anxiety Archives - Melissa A. Frey, LCSW

melissa: teen mental health and beyond

Posted on February 15, 2023

As more data is being regularly released on the status of mental health of adolescents and teens in the United States, we are becoming more and more aware of the desperate need for services for our young population. The past few years have proven to have a lasting impact on children, teens, adults, older adults, families, marriages, and friendships; nearly every relationship in our lives (including the relationship we have with ourselves) has been impacted by the ongoing stressors we have been experiencing.

What we are learning, over time, is that small steps need to be taken daily to ensure our mental wellness, and ensuring that those in need of therapy and support are able to access these services. While we fall short of providing fully accessible services as a country, for a variety of reasons (insurance, barriers to entry, provider shortages, etc), we do know that we can work within our systems to ensure that we are taking care of ourselves and our families.

We can create safe spaces to open up dialogues about how together we can process stress, heavy emotions, uncertainty, pain, and anxiety. Creating safe spaces means listening without judgment or “fixes,” and focusing how to listen with an empathic heart and open mind. A wonderful resource is The Whole Brained Child, among many other readings. A quick review of “teen mental health” in the Podcast app also brings up a variety of support and options for listening/getting more information- both for parents and their children.

We hear from families all the time, and we are here for your family, as well. If there’s anything we can do to support you, your family, or your children, reach out. If you feel resources are a great place to start, check out books and podcasts. If you feel as though therapy is an option to consider for your family, we can help with that too- either within our office or at another practice.

You can find out more information about the status of mental health within our adolescent and teen populations here, here, here, and here, as well as some action items to consider in supporting the children and teens in your own life. We know it takes a village to raise a family, and we are here to support you.

all of us: with gratitude

Posted on December 29, 2022January 5, 2023

As this year comes to a close, we are wishing everyone a quiet and restful transition into the new year. We are so honored accompany our clients on their journeys of growth, healing, and wellness. We look forward to continue working with our current clients and welcoming new clients in the upcoming new year.

From all of us at Frey and Associates,

Happy New Year!

mindful moment

Posted on December 8, 2022

Wild Geese

You do not have to be good.
You do not have to walk on your knees
For a hundred miles through the desert, repenting. You only have to let the soft animal of your body
love what it loves.
Tell me about despair, yours, and I will tell you mine. Meanwhile the world goes on.
Meanwhile the sun and the clear pebbles of the rain are moving across the landscapes,
over the prairies and the deep trees,
the mountains and the rivers.
Meanwhile the wild geese, high in the clean blue air, are heading home again.
Whoever you are, no matter how lonely,
the world offers itself to your imagination,
calls to you like the wild geese, harsh and exciting — over and over announcing your place
in the family of things.

– Mary Oliver

mindful moment

Posted on October 7, 2022

Wild Geese

-Mary Oliver

mindful moment

Posted on September 7, 2022September 7, 2022

Be patient toward all that is unsolved in your heart and try to love the questions themselves, like locked rooms and like books that are now written in a very foreign tongue. Do not now seek the answers, which cannot be given you because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps you will then gradually, without noticing it, live along some distant day into the answer.
― Rainer Maria Rilke

mindful moment

Posted on August 17, 2022

“I don’t mind falling. Every mistake is just a thoughtful decision in disguise. Taking bold steps into the future with purpose and intention is the same thing as watching both of your sleeves being pulled into the threshing machine. Sometimes there’s nothing you can do but watch. And if I stay as open as possible and feel as much as possible and I keep writing about it, I might as well be dashing around on the wet pavement with little to no walking experience. But I want to trust my instincts anyway. Tucking into a ball as you hit the pavement is a superpower. Getting up with a smile on your face is a superpower.”

Heather Havrilesky

melissa: mindfulness exercise for painful emotions

Posted on July 7, 2022July 7, 2022

As we find ourselves during a particularly difficult time with filled many emotions, I’ve been reflecting on ways in which we can open ourselves up to strong/painful emotions in a structured way. There is a “Gentle Practice for Opening Up to Painful Emotions” that you can find here both recorded and written, depending on your preferred modality.

