Tag: negative

Sometimes you have to give yourself a pep talk!

You know, sometimes you just need a pep talk and there is no one else around. That happened to me this morning. My fibromyalgia was in a total flare. I was in pain. I was feeling tired and defeated. I was all alone in my car. I needed a pick me up just to face the day. What did I do? I gave myself one! I reminded myself that this fibro thing was nothing new and that I even had it before I was sick with cancer last year. I dealt with it before. I told myself in the third person, “Laura. You got this. You know what to do. Hydrate. Get mentally strong. Take an nsaid. Move forward!.” So, that’s what I did. You can too.

So, let’s talk about what a pep talk is. A pep talk is defined as a strong, encouraging, emotional talk to a person or a group, intended to arouse enthusiasm, and increase determination to move forward to succeed. They can build morale, refocus everybody and help to rebuild teams. Did you know that there are scientific studies looking at the phenomenon of pep talks everywhere from the workplace to the ball field. They all say the same thing. A pep talk is the key to bringing new energy to any situation or goal.

Well that sounds fantastic for a group setting, but how about a solo setting? Can you really give one to yourself? You can! I read this great article in Medium from Jan 2020 that describes science-backed strategies for self- boosting. Let’s talk about it.

Dr. Benjamin Rosenberg, a psychology professor at Dominican University, says that “giving oneself a pep talk (self-talk) actually has an advantage over getting a pep talk from someone else.” The advantage is that, for the most part, we trust ourselves over anyone else so who better to pump us up than ourselves? Self-talk has been scientifically proven to have a positive effect on self-confidence and self- efficacy. In other words, it helps us to believe that we have what it takes to get the goal at hand accomplished successfully.

So, how do we go about it? First step: take note of your symptoms. Talk silently to yourself. This can decrease the anxiety side effects that often creep up before we have to perform or do something. This helps us to decrease the cognitive anxiety, negative, or repetitive thoughts.

Second, dampen down the fear by separating it from your task. For example, tell yourself that if your hands are feeling clammy before a speech that you just have a little bit of stage fright. It does not mean that you are going to mess up the speech.

Third, get some distance for yourself. It sounds weird, but one of the best pep talk strategies for yourself is to talk about yourself in the third person. That sounds totally bizarre right? The logic behind it is that we are more comfortable thinking about other people than we are about analyzing ourselves. Therefore if we refer to ourselves in the third person, it helps us control our emotions better. There should be less emotional reactivity.

Fourth, make sure you have reviewed your own plan. This type of strategy breaks down into the motivational (“You’ve got this”) and the instructional (review all the necessary steps before doing them). Don’t let yourself get all jittery because you are not prepared.

Fifth, give yourself compliments and be generous with them! This is not the time to embrace your negative self-image. Tell yourself how qualified you are. Tell yourself that you are prepared. Apparently it works even better if you can do THIS in the third person as well. Honestly, I would just have a reserve of positive things to say about yourself that you can use any any time, for any situation.

Those are the basics according to Dr. Rosenberg. I think they are really on point plus now you have a legitimate excuse any time anyone catches you talking to yourself! Lol. Just kidding. Bottom line is that pep talk really do work. They are not just the fabrication of inspirational movies. They work in real life too and if no one else is around, just do one for yourself! You got this!

Dr. Katz

I have been really struggling with how to be a good parent lately.

Parents tired of noisy children who are running and shouting Tired mother and father sitting on couch feels annoyed exhausted while noisy little daughter and son shouting run around sofa where parents resting. Too active hyperactive kids, need repose concept parenting stock pictures, royalty-free photos & images

Wow! I have been really struggling in the parent department lately. There have been so many unforeseen and unpredictable changes in the last two and a half years that have really affected my relationship with my kids and none of them are in my control.

The ongoing pandemic has ripped us all away from our usual social environments and has taken away many traditional milestones and events. As adults, we have missed out in person interactions with work colleagues, family gatherings, and the ability to be at loved one’s side during illness or hospitalization. This has been difficult but our capacity to recover is greater because, for the most part, we have plentiful stored memories to fall back on. For our kids, they are missing once in a lifetime experiences like prom, last sports games, and in person graduations. It has been argued that they should “get over it” because these events are nothing compared to high schoolers of the past who had to leave school to go off to war, etc. Last time I checked, no one is comparing prom to Nam and they shouldn’t start now. Missing these key social interactions has caused some long-lasting psychological damage for these kids. They will never get these moments back. The level of depression that I have seen is tremendous and it affects everything.

On top of the pandemic, I got cancer and my husband had a heart attack, one right after the other. My kids almost lost both parents in one year. As much as they put up an outside facade, I know this affected them tremendously. How could it not? They don’t treat us the same way. I get the feeling that, even though we survived, a part of them didn’t. A part of them walks around every day waiting for the next shoe to drop and they can’t seem to stop. There is just a little air of underlying depression and doom almost every day. It kind of breaks my heart.

There has also been a sense of life is too short no matter what is going on for them. This sounds like it should be a healthy realization, encouraging them to live life to the fullest, but instead I worry that it has become an excuse for unhealthy choices and directions. I am just at a loss as to how to handle it.

