Tag Archive for: stress

acupuncture

Best Pricks In Town, Acupuncture That Is…

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Greetings! Megan here.

As a part of Women’s History Month, I’m highlighting some awesome women-owned/run businesses I really like and admire. Today I’d like to introduce you to Louisville Community Acupuncture. Owners, Margaret and Mike, have made it their mission to offer affordable acupuncture to all. They moved to Louisville from Austin, Texas about a year before I did. What’s funny is that we did not know each other in Austin. My Austin acupuncturist told me to check them out when I got to Louisville so I did, and now we are great friends. It’s been fun to support each other in our businesses and watch each other grow, both personally and professionally.

I started going to acupuncture years ago for seasonal and environmental allergies. It amazed me at how effective it was and how I didn’t have to rely on over-the-counter medication any longer. I quickly realized you can treat just about everything with acupuncture – even anxiety and depression. In fact, I refer many of my clients who would prefer not to take medication to acupuncture to see if it might assist them as well. I now go to acupuncture once a month for self-care and a “tune-up.” I leave feeling wonderfully relaxed and calm.

Community acupuncture is unique in that you are in a room with others while getting your treatment. This helps keep costs down. Everyone’s got their own lazy boy recliner and is distanced 6ft apart. LCA has refined some of this for COVID protocol but it’s still the affordable sliding scale rate of $25-$45 (pay what feels best to you!). If you go, be sure to tell them Megan Bartley from Louisville Mindfulness Center sent you!

Want to know more? Check them out online: https://www.louisvillecommunityacupuncture.com

law of giving

The Law of Giving (and Receiving) = FLOW

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Hi Friends! Megan Bartley here.

This year Louisville Mindfulness Center is giving away one book a month that has been influential to me in my life to better understand and love myself, my relationships, and in the work that I do as a therapist, mindfulness coach, speaker, and author.

January 2021 we are giving away, “The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success” by Deepak Chopra (scroll down to enter to win!)

Today I’m reflecting on the Law of Giving.

For those of us who are natural caregivers or maybe even people pleasers, we tend to give and give and give and give and give some more which can lead to us feeling depleted and perhaps frustrated when we feel no one is looking out for us and our well-being.

How I understand the Law of Giving is that there has to be a balance of Giving and Receiving. This creates a FLOW. Energy flowing out and energy flowing into our lives. If energy is only flowing out of us, then we will feel exhausted if we aren’t allowing others to care for us, or making time for us to care for ourselves. This is why we preach the necessity of “self-care” and “loving yourself.”

It’s the premise behind putting your oxygen mask on first and then assisting your dependents. If you are pouring all the water out of your pitcher into other people’s water glasses, and you don’t have a supply of water coming into your pitcher, then you will soon become dehydrated, emaciated, and feel “stuck” since there is no hydration to sustain you. And I don’t know about you, but when I’m hungry or thirsty my moods get grumpy and negative and resentful that I’m giving everyone what they need, but not receiving what I need in return.

Creating this FLOW involves allowing others to give to you…

To help you out, to bring you treats and gifts, to offer their compliments and for you to receive them gratefully and without guilt. I’m sure when you are offering your help to others you are being genuine and truly want others to take you up on your offer. How do you feel when people turn you down? Perhaps not trusted, not good enough, brushed off? When we say “no thanks” to others when they are offering help to us, we are perhaps sending these messages to them without even realizing it.

I know what you’re thinking… you’re thinking you say “no thanks” to others because you don’t want to burden them with your stuff. So ask yourself this question, “When you offer your help and assistance to others, do you feel burdened by them?”

Perhaps you can challenge yourself to get the FLOW going by asking for help.

I know, I know, many of us have a hard time asking for help, but again, when someone asks you for help, I wonder if you sometimes feel special, or trusted, or honored that they thought you were the person they could rely on for help.

When we start to shift our mindset from worrying about burdening others to creating the wonderful flow of giving and receiving, we are choosing to allow others to think of us, to “have our backs,” and we are honoring others with trusting them to help us out.

The visual I like to think of is of the ocean waves coming up to shore on the beach. There is a constant motion of waves coming in to shore and going back out again. The movement doesn’t stop, EVER. There is a flow of water coming in and a flow of water going back out to sea. The ocean is in constant FLOW. Wouldn’t it be wonderful to feel this flow in your own life? Perhaps you already do in certain areas. And perhaps there are other areas where you might challenge yourself to be more in “FLOW” with life.

I’d love to hear your feedback and if this was helpful to you. If there are other topics you’d like me to write about, please let me know!

book of the month

2021 Book of the Month Giveaway!

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Hi Friends! Megan Bartley here.

One of the fun questions that was asked during our Mindfulness Center holiday party was, “What’s your favorite holiday?!” We had many varied answers from Easter to Fourth of July to Thanksgiving to Christmas. My answer was unique. My favorite holiday is New Year’s Eve and Day.

