Black and White Thinking

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

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Do you see the world in black and white?

Do you find yourself using the words “always” and “never” when you talk or think?

Do you notice the idea of “should” coming up in your thoughts especially when you are thinking about what you need to take care of?

How about opposites.  Do you find yourself looking at things from the end of the continuum instead of the middle?  Like “starving and stuffed”, rather than “hungry and full”,  or “mind-numbed” and “super- excited” rather than “bored and interested”.

These are all examples of black and white thinking.  Hyperbole can be interesting in artwork or poetry but for people, this kind of thinking can get you into trouble.  Steven Handel, in an article on The Emotion Machine website  says that b+w thinking can make you less willing to compromise and less adaptive.  This can cause a narrow view of the world and frustration for those around you. It can keep you stuck in old habits and ways of thinking.  Without some open-mindedness you can be snagged by the limitations of your thinking.

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Andrea Wachter and Marsea Marcus coined the term “rainbow thinking” in their Don’t Diet, Live-it Workbook.

The idea is to find thoughts that are in between the black and white but don’t have to be gray.

Here are some examples:

Black: ugly    White: beautiful   Rainbow: good the way I am

Black: stupid  White: genius     Rainbow: smart but imperfect

Black: hate     White: love         Rainbow: dislike but not totally, or like but with some exceptions

You get the idea.

The trick is to notice when you are engaged in the extreme thinking and find ways to pull your mind towards the middle. Hope you find it interesting.  Another way to think about this is to consider ways to be kinder towards yourself.

Calendar journaling

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

creative-journal-page-Peachy-Fernando

Start calendar journaling like the journal page pictured above.  I found this wonderful example of a journal calendar on Pintarest.  The “pinner” Peachy Fernado, has thousands of  images on her Pintarest Board.  And there are many amazing examples of calendar journaling online, some of them like the one here do not give credit to the artist.  I would love to know who created this calendar!
I find this kind of art therapy to be extremely valuable.  It’s a fun and creative way to write down your daily activities, thoughts, feelings, and ideas.  The combinations and permutations of approaches are endless.  When you start to let yourself create, it can be a healing surprise to see what shows up for you.  It can make journaling something interesting and refreshing if you need a new approach.  The images and words you write down can be used in poems and stories you write later.

You can keep track of your thoughts and inspirations for writing in this way.  It’s compact and doesn’t take much time.  If it is intimidating to start doing artwork, try beginning with collage.  This gives you the opportunity to cut and paste images from magazines or old calendars, etc. rather than drawing yourself.  Some of these kinds of calendars contain ticket stubs or other everyday items that commemorate a special event.  You might want to use something from a Playbill or brochure that will help you remember your activity.

For more ideas, look for calendar journaling online, and have fun!

Couples and holiday stress

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

 

Handling holiday stress as a couple

Handling holiday stress as a couple

Holidays bring stress as well as joy and relationships can benefit from understanding how to handle the stress.
Learn more about handling relationship stress at the holiday season.

Photograph by George Hodan at Public Domain Pictures

 

Patience revisited

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

 

yunta-25761277748430ofqzPhoto by Teodoro S Gruhl at publicdomainpictures.net

What is an image you can find to remind yourself of the value of patience?  Perhaps it’s a photograph from a trip you took or a picture of an animal taking a time-out.  Imagery is a wonderful way to hold thoughts and intentions in your mind and body.  Sometimes an image can arise if you take a minute to relax and follow your breath.  You can associate the image with calm and patience.

In a writing group I led for women in recovery someone wrote about patience:

I was asked to write about patience…
And I look at the clock.
It’s about 15 minutes minus the time
I will allow to get in touch with the
very quality I need the most.
Patience–I picture the tired and castrated ox
dragging along the farmer to plant the seed that with time
will become the nurture of the village.
Patience–I picture the caterpillar patiently waiting to become a butterfly.
Patience– I picture a spider that webs and waits to get a catch for his next meal.

Patience

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

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How can someone develop patience?  Do you think some of your problems stem from a lack of this skill? How to know when to stop being patient and move on?

You can develop patience by asking yourself why you would want to.  If you see a good reason
to work at it, you can learn to take a breath, take a time out, spend a few moments evaluating your situation.  You can dialogue with your impulsive self, understand when you are moving towards self harm, see a stop sign that yields to a better direction.

If you find yourself in inertia, you can look into developing self awareness, see what is holding you back, find a small step to take towards fulfillment.