As a parent, I feel like I should be jumping on or punishing these poor choices or at least trying to redirect them. I worry that I am not doing my job if I don’t. I am concerned that it will seem like I don’t care if I don’t react. But really, it’s not true. I talked to my therapist about this. She explained to me that punishments don’t really work in this situation. Most punishments that I could think of would really only punish me and the other people relying on my kids in the long run. Taking away phones, jobs, privileges, and cars just mean that I will have to do a lot more driving, spending, and won’t be able to communicate remotely with my kids. She assured me that I am not being a bad parent by not reacting to every single thing and leaving some things up to my kids to figure out. It doesn’t mean that I don’t care. It doesn’t erase my validity as a parent. Ultimately, the consequences of their actions need to be theirs. Making myself overly upset about it does not help anything and is counterproductive. She advised me to take a step back and I think she is right. Overly obsessing and punishing and trying to address every little thing only increases my stress, increases the negative attention impact on my relationship with my kids and gets me no where. It can only end badly. I need to put a stop to the distracting inner struggle and keep growing and moving forward. I need to refocus. I need to no longer punish myself for not being there when I was sick or my husband was sick. I need to be patient. I can help them more by living my best life by example than fighting every day. I am not saying that I plan to let them run me over. There are limits. I am just saying that I need to pace myself and realize what is really important. Everything I have been through, my kids have been going through too and it’s not over yet. This is going to be a marathon, not a sprint.

Dr. Katz

Every Memory Has Value

Memories - kMITRA

Have you ever noticed that when an experience ends in a sour note, our first instinct is to try to erase it’s memory as if it never existed in the first place? We attempt to block any recollection of the event as if to protect ourselves from the pain. Sometimes we go as far as to rewrite history to attempt to make ourselves feel better about the whole thing or to justify our decision in the end. I think that we do this in order to regain control and shield ourselves from the bad experience, thus taking away it’s power and impact. This is what we tell ourselves at least. However, I feel like the exact opposite is true. Every experience, good or bad, has value and a take away point. Most experiences that end badly were not truly 100% bad, or we wouldn’t have engaged with that experience to begin with. Nobody is that masochistic. I think that by expending the mental energy to rewrite history or deny any good memories that were also associated with it, we are actually granting more power to the bad part of the experience than it deserves. We are actually chaining ourselves to that negativity and becoming an essential part of the bad experience. We are discounting our own credibility in our judgement regarding what we chose to participate in. By allowing ourselves to acknowledge any positive aspects as well, we truly begin to free ourselves from that negativity and realize that, whatever the experience was, it wasn’t just a waste of our time to begin with. Have a fantastic day everybody!

Dr. Katz

Internet Trolls

The internet troll. We have all experienced them. The typical stereotype goes something like this: Single, bitter, perhaps jobless, nothing else to do, endlessly surfing the net for opportunities to pour out some of their overabundant flow of misplaced negativity anywhere and everywhere, seemingly without any knowledge of appropriate human social graces, punctuation or proper grammar . You know what I am talking about. We run into them everywhere on the internet. We are at risk 24/7 from their lambasting attempts. These people are most often people that we do not even know in any of our business or social circles. They attempt to turn any post into something negative. They point out all your flaws, or at least the ones that they perceive that you have…without even knowing you. They can make you doubt yourself, worry about issues that aren’t even there, and even have you consider removing a carefully crafted post that you took a lot of pride in. Why I ask you? What is their purpose? What is there to gain from this behavior? What is the best way to respond or deal with them?

We even experience these creatures on our office social media. They like to comment on everything, even if they have never been to our office. We can post some great results of one of our aesthetic services, complete with a smiling and happy patient that is really satisfied and glad that they finally did something for themselves. These folks will come out of nowhere accusing us of using filters or insulting the patient’s picture. I say if you are not interested in our procedures, please refrain from even looking at our stuff! No one is forcing you to look! There are like a bazillion things to peruse on the internet. I am sure you can find something else!

I think that they fling these insults under the misguided perception that they can somehow hurt us, when in fact, the only people they are potentially hurting are the patients who were brave enough to go through with a service to make themselves feel better! Our practice will go on, believe it or not, even with their insults. I am not calling us invincible or anything, but I am saying that we will not stop providing safe and effective services to patients just because they post something ridiculous. My usual rule of thumb is to post a professional response one time and ask that they refrain from negativity, politely explain why their perception might be incorrect, and kindly dis invite them from looking at our site. If this does not work, then I am forced to block them from being able to comment. It may sound like a childish move, but sometimes that is the only recourse we have.

I find these creatures to be particularly pervasive on internet marketplace sites as well. Let me be clear. When I have some gently used piece of junk that I want to sell, I do not spend hours researching what the true value is. I just fling it up on the marketplace site, pick a price and make it clear it is negotiable and see what happens. I promise with my whole heart that I am not trying to “pull a fast one” on anybody. I am just trying to see if I can sell some crap on the internet like everybody else. If you don’t like what I listed or you think the price is not right? MOVE ON! NO ONE IS FORCING YOU TO MAKE AN OFFER! I am especially fond of those who get so excited with slinging criticisms that they seemingly forgot how to speak or type in English for the moment. If you can’t spell outrageous( often spelled as out rages) , I am officially taking away your privilege of accusing me of it…..lol. Have a fantastic day folks!

Dr. Katz