I have always liked the idea of a fresh start, of starting anew. Of putting the past behind me and stepping into the unknown of the future. Now, with that said, I am a planner, in a big way, so I usually have many goals and intentions for the New Year. I also LOVE to challenge myself…to learn new things, read new books, try new activities, explore new places, eat new foods…you name it.

One of my favorite books is The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success by Deepak Chopra. One of the laws is the Law of Detachment. Choprah so elequently writes,“In detachment lies the wisdom of uncertainty . . . in the wisdom of uncertainty lies the freedom from our past, from the known, which is the prison of past conditioning. And in our willingness to step into the unknown, the field of all possibilities, we surrender ourselves to the creative mind that orchestrates the dance of the universe.”

Aaaahhhh…. I could read that passage over and over. It seems so simple, freeing, beautiful and exciting.

So in the spirit of newness and giving, I am excited to announce that every month this year we will be giving away one of my most favorite books that has helped me

  • 1) learn new things,

  • 2) see old things in new ways, and/or

  • 3) challenge the norm of what we “know.”

In January 2021 we will give away a copy of The Seven Spiritual Laws of Success. Simply submit your information below to enter the drawing. We will announce our winner in our email newsletter the last Friday of every month. If you can’t wait to read the book… Order it HERE!

holidays

Coping with Pain, Loss & Stress During the Holidays

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The holidays can be a time of great joy, peace, and fun! We may have traditions that enhance our close relationships this time of year, feel more connected to a higher power, or are simply looking forward to much needed time off. However, for many of us, the holidays can be a time of pain, loss, and stress.
This pain can come from hurt or damaged relationships, loneliness or be the result of a traumatic event. If you are feeling pain, it can be helpful to view this pain as a wound or a symptom of a wound. Remember that emotional wounds do not heal over time like physical wounds. Emotional wounds can heal by utilizing mindfulness, empathy, and other therapeutic remedies. If you notice pain this holiday season; try to shift your focus to healing these wounds.

Loss is always difficult and can become harder around the holidays.

Maybe we are dealing with the death of a loved one and an empty chair around our table. Perhaps it is the loss of a relationship or, in the face of the pandemic, the loss of an activity we enjoy and cherish.  Like pain, if we notice loss we need to give ourselves the time and space to heal from it. Allow yourself to grieve, and if possible, sit with the feelings of loss and befriend those feelings. If you notice loss, be kind and gentle with yourself. Loss can create a further loss of self. This can manifest in loss of sleep or loss of personal value you may have. Make sure to protect yourself from any possible loss of self during this time.

Stress is also very common around the holidays. Specifically, when dealing with difficult people…

Whether it’s a difficult family member or a person you have just come across, difficult people can trigger stress. It is first helpful to not take their behavior personally. Also, know that if you feel that someone is difficult, it is likely someone else feels the same way. Be aware if this person is trying to elicit a response out of you. It can be helpful to have a plan or script when dealing with a specific difficult person. Lastly, if you are able, try to have empathy for that person. If you allow yourself to be consumed by their behavior then you are ultimately giving the difficult person power. Empathy gives you the opportunity to eliminate some of that power.
overthinking

Overthinking Things ALL THE TIME

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Written by Megan Bayles Bartley, MAMFT, LMFT

Do you catch yourself constantly distracted by your thoughts? Are you consumed with thinking about things – how a situation will turn out, what someone might say, how you will respond, worrying about things that have not happened yet, etc? Do you get stuck in the same thought patterns? Do you get stuck not making decisions or taking action because you can’t stop weighing all the options? Can you remember the last time you felt really happy or really sad or really angry?

I like balance. If we are too lopsided one way – thinking too much for instance – it usually creates problems for us and those around us. What would it look like if we strive for a balance between THINKING, FEELING, & DOING? We think sometimes. We feel sometimes. We do (or take action) sometimes.

I bet we would find a relief from a lot of the dialog in our head, the worry we constantly feel, or the meaning we’ve made out of things that might not have any meaning at all.

Go ahead, give it a try!

triggered

How to Respond When You Get Triggered

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Written by Megan Bayles Bartley, MAMFT, LMFT

The holidays are upon us and that usually means lots of time with our extended family. 2020 has no doubt brought an extra helping of limitations and pressure for us to navigate this season.

Do you dread this time of year or certain aspects of it? Do you wish you had ways to cope with the parts you don’t enjoy? Is there that certain someone who triggers something within you every time you see or talk to them?

Remember this:  You only have control over yourself…how you think about things, your behaviors, how you are feeling, and what you say.

