Seeking Fun

I was chatting with a colleague of mine recently and she mentioned that several years ago she noticed that she began almost every weekend by being asked by her kids, “Mom, what are we doing today?”

Relatable? I thought so, too.

She said she used to sort of grumble an answer while she made her way to the coffee pot, but her children, like many others, were relentless in their need to know what’s on the schedule for the day. So she rattled off some things that she hopes to check off the list. Probably going to run to the store, do some laundry, maybe take the dog for a walk, at least one of you has practice, I need to reply to a few emails, hopefully read a little, considering a new place for take out for dinner. You know, the normal stuff. And as if on cue, her kids all groaned….that’s it? Nothing fun?

This to-do list is about 1000 times more fancy looking than mine.

Tired of the weekly reminder that she wasn’t any fun, my colleague started writing everything out on one of those whiteboards and hung it in the kitchen so that the kids knew what they were doing without having to ask. Most of the items that landed on that whiteboard were for the kids, in the form of music lessons, sports practice, and upcoming community and school events.

And yet, the kids kept asking. And kept groaning. They never did anything fun. And she started to agree with them.

Although the children’s activities and events were enjoyable, they’d become the norm and part of the routine and so they weren’t seen by the kids as “fun”. What the kids really meant by “What are we doing today” is “What are we doing that is new and interesting today?” And although she was well aware that her teenage children didn’t need her to consistently create new and exciting moments for them as they were fairly capable of doing some of that for themselves, she realized that she needed to examine her own definition of the word “fun”. Did fun mean new and exciting to her? Or was it the quiet contemplation she found after finishing a good book? Was it laughing till her sides hurt over stories her kids told her about their antics at school? Or was it the predicable pace of walking around her neighborhood with her dog? Did it need to be scheduled into her life? Or did it just seem to happen?

Was she looking for fun? Or was she looking for contentment? And how does she teach her children to recognize this as well? Also how does she teach them to read the whiteboard before asking her that dreaded question? Should she hang it from the ceiling in the bedrooms so it was the first thing they saw everyday? No, probably not. They’d still ask.

She and I talked at length about this and I shared that I think this is a question many women and mothers ask themselves, probably often unconsciously, and without ever really getting to the root of. Do we view our lives as fun? Content? Happy? While going through the day to day grind, do we even allow ourselves the time to stop and ponder these things? Does a person’s life need regular intervals of fun and for fun to be created? Would thinking more about what these words mean in the practical sense help us achieve them or would it create increased tension if we felt we couldn’t achieve them?

Were we getting too philosophical? We started to think we were getting too philosophical.

In reflecting back, it would seem that for many people, reviewing whether or not they have enough fun or contentment in their lives also includes comparing themselves to others. Between social media, chatting with neighbors, and last month’s influx of smiling faces on all those holiday cards, it’s hard not to think about it. Is my family having as much fun? As many vacations? Do we go out with friends as much? Is my life as interesting as others’ lives seem to me? And in comparing our lives to others, we will always always always find someone who seems to be hitting those standards more consistently, and what would appear to be more easily, than we are. So when we are evaluating our own happiness, whether that be through journaling or in a counseling session or over tea with friends, it’s important to look at our own values and find what these words mean….to us. And only us. And then find a lifestyle and a balance with these “fun” moments that works well for us. That may mean upping the ante a bit and hosting some friends for a game night. Or it might mean cleaning out the garage once and for all, or cozying up on the couch with the kids under a blanket and watching a horror film.

Where ever you are at in this journey of finding “fun” in your life, taking time to contemplate what that word means to you and your family, and what it looks like in action for you and your life, is invaluable.

Mindfully,

Meredith

The Last Option

You are their last option.

I once had a graduate professor say those exact words to me. You are their last option. You are their last choice, their last ditch effort, they don’t want it to be you but it is. I had no idea what she was talking about and as my classmates and I all quizzically looked at each other feeling an impending level of doom about the responsibility we had for our future clients, she began to explain.

A woman starts experiencing headaches more frequently.