As the writer of the practice, Rhonda Magee, writes, “Take a moment to pause with all of the news coming at us, especially if you are someone who seeks to move in the direction of the suffering, to work, and to alleviate it, through actions and engagements in the world.”

Remember to seek out support from loved ones, family, and friends as we seek to process the emotions and events we are facing and have faced.

mindful moment

Posted on May 11, 2022

spring is like a perhaps hand

spring is like a perhaps hand
(which comes carefully
out of Nowhere) arranging
a window, into which people look (while
people stare
arranging and changing placing
carefully there a strange
thing and a known thing here) and

changing everything carefully

spring is like a perhaps
Hand in a window
(carefully to
and fro moving New and
Old things, while
people stare carefully
moving a perhaps
fraction of flower here placing
an inch of air there) and

without breaking anything.

-e.e. cummings

melissa: free mindful apps

Posted on May 5, 2022

One of the questions we are often asked is regarding where to find useful mindfulness resources and apps for meditation and/or anxiety, sleep and mood. Look no further, mindful.org has compiled a list of free apps to consider and their descriptions. A list of those free mindful and meditation apps can be found here. Interested in books or journals? We’ve got our list here. If you’re looking for additional resources that are not listed here, let us know!

“Don’t search for anything except peace. Try to calm the mind. Everything else will come on its own.”

—Baba Hari Das

mindful moment

Posted on April 20, 2022

There is a life-force within your soul, seek that life.

There is a gem in the mountain of your body, seek that mine.

O traveler, if you are in search of that, don’t look outside, look inside yourself and seek that.

-Rumi

mindful moment

Posted on February 24, 2022

Sorrow prepares you for joy.
It violently sweeps everything out of your house, so that new joy can find space to enter.

It shakes the yellow leaves from the bough of your heart, so that fresh, green leaves can grow in their place.

It pulls up the rotten roots, so that new roots hidden beneath have room to grow.
Whatever sorrow shakes from your heart, far better things will take their
place.

…Moonlight floods the whole sky from horizon to horizon;
How much it can fill your room depends on its windows.

-Rumi

mindful moment

Posted on January 12, 2022

Don’t Quit

When things go wrong, as they sometimes will,
When the road you’re trudging seems all uphill,
When the funds are low but the debts are high,
And you want to smile but you have to sigh,
When care is pressing you down a bit…
Rest if you must, but don’t you quit!

Life is queer with its twists and turns,
As every one of us sometimes learns,
And many failures turn about
When we might have won had we stuck it out.
Don’t give up though the pace seems slow…
You may succeed with another blow.

Often the struggler has given up
When he might have captured the victor’s cup;
And he learned too late when the night came down,
How close he was to the golden crown.

Success is failure turned inside out…
And you can never tell how close you are
It may be near when it seems so far.
So stick to the fight when you’re hardest hit
It’s when things seem worst that you must not quit.

Edgar A. Guest

mindful moment

Posted on November 10, 2021

The very least you can do in your life is to figure out what you hope for. And the most you can do is live inside that hope. Not admire it from a distance but live right in it, under its roof. What I want is so simple I almost can’t say it: elementary kindness. Enough to eat, enough to go around. The possibility that kids might one day grow up to be neither the destroyers nor the destroyed. That’s about it.

Right now I’m living in that hope, running down its hallway and touching the walls on both sides.

-Barbara Kingsolver

melissa: organize it

Posted on November 4, 2021

Ever since becoming a therapist over a decade ago, I’ve found that concrete tasks are some of the most rewarding tasks one can do for instant gratification. Life, with all its complex twists and turns, often leaves a lot of things undone, slow to unfold, or in limbo. All these twists and turns and ups and downs can create and contribute to a sense of unease and anxiety.

