How to Say What You Need to Say (with Less Arguing)

Jeshu John at designerspics.com

We’ve all been there. You come home from work, exhausted, and are already a little bit on edge. Your partner (or roommate, or mom, or cat) does…that…thing. You know the thing. The thing that you always tell him not to do, the thing that grates on your nerves like nails on a chalkboard, the thing that HE WON’T STOP DOING AND YOU DON’T KNOW WHY.

So, you freak out.

“You always do this! You are so annoying when you ____! Why can’t you be more like ___?”

He’s, naturally, hurt and defensive. Suddenly you’re arguing full-force, and you go to your bedroom and shut the door. You look at your bed and remember what a fun time you had with this person just last night, lounging on the bed and watching Netflix. You wish you could go back to that.

When we get older, it seems like communication becomes more difficult. You’ve already developed your communication style. You know how to compliment someone and you know how to argue with him. It’s hard to get out of the verbal habits we’ve gotten used to.

But you’re sick of it. Of course you are! It isn’t fun to fight with your loved ones. It doesn’t make you feel good. And the worst part is, if you don’t do anything to break the communication pattern, it’ll just keep happening. The arguments will continue. The cycle will carry on.

This is a super common issue in relationships, which means, lucky for us, professionals have found a way to help resolve these communication problems.

Meet your new best friend: the I-Statement.

Using I-statements is an excellent way of communicating with your partner when something is bothering you without placing the blame on him, thus causing him to react defensively. It’s a way of framing your emotions in a non-threatening manner, so that your partner is more willing to listen to your concerns without the emotional explosives.

The I-Statement is structured into three parts:

1. “I feel…”
   • Identify your negative emotion
2. “When…”
   • Describe the situation that makes you feel negatively
3. “Because…”
   • Tell your partner how the situation affects you, or the message that it sends you

So for example, you might say, “I feel stressed when there are clothes lying on the floor, because cluttered rooms heighten my anxiety.” Or, “I feel insecure when I don’t get text message responses, because I interpret that to mean that I’m not being thought about.” This strategy allows your partner to understand exactly how the bothersome action makes you feel and why it makes you feel that way – and it does it without using that defense-encouraging blame word, “you.”

Practice this method next time you feel an argument brewing! Compare and contrast the response that your partner had to this communication style as opposed to your previous, more blame-heavy method. You might find that you get to a healthy resolution much quicker.

Wanna read more on this topic? Clicky click.

Instagram, Don’t Kill My Vibe

My roommate, who is an adult male, subscribes to Teen Vogue.

deathtothestockphoto.com

Okay, he says he doesn’t. He says he has no idea why it gets delivered every month. But then like…how did they get his name and our address??

Whatever. The point is that I was bringing up the mail the other day and the magazine’s floral, glossy cover was calling to me, begging me to take a peak in honor of my high school self. And there, in the left hand corner, was a headline that spoke to me more than I would like to admit.

PRETTY HURTS: IS INSTAGRAM KILLING YOUR CONFIDENCE?

And home alone in my apartment, shoes still on and sunglasses on my head, I shouted, “YES!!”

In recent years, there have been tons of articles dissecting the way that women are portrayed in the media and on pages of fashion magazines, and don’t get me wrong, I think these articles inspire essential dialogue about self-image.

Still, this didn’t help me too much growing up. I was certainly aware that models were often incredibly underweight and that actresses had stunning features enhanced by makeup, personal stylists, and sometimes plastic surgery. But to me, these women seemed kind of on a whole different plane. I’m pretty sure that we would all look real nice if we had the money to get a blow out every day, but I’m also aware that some people are just naturally born with angelic looks, and celebrities tend to fit into one of these categories. When I look at someone like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, I’m not like, “Wow, I should look like that.” I’m more like, “Wow okay, yeah, so she’s an alien who was randomly born with extreme physical beauty and it also probably took four hours to prep her for this photoshoot — cool.”

But this Instagram era changes things. Instagram photos usually aren’t taken in perfectly-lit studios with expensive cameras. A glam team probably was uninvolved with makeup and wardrobe. Instagram shows photos of real girls, your age, in your city, maybe even at your school or work, doing things that seem five billion times cooler than you are, traveling to places five billion times cooler than you’ve ever been, wearing clothes five billion times the cost of anything you can afford.