She makes sure she is drinking enough water, getting enough rest, and starts walking more regularly. As she finds herself nearing the bottom of the Tylenol bottle, she thinks maybe her vision has changed a bit and her she needs to get new glasses. That must be it, her eyes are straining themselves and causing headaches. She goes to the eye doctor for her yearly exam and her eyes are exactly the same, but the headaches keep coming and now she is noticing some tension in her neck and sometimes her back.

She googles her symptoms and it scares her so badly she calls her doctor the next day for a physical.*

The doctor asks her a bunch of questions and says maybe we will check your thyroid and a few other things, and I’d like you to start tracking the headaches. They run the tests, she’s fine. She starts tracking the headaches and there’s no rhyme or reason to them, they’re all over the place. The doctor sends her to a specialist to make sure there’s nothing else wrong with her. The specialist rules out everything.

She’s fine. Except she isn’t.

She talks to a friend who mentions trying aromatherapy and yoga and a few other holistic approaches and that she herself has found relief from her issues. The woman signs up for yoga and buys some products and she thinks it works for a bit, but then the headaches come back. And along with the headaches comes a fear of the headaches, and a worry that something else is going on or that the headaches are going to strike at inopportune times. She now has headaches and anxiety and worry about the headaches. She’s changed her lifestyle, been to several doctors, and tried homeopathic remedies. None of those are bad choices and for many people, the headaches may have ceased by now. But for some people, the headaches keep striking and it becomes a cycle of worrying the headache will show up , and then experiencing the headache and worrying about what caused it and when it will go away.

Now replace headaches with heart palpitations.

Or backaches, nausea, hair loss, migraines, aching legs, or with increasingly feeling frustrated, overwhelmed, snapping at your kids, avoiding your friends, feeling distracted and unable to focus on daily tasks, and not wanting to do things you usually love doing. And searching the internet for the magical solution to all of this knowing full well there is no magical solution.

But one thing that keeps coming up, that all of the doctors mentioned, and that she’s seen a few times in those late night google searches is the idea of going to counseling. But she’s not “crazy” and counseling is only for people who can’t handle their life and that is NOT her. Plus counseling is expensive and who has time to add one more appointment into their week?

• Counseling is for people who are “crazy” and not handling life well:

  • This isn’t true and it isn’t even kind to think this way about yourself or anyone. Counseling is a place to speak freely, to address parts of your life that aren’t going as smoothly as you’d like. Some people come to counseling the same way they go to the gym, to exercise their communication muscles and strengthen their healthy thoughts with the assistance of someone trained in how to do this effectively.

• Counseling is expensive:

  • At face value, sometimes the financial investment of counseling can seem a bit overwhelming. But then go back and add up all the costs already accrued. The work out gear, doctor’s copays, homeopathic supplements, etc. In addition, there may be missed opportunities or days you had to stay home from work due to the issues you are facing. Those costs add up! And if they didn't work, then they were a waste! Counseling has been proven effective through extensive research and evidence based practices. The only challenge to this will be finding a counselor who you feel completely comfortable with so that your investment is even more lucrative.

Counseling takes up a lot of time:

• Counselors generally understand that taking a day off from work or school is not an option for many people and so we work “the off hours”. We work when other people don’t so that the work we do in session can be easily integrated into their lives without adding another stressor. Some counselors work early in the morning before people go to work, some work late at night so people can stop for a session on their way home, and some work weekends. In addition, I think there is often the misnomer that you MUST attend counseling at the same time every single week. Ideally you’d want to have a consistent counseling experience, but that consistency may look like once a week, every other week, once a month, and the times may change due to your schedule and your therapist’s schedule. There is no hard and fast rule about this, and each counselor you speak with will have different options.

You are their last option.

The words of my graduate professor still ring in my ears whenever I get a call from a potential client. Someone who’s voice shakes a bit in those first few minutes we are chatting, who seems interested and hopeful but also a little skeptical after so many things haven’t worked. To this woman, I am her last option. She does not know where else to go. She does not know if counseling will cure her anxiety, stop her headaches, and help her get back to her regular life.

Us counselors know. We know we are your last option. We know you tried everything else first and you didn’t want to go all the way to the bottom of the list where we are.

But we are so thankful you are here, now lets get to work, lets get you back to your life.

Mindfully,

Meredith xo

*Everyone knows you should never never never google symptoms, and yet we all do it knowing full well we shouldn’t.