What’s the anecdote to managing life’s complications and stressors? I’m not fully sure. But I know therapy helps, as does fostering connection to others, sleeping enough, moving our bodies…and the process of organizing, fixing, and completing tasks. Organizing a drawer? Very soothing. Cleaning out a fridge? Unpleasant but gratifying. Getting your boxes from Amazon all broken down an actually into the recycle bin? Massive accomplishment. Shredding your shred pile? Also very rewarding. Power washing your sidewalk? Proud feelings ensue. You get the theme here, I’m sure, and likely also relate.

When you take a moment and pause, I’m sure you, too, can think of tasks that foster a sense of wellbeing, even if for a brief moment. Psychologically, our brains like tasks that we can start and finish within a short time frame. It helps feel a sense of accomplishment, as well as a sense of control. There’s a wonderful article here about the benefits of concrete tasks and the fix it mindset for helping to support our mental health during difficult times. There’s also a book Things Come Apart that discusses, in part, this same concept. What will your fix it or organize task be today? Mine is taking all of my mugs from my desk to the dishwasher. What task will you conquer next? The world is your oyster.

melissa: mindful walk meditation

Posted on June 10, 2021

I will be the gladdest thing
Under the sun!
I will touch a hundred flowers
And not pick one.

I will look at cliffs and clouds
With quiet eyes,
Watch the wind bow down the grass,
And the grass rise.

And when lights begin to show
Up from the town,
I will mark which must be mine,
And then start down!

Edna St. Vincent Millay

melissa: languishing

Posted on April 21, 2021April 22, 2021

I think the term many of us have been looking for lately to describe our emotional state is languishing. According to Merriam Webster, to languish is “to become dispirited.” The original quarantine thoughts of baking our own bread, or picking up knitting with “all of our free time” have fallen to the wayside. Thriving is definitely a construct left behind in 2019. Where does that leave us in 2021? While there is so much hope and joy in vaccines and small things re-entering into our lives, there’s also a lot of “re-entry” anxiety mixed with a lot of confusion about the long haul mentality required to exist in an ongoing pandemic.

People seem to be beyond a status of “tired” and entering into a state of “languishing.” Languishing is best explained in the articles linked below, but in short, languishing is neither hopeless nor hopeful. Neither sad nor happy. Neither depressed nor content. It’s an in between state, and that seems to describe a lot of our shared experience right now.

And where does that leave us? Naming our emotional state is, in fact, an extremely helpful cognitive tool. Knowing that many of us are languishing together is another powerful means of building resilience. Lastly, getting into a “flow” state is another powerful anecdote, as described in the first article link below. Want to know more about flow? Watch Disney Pixar’s Soul, or read ‘Flow’ by Mihaly Csikszentmihalyi, to start learning more.

No matter what you choose to read or do about your languishing, or whether you do nothing at all, know that you are not alone in your fatigue and languishing. While we have many different circumstances, there are also many similarities that unite us as well. Inevitably, sunny days are ahead regardless of the pace at which we arrive at them-languished and all. Eventually, we will be revived and renewed.

You can read more about the concept of languishing here, here, and here.

melissa: waiting

Posted on March 31, 2021March 31, 2021

This year, it seems the month of March is in like a lion…and out like a lion. Which is vaguely reminiscent of March in 2020, and now March in 2021. So, here we are again. Waiting. If there was a word of the year, I think thus far it would potentially be ‘waiting.’ Of course, it’s only March, so there’s a lot of room for the development of a new word. We have spent a lot of time over the past few weeks discussing with clients thoughts of hope, challenges in decision making, and confusion around guidelines. More than anything, perhaps, we find ourselves discussing the process of what it feels like to be seemingly, endlessly waiting.

Perhaps you are waiting to see loved ones, or hug a distant friend. Perhaps you are waiting to meet a life partner, or are questioning whether it’s time to say goodbye to a partner. Perhaps you are waiting for your children to return to school, or find yourself anxious that your children are in a classroom again. Perhaps you are waiting to walk anywhere freely with a mask left at home, or perhaps you are double masking and wondering if Target is a safe space for simple browsing again. Perhaps you are experiencing many of these quandaries all at once.