So there you are, in your room alone, feeling five billion times less cool than this girl on Instagram.

And this is a serious modern problem. Slate has a great article with quotes from Hanna Krasnova of Humboldt University Berlin, co-author of a study analyzing the relationship between Facebook and envy. She points out that photos encourage immediate social comparison, which leads to feelings of inferiority. You wake up on Sunday morning and scroll through your Instagram feed and see photos that a girl you follow posted the night before. Suddenly you’re looking at her outfit and thinking about what you wore last night (pajamas), checking her geotag and considering where you were last night (your apartment), and clicking on the profile of the other girl tagged in the photo with her and thinking about who you were hanging out with last night (your Pillow Pet).

Catalina Toma of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison makes a great observation in the article —

“You spend so much time creating flattering, idealized images of yourself, sorting through hundreds of images for that one perfect picture, but you don’t necessarily grasp that everybody else is spending a lot of time doing the same thing.”

Like…what the heck, guys!! We’re intelligent, self-reflective women, right? So why does it sometimes take someone else saying the simplest thing to make you slap your forehead and be like, “….oh!”

A few years ago, I saw a quote on Pinterest that really resonated with me.

I still think about this quote. It’s so important to remember —

nothing positive comes from envy

&

everyone has a story. And no, not the one you see on Instagram.

Next time I’m scrolling through my feed, I intend to watch my thoughts. Stop any comparisons I make. And translate the emotion that, if I’m not careful, manifests as envy — and instead, find something inspiring and motivating about the photo instead.

For more on self-image in the media, click here & for more on comparing yourself to others, check this out!

Instagram, Don’t Kill My Vibe

deathtostockphoto.com

My roommate, who is an adult male, subscribes to Teen Vogue.

Okay, he says he doesn’t. He says he has no idea why it gets delivered every month. But then like…how did they get his name and our address??

Whatever. The point is that I was bringing up the mail the other day and the magazine’s floral, glossy cover was calling to me, begging me to take a peak in honor of my high school self. And there, in the left hand corner, was a headline that spoke to me more than I would like to admit.

PRETTY HURTS: IS INSTAGRAM KILLING YOUR CONFIDENCE?

And home alone in my apartment, shoes still on and sunglasses on my head, I shouted, “YES!!”

In recent years, there have been tons of articles dissecting the way that women are portrayed in the media and on pages of fashion magazines, and don’t get me wrong, I think these articles inspire essential dialogue about self-image.

Still, this didn’t help me too much growing up. I was certainly aware that models were often incredibly underweight and that actresses had stunning features enhanced by makeup, personal stylists, and sometimes plastic surgery. But to me, these women seemed kind of on a whole different plane. I’m pretty sure that we would all look real nice if we had the money to get a blow out every day, but I’m also aware that some people are just naturally born with angelic looks, and celebrities tend to fit into one of these categories. When I look at someone like Rosie Huntington-Whiteley, I’m not like, “Wow, I should look like that.” I’m more like, “Wow okay, yeah, so she’s an alien who was randomly born with extreme physical beauty and it also probably took four hours to prep her for this photoshoot — cool.”

But this Instagram era changes things. Instagram photos usually aren’t taken in perfectly-lit studios with expensive cameras. A glam team probably was uninvolved with makeup and wardrobe. Instagram shows photos of real girls, your age, in your city, maybe even at your school or work, doing things that seem five billion times cooler than you are, traveling to places five billion times cooler than you’ve ever been, wearing clothes five billion times the cost of anything you can afford.

So there you are, in your room alone, feeling five billion times less cool than this girl on Instagram.

And this is a serious modern problem. Slate has a great article with quotes from Hanna Krasnova of Humboldt University Berlin, co-author of a study analyzing the relationship between Facebook and envy. She points out that photos encourage immediate social comparison, which leads to feelings of inferiority. You wake up on Sunday morning and scroll through your Instagram feed and see photos that a girl you follow posted the night before. Suddenly you’re looking at her outfit and thinking about what you wore last night (pajamas), checking her geotag and considering where you were last night (your apartment), and clicking on the profile of the other girl tagged in the photo with her and thinking about who you were hanging out with last night (your Pillow Pet).