  1. Act, don’t react to the times when you are triggered.  his means slowing yourself down enough to regain control of the situation by choosing how you want to respond (if at all) to inappropriate, mean comments or people. Have a plan for how to respond before you are in the situation. “If he says something mean, I will just look at him blankly while taking some deep breaths to soothe myself. Or if I decide I can’t not say anything, I’ll just say ‘Huh, that’s an interesting perspective, or Huh, that’s a good question, I’ll have to think about that.'”
  2. Acknowledge and validate your feelings that get triggered, “Of course I want to scream at her for commenting about my weight, that was inappropriate for her to say.” Take a deep breath and know that you have zero control over that other person and instead you will take control of yourself and respond appropriately, if at all.
  3. Let yourself off the hook.  Often we think we have to respond to negative comments or inappropriate questions so we can defend ourselves or to make sure the other people in the conversation don’t feel awkward. Remember to be your best adult self and sometimes saying nothing at all communications more than we could ever say with words. In fact, if we don’t respond, it shifts the awkwardness back to the sender.

Ultimately be gentle and tender with yourself and others.  Allow each new moment to unfold as it needs to.  Trust that you will do your best in each new moment and allow others the opportunity to be their best in each new moment.

alcohol

Awakening the Autopilot with Alcohol

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Written by Rob Giltner, MAMFT

When we think of ourselves being on autopilot it can be helpful to consider that feeling as a trance. We go in and out of trances multiple times throughout the day. A trance can be a simple day dream or perhaps being zoned out while driving. There can be positive and negative trances which can influence our behavior.

Alcohol can create a strong trance.

When we drink too much and become inebriated we are in a bit of a trance. Continued use of alcohol can create a different type of trance. When our use of alcohol begins to negatively affect our lives we can experience two things; shame and guilt. Shame, which can be described as “I am bad,” can put us on autopilot by believing we are “bad.”

When assessing our use of alcohol it can be very helpful to consider our use as a relationship. We all have a relationship with alcohol. And with any relationship, it can be healthy or unhealthy. If we notice our relationship with alcohol to be unhealthy it could be because we might be on autopilot or in a trance.

A negative relationship with alcohol can be tricky. Alcohol may want to stay in a relationship with us even when we do not. It can manipulate our thinking or judgment in order to stay. Alcohol could make us rationalize and/or justify our behavior to maintain the relationship.

If we notice we might be in a trance and have a negative relationship with alcohol there are a few things we should do to protect us and make sure we are healthy.

  • First, we would want to find any ways our use has created a loss of self. A loss of self could be a loss of happiness or peace. It could be a loss of a friend or family member. Or it could be a loss of a hobby.
  • We would then need to set up boundaries to protect ourselves from alcohol and regain anything we may have lost. Not drinking and ending a relationship with alcohol is one boundary someone might make. Another, could be to limit the amount of alcohol an individual uses.
  • Lastly, if the trance of alcohol puts us in is very strong, therapy is a must. Therapy can help us heal from the affects alcohol and end the trance it creates.
trauma

Living with Trauma

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Written by Rob Giltner, MAMFT

“Trauma has become so commonplace that most people don’t even recognize its presence. It affects everyone. Each of us has had a traumatic experience at some point in our lives, regardless of whether it left us with an obvious case of post-traumatic stress.” ~Peter Levine

What living with trauma can look like:

  • Feelings of hopelessness and beliefs that aren’t meant for you
  • Constantly finding ways to escape from reality
  • Sleeplessness, fatigue, nightmares, sleep disorders
  • Avoidance of anything connected to a traumatic event
  • Difficulty regulating emotions like anger, fear and sadness
  • Reoccurring flashbacks of past events
  • Extra sensitivity to physical and emotional pain
  • Addiction to alcohol and other substances
  • Increased panic and anxiety

Everyone responds to trauma differently, and finding healthy ways to cope and heal from those events and their after-effects is key to living a healthy life. It’s easy to minimize, normalize, and rationalize some of these less severe symptoms, but if healthy coping mechanisms are not developed, they can lead to patterns of self-sabotage and withdrawal from the world and relationships. Like Peter Levine also said ,”Trauma is a fact of life. It does not, however, have to be a life sentence.”

The most courageous thing we can do is love our self during times of pain and struggle.

Being aware of our story, and owning it, requires immense bravery. After all, to be human is to think and feel, and our emotions are here to try and protect us. If we see anxiety and stress as friends and offer them empathy, kindness, and thankfulness, they will be able to relax and dissipate. When you feel them approaching, welcome them, be kind to them, be thankful that they are there, and then invite them to leave. Bringing our minds to the present can reduce stress, anxiety, and connect us to everything around us.

 

joy

An Exercise In Joy & Success

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Written by Megan Bayles Bartley, MAMFT, LMFT

“…the measure of success is absolutely the amount of joy you feel.”

