NAMI Presentation

Have you heard of NAMI?

NAMI is the National Alliance on Mental Illness, the biggest support group for mental illness. This is a non-profit organization and volunteer based, and so many people, particularly families with mentally ill patients are receiving its great support.

Last month, I was honored to be invited to give a presentation about mental illnesses for one of NAMI’s branches, and I had a great time with so many people who had good attention and questions!

 

 


If you know anybody who is struggling with his/her family member’s mental illness, NAMI is one of the valuable options for them for a support group, psychoeducation, and informative presentations like I did. See nami.org for more information.

There will also be an annual fundraising event, NAMI Walks 5K, in different locations from September to October 2019. If anyone is interested, please take a look at namiwalk.org.

*For Japanese speaking people, there is actually a Japanese speaking group in the South Bay area of Los Angeles: Japanese Speaking Support Group (JSSG). You may want to check this out as well!

Why Not Breathe More Slowly and Deeply??

One of the easiest and simplest ways to reduce your experience of anxiety and stress is deeper and slower breathing. You have heard about it many times, haven’t you? If you are suffering from anxiety, obsessive thoughts, stress, pressure, worries, etc., it is really helpful to incorporate deep and slow breathing in your life. However, many people don’t do that but still complain about their emotional problems. This breathing is free, effective, and with no side effects… Why not?? Today, I won’t talk about the importance of deep breathing (because many people have done it already everywhere!), but share my thoughts on why people don’t.

Stubbornness?: I think one of the biggest reasons is we are just so stubborn and inflexible. We like and follow our routine, and it is just so difficult to change the routine, including our way of breathing. It does not matter if we are benefitting from our routine or not. We just continue it. When I do life-coaching, this is one of the biggest obstacles I have to deal with, and I have to use a variety of behavior-modification strategies to make a change. We can read what’s good for us and what works for our life from many personal development books and websites, and if we all follow some good ideas and advice, people are much happier and healthier by now, right? That’s not how we normally are. Therefore, we first need to understand our fundamental difficulties with changing our routine, and learn how to manipulate ourselves to incorporate something new.

Not Magical Enough?: Also, probably breathing appears too dull and simple to be something to get excited about. Like a variety of diet plans and exercise machines people are fascinated about and fail at repeatedly, we just want something that look special, sexy, and magical. Something that is strangely and magically easy and effective to make everything so great! Breathing sounds so boring and too simple, like eating healthy and exercising more. Therefore, it does not appeal so much.

Don’t Know How?: In addition, I have to say many people don’t really know how to deep breathe effectively. I teach my clients how to deep breathe effectively, and most of them use their chest, instead of their diaphragm. As a result, it is not only less effective but also uncomfortable. Obviously, if it does not feel good or work effectively, people don’t want to continue it.

Lack of Self-Monitoring?: Self-monitoring is another interesting factor. When my co-author and I did research in Japan about deep breathing and self-monitoring in different populations, we were surprised how many people cannot even monitor their emotional experience and condition, as well as their environmental factors. Such a big lack of awareness was one of the common issues we observed. If you don’t pay attention to your own experience, you cannot even notice how your breathing is affecting you and your life. Therefore, people don’t do it, because they don’t notice the difference!

I have shared some reasons why I think people don’t take advantage of deep breathing. I don’t blame people for not utilizing deep and slow breathing, because it is not as easy as it sounds as I mentioned above. At the same time, if you slow down and deepen your breathing as part of your regular breathing, or for just 10 minutes a day (or even just a few breaths!), you can notice a remarkable difference. I personally want to do something that is simple, free, effective, and has no side effects for myself. What about you?

Let go of Shame-Full-Ness

Last time I discussed important issues related to abusing and misusing the feeling of “guilty.” When guilt is mentioned, another important emotional experience needs to be addressed as well: SHAME!

In some study, guilt was considered to be experienced more among Western societies, whereas shame was experienced more in Japan. This is said to be because of the absence of belief in one God, insularism, and an emphasis on the public eye in Japan. There may be some differences in degree, but I do often see both of these painful emotions in the US and Japan. You don’t believe that Westerners don’t feel shame much, would you? Right; I didn’t think so.

When it comes to shame, the feeling comes from imagining the judgement of others, of being under the eye of others. It is not about the laws or right and wrong as is the case with guilt, but rather with how others see you or what you did, that is the fundamental basis for the feeling of shame. We are shy, we are afraid of judgment, and we want to look good... Therefore, it is totally understandable that we worry about others’ watchful eye causing feelings of shame. However, many feelings of shame that people experience appear to be so unnecessary.

There are actually not so many things about which you can really can truly make yourself feel shame about. Well, if you killed puppies for fun or slept with your spouse’s best friend on your wedding day, you can definitely feel ashamed, and I would agree with it. It is a normal feeling of shame and nothing is wrong with it. But I don’t think most of you who are reading it really do such things in general, do you? Then why do you still end up feeling shame?

One possible and simple reason is that you still allow yourself to be surrounded by unreasonably critical, abusive, insecure, or judgmental people. These people cause feelings of shame in others, because that serves them well by hurting others. Or it’s a matter of them projecting their emotional issues onto others in a form of shaming. They need you to feel shame, and they make sure it happens to you intentionally or unintentionally (either way is irrelevant).

If you say you are NOT surrounded by these kinds of people, but you still experience a lot of shame, then it may be a less simple matter. Another possible reason is you have internalized those who shamed you in the past, which can be your parents, grandparents, teachers, preachers, ex-friends, etc. Something might have happened to you once or many times when you are younger, and you internalized this experience and overgeneralized it. We may not remember what happened, and it could be just because you dropped a glass of milk by an accident or some such small thing. Still, if it was internalized as a shameful event because somebody at that time made you feel so, and then this installed emotional experience is repeated again and again, and now you don’t even remember how it even started.

