiety. I was also struggling with a cold all week which was making me more vulnerable to emotions.  This anxiety lasted for almost a week.  It varied in intensity and frequency but definitely increased the closer I go to Friday evening when I would teach my class. I had volunteered to go second so didn’t even have the benefit of seeing many of my cohort go first.  I knew that it was probably better for me to be one of the firsts to go than sit with those feelings for another week.

During this week of low to moderate level anxiety I found myself using mindfulness to tune in and befriend.  I accepted that I wasn’t likely to rid of myself of the anxiety before I taught and I could use strategies to not feel hijacked by my nervous system.  I was in stress response. My life wasn't in danger and yet my nervous system was recognizing that teaching this class was important to me. I wanted to pass. I wanted my passion for the fusion of yoga and psychology to come through to people I respected and admired.  I had traveled to Philadelphia one weekend a month for more than a year and fulfilled all the other requirements.  I was 485 hours into achieving my E-RYT-500 status.  It mattered.  I was in a sympathetic response which mobilizes people into action.  Typically in a sympathetic response we move into fight or flight.  We want to do something to deal with our stress.  As long as I can stay awake to the experience and keep my frontal lobes online to communicate with my amygdala (my alarm system that notices danger) I can use the energy of stress response to my advantage. 

Think of a bell curve.  Too little energy or anxiety and there isn’t much drive to motivate you into action.  Too much energy or anxiety and the mind can tend to shut down because you are on overload.  I want to be somewhere in between in the sweet spot where I can channel the energy into productivity.

Staying awake to the experience can be challenging. That’s where my daily meditation practice is so key.  I can tune in to my internal experience.  SIFT through what is happening inside and outside.  Sensations, Images, Feelings and Thoughts.  Just observe from a place of curiosity and nonjudgment. Come back to the breath.   Relax into the reality of the moment. Come back to the breath.   Accept rather than resist.   Come back to the breath.  Check the facts.  Come back to the breath.  Reassure myself if needed.  Come back to the breath. 

I remind myself of what is true- I know what I am doing and whatever I teach is an offering.  It says something about me at this moment of time and doesn’t define who I am.  I am good enough just as I am and this experience matters to me.  I want to be viewed in a positive light.  In a couple of months this will be a distant memory.  All the time I spent this past week imagining the sequence and planning was an act of love. What would happen if we thought of everything as an offering- a gift to the world?  What if our to do lists and our worrying are acts of love and a desire to make the world a better place?  How do we not get caught up in the worry to the point where it leads to paralysis or unhealthy avoidance? 

There is a path to liberation.  My theme for my class was about integrating the masculine and feminine energy within all of us, the left and right sides of our brain and helping us all get free by finding freedom in our practice and connecting with one another.  The class went well.  It was great to go second because the first class helped me drop into my body after a week of not being able to exercise because I was sick which is such a great stress management tool for me.  The class I taught wasn’t perfect but it was beautiful and a true offering of who I am at this moment which is always perfect because I  cannot be any other way.  As soon as I taught the class my nervous system went back to steady state.  Thank you nervous system for being there for me.
Want to learn more about befriending your nervous system and including more meditation in your life. 

Check out my upcoming meditation classes as well as yoga for depression and anxiety series at mmcounselingcenter.com

May you have a nourishing holiday season.    

You’re home with your baby, you find yourself in a quiet moment, so utterly grateful for this time to be drinking up the sweetness of your littlest one, and on the other hand, desperate and tearful, longing to return to any semblance of normalcy that was your life before birth. Does this resonate?
 
The duality of the postpartum period is one that all women experience to some degree or another. How is it that a time of such infinite joy and blessing, can also be so heavy with difficulty and confusion? It’s easy to feel lost in between such disparate emotions. Often, women try to tether themselves by attaching to the routines and ways of being before becoming parents, only to realize that we no longer fit that version of ourselves in quite the same way.
 
Postpartum, meaning “after birth” is conventionally defined by the first 6 weeks during which a woman’s body is said to need in order to heal back to a pre-pregnancy state. This definition is extremely limiting and narrow, further putting women in a state of physical and emotional suffering, by holding them to such a finite expectation. This very western medical model of birth and postpartum does not consider that every woman’s body and healing process is different, and in reality, postpartum takes much longer.
 
Crossing the momentous threshold into parenthood is not a process that can be squeezed into 6 weeks. Mothers (and fathers too, of course) experience a great deal of physical, emotional, psychological, and spiritual change and growth. Too often, new parents are expected to quickly return to work (or not stop at all) and feel a great deal of pressure to “get it together” and continue moving at the same pace as before baby. This takes a toll on the healing process. It can prolong women’s physical recovery, create emotional imbalance and exacerbate stress in relation to parent child bonding, support, finances and child care.
 
Under the weight of this strain, mothers are constantly reminded to “enjoy every moment” of this profoundly joyous time. Caught between these two worlds, sleep deprived and craving grounding and stability, it’s no wonder that they need a circle of support.
 
Mothers need a safe and comfortable space to feel heard, validated and supported. The dramatic transition into motherhood, whether or not this is the first child, is a vulnerable time in which women feel a deep fragility and fierceness. When vulnerability is met with intimacy and care it can be held safely and compassionately, which is how they can begin to mother themselves. Grounded in the truths that there too is loss in birth, that joy can be found in pain, and healing, wholeness and happiness is not a singular process, mothers can learn to straddle these dualities with grace. The birth of a mother is remarkable and undoubtedly a time to be celebrated and honored.
 
Join our Mother’s Circle, a postpartum therapy group, Thursday mornings from 9:30-10:45 starting in mid January with Emily Suzuki at Mindful and Multicultural Counseling in Ewing, NJ.
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Contact us via email [email protected]  or call 609-403-6359