Catalina Toma of the Department of Communication Arts at the University of Wisconsin–Madison makes a great observation in the article —

“You spend so much time creating flattering, idealized images of yourself, sorting through hundreds of images for that one perfect picture, but you don’t necessarily grasp that everybody else is spending a lot of time doing the same thing.”

Like…what the heck, guys!! We’re intelligent, self-reflective women, right? So why does it sometimes take someone else saying the simplest thing to make you slap your forehead and be like, “….oh!”

A few years ago, I saw a quote on Pinterest that really resonated with me.

I still think about this quote. It’s so important to remember —

nothing positive comes from envy

&

everyone has a story. And no, not the one you see on Instagram.

Next time I’m scrolling through my feed, I intend to watch my thoughts. Stop any comparisons I make. And translate the emotion that, if I’m not careful, manifests as envy — and instead, find something inspiring and motivating about the photo instead.

For more on self-image in the media, click here & for more on comparing yourself to others, check this out!

The Busy Girl Gets Grateful: Making Time for Gratitude

The other day, something annoying happened to me.

I was on my lunch break trying to open the text message app on my phone and my unsteady fingers accidentally opened the app above it.

Annoying, right?? Like, now I have to wait for this app to load, double click the circle button, swipe up to close the app, and then open the app I was trying to open in the first place.

Life is so hard sometimes, guys.

But alas! The fat-fingers-tiny-app-icon situation ended up making my whole day.

It forced me to open up my abandoned Gratitude Journal app. I honestly don’t know why I stopped using it. I guess it’s just easy to get wrapped up in life’s chaos and eventually forget to use it.

When I looked through my Gratitude Journal app, I was stunned. I had forgotten all of these short, one-sentence entries I had written in, and all of the magic that they held. I scrolled through it vigorously. I’m pretty sure I cried a little. I suddenly had the strongest, most powerful sense of wonder and awe and gratitude, and I was completely, blissfully overwhelmed by it.

Reading these entries was like falling in love again. Falling in love with life in a way that I hadn’t in a while.

Research has shown us the amazing effects that gratitude can have on our wellbeing. A study was done with individuals on a waiting list to receive psychotherapy services. They were asked to keep a gratitude journal for two weeks, writing down five things they were grateful for on each day. Even after just two weeks of keeping a gratitude journal, individuals reported feeling more grateful than before.

On top of feeling more grateful, people who kept gratitude journals experienced more happy days, felt more optimistic, felt closer to others, perceived their lives to be more meaningful, and had higher life satisfaction.

And umm, hi. I want those things. You probably do too. I’m feeling totally inspired to keep up with my gratitude practices. The app that I use, Gratitude Journal by Happy Tapper, is $1.99 on iTunes and well worth it. The app’s sleek design is super modern, which (and I’m always surprised by what an effect design has) makes it more pleasant to use and to read back. Each entry records the time you wrote, where you were when writing, and the weather outside on that day. You can include photos with your entry to really remember the moment, and you can share your entry to Facebook and Twitter. You can also export your journal into a PDF, if you prefer a hard copy!

And, if you’re a pen-and-paper kinda gal, this kikki.K Gratitude Journal is so freaking gorgeous I could cry.

http://www.kikki-k.com/gratitude-journal-inspiration-2014

It’s, like anything, about finding your style and making it a priority until it becomes a habit. And who wouldn’t want to cultivate a habit with such amazing proven benefits?

Do you keep a gratitude journal? Comment below!

The Busy Girl Gets Grateful: Making Time for Gratitude

http://getgratitude.co/

The other day, something annoying happened to me.

I was on my lunch break trying to open the text message app on my phone and my unsteady fingers accidentally opened the app above it.

Annoying, right?? Like, now I have to wait for this app to load, double click the circle button, swipe up to close the app, and then open the app I was trying to open in the first place.

Life is so hard sometimes, guys.

But alas! The fat-fingers-tiny-app-icon situation ended up making my whole day.

It forced me to open up my abandoned Gratitude Journal app. I honestly don’t know why I stopped using it. I guess it’s just easy to get wrapped up in life’s chaos and eventually forget to use it.

