Grace Huntley Counseling

⭐️This year I learned (TYIL)⭐️

🪻Motivation is a good indicator of burnout and need to rest.

☂️Boundaries are only effective if you’re willing to maintain them.

🫐There’s no substitution for a strong support network.

🦋Sometimes the best thing you can do is take a deep breath and count to five.

🌲It’s okay to let something go as a way of moving forward.

🌿At times the missing ingredient is play and inspiration.

🌻Change requires desire, capacity, motivation, and opportunity.

🥕Self compassion requires practice.

🍊One of the best things to take a risk on is yourself.

🖍️It’s just as important to find points of light in your life as it is to shield from pain.

🌸A big part of believing you’re worthwhile is treating yourself like you are.

#2024

This time of year can be stressful, so it’s a good time to take a minute to refresh how to regulate and respond (instead of react).

When we’re already overwhelmed, it’s easy to jump to a reaction fueled by pure in the moment emotion. However, these reactions don’t always align with our true goals or feelings.

Here’s a step by step run through of how you can pause after each statement, regulate, and then respond instead of reacting.

👍Validate

🗣️ I was hurt when you didn’t make the reservation like you said you would.

🌊 notice anger and acknowledge when you feel the desire to retaliate

🎙️ It makes sense that you would feel hurt when I didn’t do what I said I would.

❤️ Empathize

🗣️ I wish you would take initiative to find ways we could spend time together.

🌊 recognize defensiveness, breathe deeply, listen + convey understanding

🎙️ I understand that you want me to prioritize spending time together.

🤗 Reassure

🗣️ It makes me feel like I’m not as important as other things in your life.

🌊 remember you’re on the same team and respond to your partner’s need

🎙️ You’re important to me and I’ll try to convey that more by making plans.

Making decisions can be really hard, especially as we get older and the stakes get higher.

You need to know what you’re choosing between, the trade offs, the costs, and what values you’re actually trying to align with.

When you’re stuck, one thing that can be helpful is breaking it down. What do I need more of?

💡 Information
⏱️ Time
💪 Experience

There’s emotion and then there’s behavior.

Sometimes it can be hard to tell them apart, but when it comes to behavior, we have a choice in what we do.

All of our behaviors are received differently and provoke different responses from other people.

Some drive us away from people, while some bring us closer together.

Grief:
isolating, masking, dissociating
☀️connecting

Panic:
hyperventilating, crying, lashing out
☀️regulating

Need:
overcompensating, denying, withdrawing
☀️ communicating

Anger:
shutting down, blaming, yelling
☀️ releasing

How do you choose your behavior?

There’s a time and place for every emotion.

In our emotional system, it’s important to ensure that each one of our emotional taps are working and accessible.

Without the ability to tap into each emotion, we tend to over-index on the ones that feel the most comfortable.

What emotions are you the most comfortable accessing?

Whenever we want to do something, we need the desire to do it, the means, and the capacity.

Our capacity is affected by factors like our environment, our support systems, and our overall resiliency.

However, it’s also important to do real-time capacity checks. For these, we can utilize a technique called H.A.L.T. where we ask ourselves if we’re:

🍽️ Hungry
😡 Angry
😢 Lonely
💤 Tired

Fight one dragon at a time.

So often we’re pitted against not only trying to regulate how we feel but trying to overcome shame about how we feel.

This can feel overwhelming and make it more likely we freeze or get stuck.

Next time, tackle one piece at a time.

Address the shame by giving yourself permission to feel how you feel. Once you get comfortable validating the feeling, you’ll have more capacity to regulate it.

Like all mindsets, there are steps you can take to move towards hope.

Hope, a feeling that things can get better is one of the strongest antidotes for despair.

So if you’re feeling stuck, feel free to tap into this recipe for hope.

Hope springs from:

🌱 Rest: A place of rest and self confidence

🌱 Community: A community that provides inspiration and support

🌱 Capacity: Having capacity to dream again

🌱 Purpose and Meaning: Finding something to believe in

🌱 Self efficacy: Setting and following through on small goals.

Stick with your microcosm and build to bigger things.

Listening is more than trying to hear someone; it’s also about making the other person feel heard.

Let’s break down some of the steps involved in being a good listener:

1) Making space to hear what someone is saying

2) Paying attention to what they’re trying to convey

3) Asking questions or reflecting to check understanding

4) Responding in a way that makes the other person feel heard

The term gaslighting was originally presented in the 1938 play, Gas Light, where it portrayed an intentional attempt to make someone question their perspective or memory and erode their self-trust in the a romantic relationship.

With that in mind, here are some of my recommended ways of responding to gaslighting:

🌟Pause: Let’s regroup when we both feeling calmer.

▪️ If you’re at the point of being gaslit, it’s an indication that it isn’t going to be a productive conversation. Better to take a step back, let both parties cool down, and see if you can pick things up again when everyone’s feeling more resourced.
▪️ In these situations, it can be useful to pick a specific time to return to the conversation and then pivot the topic or activity completely.

🌟Reflect: I hear that you’re feeling: overwhelmed, angry, upset.

▪️ When someone isn’t making sense, it can be more effective to interact with the emotion than with the content.
▪️ This response gives someone the benefit of the doubt and is best used in a situation when gaslighting is unusual or extremely rare.

🌟 Reflection: Based on what you’ve shared, your perspective is that...

▪️ This response gives the other person a chance to have what they’re saying reflected to them and possibly reframe or take back the way things came out.
▪️ Not to be used in cases of chronic gaslighting, it can be helpful when you can see the behavior is mostly coming from a place of intense emotion and not intention.

🌟 Inquire: Can you tell me more about what you were thinking or feeling when you said, XYZ?

▪️ Check-ins of this nature are a good way to check understanding and keep things from escalating further. When we’re upset and already dealing with heightened emotions, it’s easy to make assumptions or jump to conclusions. This ensures that if you react, you know what you’re reacting to.

🌟 Leave: What you’re saying is hurtful. I’m going to leave now.

▪️ In some cases, the only thing you can do is remove yourself from the situation.
▪️ If the gaslighting has progressed to a chronic point, the individual may seek the help of loved ones for reality-testing to help reinforce their perspective and beliefs.