Take a minute and think about a time when you felt pure joy. Oftentimes we think of moments that were life-defining. When we proposed to our sweetheart and heard “YES!” Or maybe our wedding day, or the day our first child was born, or when we got that new job, that raise or promotion.  Unfortunately for many of us our emotions fluctuate fairly rapidly and it’s rare that we can maintain that feeling of pure joy.  But what if it didn’t have to be this way? What if we could live joyful, or joy-filled, lives and experience this joy a majority of the time? Well, we can!

“Yeah, right!” I hear you saying.

Give me a minute to explain… What we’re talking about is viewing your life from a bit of a different perspective.  Instead of a perspective of LACK – “I’ll feel joy when I get that raise, meet the right person, lose 20 lbs, etc.” – and shift into a thinking of ABUNDANCE – “Everything is exactly as it needs to be. All I need to be is myself. Everything I need to know is already within me.”

See the difference?

Here’s what I want you to try: Write down the above messages of Abundance on sticky notes and stick them on places you look often – on the microwave, on your dashboard, at the bathroom mirror, on your computer screen. Make an effort to look at the messages and remember that feeling of Joy.  Soon you’ll start to associate the two together – the feeling of Joy with the message “Everything is exactly as it needs to be.”

Stick with it for 21-30 days and see what happens.  This is how long it takes to make a shift in belief, perspective or behavior change.  You are actually building new neural pathways in your brain.  The more attention you give the new perspective, and don’t give attention to the former perspective, the stronger the new perspective of Abundance becomes and the perspective of Lack begins to die off.  Remember, what we feed, grows. Give it a try!  What do you have to lose?!

When we focus on Joy FIRST, our lives will begin to shift so we experience success in multiple areas.

If there is an area that seems like a problem area now – your relationship, your job, your living situation – they will work themselves out as you are focusing on joy.  This might mean they will begin to bring you joy in new ways because you are seeing them differently OR because you see clearly now that there is no way they will bring you joy and you will make confident decisions to move beyond them.

Wouldn’t it be AWESOME to feel Joy AND Confidence?! Oh yeah, it can happen. You can do it.  Stay focused and give it 21-30 days. Be gentle with yourself. You will mess up but chalk it up to a learning experience and keep moving forward. Growth comes with growing pangs.

And if you find you need some help, we are always here to be a guide (and cheerleader!). Keep at it! We believe in you!​

self love

What Is Self Love?

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Written by Ashley Vaden, LMFT

What is self love?

I’ve found the idea of self love to be an elusive concept. A term that people like to throw around that I’ve never really grasped or experienced fully for myself. It’s like when you’re a kid in the backyard and mysteriously, a butterfly lands on you, only to fly away and never touch down again on purpose.

Has self-love ever felt like that to you? A feeling that comes close but never quite sticks? That’s why, for the past year, I’ve ventured to expand upon my understanding of self love and the explanation of it in more concrete, tangible ways. I’ve read books, listened to podcasts, worked with a mentor, interviewed trusted friends, and along the way, I’ve learned that instead of falling in love with ourselves, we grow in love with ourselves.

Self love is really about growth of self.

I’ve learned that it’s messy, and difficult, and a choice hell bent on expansion and expression. I’ve learned that we never really are the best versions of ourselves, because we are growing each and every day, but we can operate from the best versions of ourselves by choosing self and embracing authenticity. Here are my thoughts on how to grow in self love.

Self Discipline

Self discipline is the act of making promises to yourself that you in turn keep. These promises can be and should be small and specific, especially as you build confidence in yourself and require momentum in practicing self-compassion. As we strive toward bigger goals, the challenges we face may become greater, but the self discipline remains the same. Here, consistency is king. It is intention followed by action. It is choosing these values and these promises even when they are difficult to uphold.

I have found many small acts that have helped me achieve self discipline and thus expansion of self love. These include daily meditation, making my bed, drinking more water, reading for 15 minutes a day, spending time connecting with a loved one. I don’t achieve each of these tasks every day; but every day, I try to at least incorporate 3 of these intentions, whether I’m feeling rushed or I’m feeling good.

Jordan Peterson writes,

“As you attempt to climb a higher mountain or aim at a higher target, the things around you become increasingly dramatic and of import. That happens by necessity because if you’re aiming and working hard at something difficult and profound, your life is going to become increasingly difficult and profound. That might be exactly what you need as an antidote to the implicit limitations that you face as a human being.”

I think we often get this illusion that if we face obstacles that this means we are not on the right path, when essentially you must understand that the fact that you are feeling resistance means you are moving forward. I think we also misconstrue that these tasks of self discipline are difficult when we are in a place of low mood or energy. When we are feeling well, we forget the grounding practices and habits that keep us humbled and persistent. So, make promises to yourself, and keep them. Those promises lead to a larger goal when kept consistently. This journey of action aligned with value keeps you in synchrony with the growth of yourself and self love.

Click here to read the full article!

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