When I looked through my Gratitude Journal app, I was stunned. I had forgotten all of these short, one-sentence entries I had written in, and all of the magic that they held. I scrolled through it vigorously. I’m pretty sure I cried a little. I suddenly had the strongest, most powerful sense of wonder and awe and gratitude, and I was completely, blissfully overwhelmed by it.

Reading these entries was like falling in love again. Falling in love with life in a way that I hadn’t in a while.

Research has shown us the amazing effects that gratitude can have on our wellbeing. A study was done with individuals on a waiting list to receive psychotherapy services. They were asked to keep a gratitude journal for two weeks, writing down five things they were grateful for on each day. Even after just two weeks of keeping a gratitude journal, individuals reported feeling more grateful than before.

On top of feeling more grateful, people who kept gratitude journals experienced more happy days, felt more optimistic, felt closer to others, perceived their lives to be more meaningful, and had higher life satisfaction.

And umm, hi. I want those things. You probably do too. I’m feeling totally inspired to keep up with my gratitude practices. The app that I use, Gratitude Journal by Happy Tapper, is $1.99 on iTunes and well worth it. The app’s sleek design is super modern, which (and I’m always surprised by what an effect design has) makes it more pleasant to use and to read back. Each entry records the time you wrote, where you were when writing, and the weather outside on that day. You can include photos with your entry to really remember the moment, and you can share your entry to Facebook and Twitter. You can also export your journal into a PDF, if you prefer a hard copy!

And, if you’re a pen-and-paper kinda gal, this kikki.K Gratitude Journal is so freaking gorgeous I could cry.

http://www.kikki-k.com/gratitude-journal-inspiration-2014

It’s, like anything, about finding your style and making it a priority until it becomes a habit. And who wouldn’t want to cultivate a habit with such amazing proven benefits?

Do you keep a gratitude journal? Comment below!

An Introduction

deathtostockphoto.com

So I’m sitting here, hair pulled back, coffee in hand, thinking, “Alright. Here I am. I’m gonna do this.”

Kind of heavy thoughts on the morning of starting a blog — which is literally something that anyone with a computer and thoughts can do — but I don’t take blogging lightly. It’s something that I’ve tried many times, sometimes getting further than others. I’ve experimented with more journal-type, omg-lets-talk-about-my-life blogging, and I’ve tried more structured, purposeful blogging.

And even when the blogs eventually fizzled out, I repeatedly felt the pull to go back to them. To try again. To really think about it and get it right this time.

I’m here to tell you I’ve thought about it. A lot. I’ve explored my goals and questioned my motives, and I’ve continually refined my vision for this blog over the past month. I’ve got a notebook full of scrambled thoughts, written down sloppy and quick, before they left my mind. I’ve got plans — big plans.

I’ve been inspired by so many women on the internet. Women who make me want to be creative, write, cook, drink good wine, travel, be funny, dress well. And I have true gratitude for the parts of me that those women nourish.

I realized, though, that the biggest passion of mine was neglected in my travels through the blogosphere. In college I majored in English/creative writing and Psychology. I was able to read poetry blogs and fiction book reviews and find incredible writing inspiration online. The psychology-minded part of me wasn’t as lucky. There just wasn’t as much out there. Yes, there are so many great blogs with mental health facts and resources and information, and personal stories of mental illness that are incredibly inspiring.

But what I was looking for was simply inspiration to live a mentally healthy life, for both individuals with mental illness and those without. Fashion blogs inspire women to find their personal style. Food blogs inspire women to try new recipes and host dinner parties. Fitness blogs inspire women to stay active and care for their bodies. I’m here to give you a mental health and wellness blog to inspire you to live an intentional life of mental wellness, every day.

With a Masters degree in Social Work and experience providing counseling, I’m educated in many therapeutic approaches. But the thing I have discovered is that living a life of mental wellness takes nurturing, and it takes effort, and it’s a continual process of self-awareness and reflection. It’s lifelong work. I think our minds are like our own little gardens — with so much potential to grow and make our lives beautiful, if we care for them the right way.

I hope you’ll take something meaningful from this blog. I think we can have some fun.

Lindsey