Then what can we do? In a way, it is simple, although probably a very scary challenge. You do not need to keep such shaming people in your life! If you have such people in your life currently, let them go or drastically minimize your contact with them. Nothing can justify your keeping these people in your life. It is okay not to have people with venom in your life.  If it is because of internalized experience, and you don’t have the people at the root of these feelings of shame in your life any longer, it is still important for you to let it go psychologically. A long time ago, someone at that time thought you were shameful or you did something shameful. So what? One, it was not true unless you killed puppies or something like that, and two, you are no longer such a powerless and scared child. You are now more mature and stronger. You can just let it go and live your life without shame. If you feel shameful a lot, your life is shame-full. Let go of these people. Being shameless means living without shaming people in your life!

Be careful of saying “I feel guilty.”

As you may know, I really value all of our emotional experiences. Even something that is very “negative,” embarrassing, and/or uncomfortable, when it comes to our emotional experience, has to be acknowledged, accepted, and expressed. There is no benefit gained from ignoring, pushing down, or distracting ourselves from these emotions, and not expressing them in some situations. However, when it comes to feelings of “guilt”, I warn you to be very careful and not to misuse this expression, because doing so can lead to unnecessary suffering on your part.

You can feel guilty only when you did “something tangibly wrong”, such as something illegal and/or immoral or bad. Other than those situations, you CANNNOT feel guilty. I know many people cannot help but feel guilty, even when they have done nothing wrong, but such painful feelings CANNOT be labeled as guilt. They are actually something else, probably relabeling of such things as feeling “bad,” “sad,” “helpless,” “anxious,” and such.

It is very very important not to misuse the word “guilt,” although it is just a word. Do you have any idea why that is? Because although it is just a word, it has strong power over our psychological elements.

Let me give you an example. Assume you have an alcoholic brother who has been asking you for money for years. You have helped him out many times, but the result has been the same, and he is still a drunk with no motivation. You finally decide to choose yourself and your family and/or family of choice over him and say “No” to him, but you feel “guilty.” In this scenario, did you do anything wrong,  something illegal or immoral? No, you did not. So, it is not “guilty” feelings, but you are really feeling “sad,” “helpless,” and “bad” about the situation and about him.

If you mislabel it as guilt, then you cannot help but feel you are doing something wrong, and you will end up experiencing some internal pressure to do something for him, no matter how much you know that he will not change or even appreciate it. If you don’t do anything with this guilt, you will now suffer so badly because of this “guilt,” because you feel you did not do anything for him. Pay attention: If you label your feelings as feeling sad, helpless, and bad about the situation and/or about him, you won’t need to struggle over the strong internal pressure you would have experienced otherwise with labeling your feelings as “guilt.” You still feel a lot of emotion, but then you may be able to accept your powerlessness over the situation more calmly in time. It is just a matter of words, but it has strong psychological power.

Many people misuse the word “guilt,” and suffer a lot unnecessarily as a result. Yes, it is still awful to witness someone we love or care for doing something that is not good for themselves and/or suffering from their own issues over which we are powerless. We feel bad. But it is not our wrongdoing and our feelings can’t be called “guilt.” This is very important and if you tend to feel guilty often, try to pay good attention to what you are doing, and if in fact it is not something that is wrong, then correct this misused expression. You will notice something is different in you as a result.

As the expression “guilt-trip” suggests, the word “guilt” itself has strong manipulative power to it. When we have done nothing that is actually bad or wrong, using accurate words other than guilt to label our feelings is really helpful in our lives.

The Fear of Being Weak

I often wonder when it was that thinking of yourself as weak became to be considered a bad thing. And why is it that when people think of asking for help, they think “I’m weak so I should not ask for help and just stay strong?” Why do people say “I should not cry because it is a sign of weakness?” Sooo many people hold this strange belief, and it’s not only men who often tend to be afraid of looking weak, but women too. Honestly, it’s REALLY a lot of people! This is a silly belief so let’s talk about it today.

First, is being weak a bad thing? What are you talking about?! We are human, not robots. We have times of being strong, and we have times of being weak. So what!? Unless you constantly have what people commonly call “nervous breakdowns” or take “mental health days” every week or so, you are just a normal human-being. Even if you maintain your condition really well physically, mentally, and spiritually, horrible things can and do happen, and we all suffer at times.

Second, is crying weak? Honestly speaking, if you cannot allow yourself to cry when you want or need to, that   is actually weaker, don’t you think? Why is that? Why is it that you cannot cry? Is it that you are so “afraid” of other’s judgment that you cannot let it out? Is it that you are concerned about how you look to others, or how others think of you? Is it that you are unsure if you could recover from “breaking down”? All of these are big signs of “weakness.” If you want to be really “strong,” you need to respect and accept your emotional experience, even painful and uncomfortable ones, while having faith in yourself and others around you, don’t you think? 

Third, is asking for help weak? Gosh, this is such a common misunderstanding I see in the US. So many people have a big issue with asking for help. And as a result, you may not be able to complete your task, you cannot get things done appropriately, or you have a “nervous breakdown.” This is not a sign of your strength. Really strong people know that they can trust people who are willing to support them, while objectively and accurately assessing what help and support they can utilize for a better outcome. That is a real strength, isn’t it? Again, if you are afraid of others’ judgment about your asking someone for assistance, no, you are not proving your strength.

This “fear of being weak” is so common and so misconstrued. Please think about yourself and if you happen to blindly believe this misconception, this is the time to rewrite your script and become really “strong!”