Hold onto hope, dear readers. While there are so many ups and downs in life, and certainly in a pandemic life, we hold onto hope and wait. Perhaps the old English proverb of “Good things come to those who wait” was written for this very moment in time. The approximately 200 year old proverb certainly fits well in this moment, all these years later. That’s the thing about life, most things come full circle in the end. So, for now, we wait and good things will certainly come.

melissa: the yellow cardinal

Posted on March 11, 2021March 31, 2021

My friend recently sent me an article about the sighting of a rare bird: a yellow cardinal. Apparently, it’s a one in a million chance you’ll see a yellow cardinal. Neither of us knew that yellow cardinals even existed.

I noted to her that seeing a “regular” red cardinal is one of my favorite bird sightings, actually. I always interpret seeing a cardinal as good luck or a good omen. Whenever I’m lucky enough to see two in a day, I’ll tell my husband about it over dinner. It’s a pandemic, so this is pretty noteworthy on any given day. Though if I’m being honest, I would have brought this up over dinner in the past too. Cardinals are serious business. If we are all out walking, I show them to my daughter. She yells, “bird!” which is basically headline news for her- along with seeing a bus or a truck.

Apparently, lots of other people take note of cardinals too, even in pre-pandemic times. A quick Google search reveals lots of information and sentiments about cardinal sightings, along with a rich history of the etiology of such beliefs.

Whether or not you have aviary interests, I love the idea of knowing there’s a literal rare bird out there in our own big backyard. It may be a one in a million chance, but I know I’ll keep looking for the elusive yellow cardinal. In the meantime, I’ve stopped and paused at every cardinal sighting in the past year- an omen of good things to come. There’s change in the air.

If you want to read more about the yellow cardinal, you can find information here.

mindful moment

Posted on February 16, 2021February 16, 2021

But that shadow has been serving you!
What hurts you, blesses you.
Darkness is your candle.
Your boundaries are your quest.
You must have shadow and light source both.
Listen, and lay your head under the tree of awe.

-Rumi

melissa: snow and sun

Posted on February 11, 2021February 11, 2021

If you find yourself blankly staring at the ceiling or out the window in the early mornings lately, you’re in good company. There’s a lot of snow out there, readers. And a lot of cold.

People have frequently been asking in session if their malaise is normal right now. Let’s have a moment with that. It’s below zero many days, there’s been a ton of snow, and we are rounding out a full year of a global pandemic. Of course a feeling of malaise is normal! The end of January, February and March are almost always tough months for midwesterners at baseline. You have to have some level of sheer grit and resilience to get through long midwest winters, particularly one that is more challenging than our previous winters.

I talked about both/and in my last post, and this week I find myself thinking about that very concept again. It’s both arctic level cold, and so sunny. I actually can’t recall a winter this sunny in recent years. It’s both very snowy (where will it even be plowed if/when there is more!?), and that snow is glittering in the sunshine and under street lamps.

If you, too, have some malaise, welcome it on in. I’m welcoming it in, too. And then, I’m turning my face up to the sunshine and basking in it. I’m watching my daughter stick her face up to the rays of sunshine, and sticking out that tiny mittened hand to catch a falling snowflake. We are learning both words: snow and sun. Both/And.

As always, stay strong, readers. I’ve started to realize that if we can weather this winter, pandemic, malaise, all of it, then I bet we can weather just about anything. “Every winter has its spring,” as H. Tuttle noted, and (in humans,) “No feeling is final,” as Rilke said.

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Tag: anxiety

melissa: teen mental health and beyond

all of us: with gratitude

mindful moment

mindful moment

mindful moment

mindful moment

melissa: mindfulness exercise for painful emotions

mindful moment

melissa: free mindful apps

mindful moment

mindful moment

mindful moment

mindful moment

melissa: organize it

melissa: mindful walk meditation

melissa: languishing

melissa: waiting

melissa: the yellow cardinal

mindful moment

melissa: snow and sun