On the website Essentiallifeskills.net there are some very useful tips for developing patience.
One of these tips is to take a day where you practice patience all day.  This is especially useful if
you are going to be driving in traffic, dealing with a difficult family member or co-worker, or have an important decision to make.  At the end of the day, evaluate how it felt to be more patient.  Was it painful like starting to exercise muscles that are not used to being used?  Was it worth trying again the next day?

Impulsive behavior is behavior that is not thought out and can come from emotions that are uncomfortable and may be disconnected from your awareness.  For example, if you have a sudden desire for a piece of chocolate cake when you are already full,  or you find yourself spending hours shopping when you really don’t need anything new, you may be acting on an emotion that you are not in touch with.  It could be resentment or anxiety, sadness or loneliness, boredom or jealousy, the urge to distract yourself can be overpowering.

This is where patience as a skill can come in.  Can you slow things down in the moment of urgency to examine what might be going on underneath your desire?  What could give you the motivation to want to do this?  After all, the immediacy of gratification can feel so much better in the short run than the skill of slowing down and experiencing a difficult feeling.  But if you can connect with your feeling and understand yourself, you will feel better about yourself in the long run.

More to come soon on the topic of patience.

Find the Woman You Want to Be

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by 2

Find the Woman You Want to Be

By Phyllis Klein on Jan 15, 2011
originally published on The Bridgemaker Blog owned by Alex Blackwell.
Please read this post on The Bridgemaker Blog by clicking on the link right above.  Thanks, Phyllis

 

 

Images from Space–something to write home about

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

 

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This is the Wired Science space photo of the day for October 26, 2012.

This picture represents a phase of development our sun will go through several billion years from now.  Apparently when stars get to a certain age they go through an expansion and contraction that creates enormous wind and energy. Then they explode. This is the Crab Nebulae,  a six-light-year-wide expanding remnant of a star’s supernova explosion. The blue is the crushed dense core of the exploded star.  That’s the scientific thumbnail if I have gotten it right. Luckily we won’t be around when this happens to our sun!

In addition to the science there’s the art and emotional content of the image. What do you see in this image from space?  Does it look like an elaborate Easter egg from space?  A Christmas gift from the Hubble?

In his poem After Years, Ted Kooser writes about someone leaving him, and the describes the magnitude and ordinariness of that experience with images of a glacier calving, an ancient oak falling, and an old woman looking up from feeding chickens. He then turns to space writing, At the other side/of the galaxy, a star thirty-five times/the size of our own sun exploded/and vanished, leaving a small green spot/on the astronomer’s retina/as he stood on the great open dome/of my heart with no one to tell.*
*for the full version of this amazing poem After Years go to Poemhunter.com

What is happening at the other side of your galaxy?

 

 

 

More from “No Longer Strangers”

Phyllis Klein, LCSW Posted on by  

Here is the introduction to my booklet about writing with patients and families at the UCSF Mt. Zion Comprehensive Cancer Hospital.

The first time I stepped into the halls of the UCSF Medical Center at Mount Zion as an Art for Recovery intern in 2006, I was overwhelmed with feelings—fear that I wouldn’t be able to help anyone, worry that I would be intimidated by the amount of raw suffering I would encounter, and concern that I would say or do the wrong thing.

What I encountered was a lot of love.  Sometimes this level of illness and suffering brings with it an openness and intensity that allows people who want to, to unlock their hearts and let strangers in.  And then you are no longer strangers.

That’s how I got the idea for the project that has turned into this small book—to sit in waiting rooms and ask people to tell me what was on their minds, to listen, and write down the things they said. I also set up several bulletin boards, three in the hospital, and one in the Ida Friend Outpatient Infusion Center waiting room, where people, patients, family, friends, and staff could write down their thoughts and feelings in response to a poem or a prompt.  The great majority of what is in this book came from the bulletin boards.  As I listened and observed, I also wrote poems, as a way to capture the feelings and thoughts in my own heart.  For me, a big believer in the mind-body connection, that’s what healing is about.

As you read these pages, I hope you will think of those you might see on the street or meet as friends who have been through a life-changing illness, those who may be very ill and not even look all that sick, or those who may have the tell-tale signs of progressing cancer.  I hope you will think of the nurses and doctors who fight the battle with them, and who do their best to set the tone for the healing atmosphere inside the hospital. As said on one of the bulletin boards, Soak up the good energy here! You can feel it all around.  Know that someone cares even if you don’t know them.  And of course, I hope you will take something away for yourself, and maybe even write about it!  The backs of the pages were kept clean and empty to offer you a space to write or draw.

A writing prompt is the beginning of a sentence or phrase that is meant to be completed.  You will note as you begin this book, that it is organized with writing prompts at the top of the page followed by participants’ written responses.  I have interspersed my own poems written as a reaction to what I experienced in the waiting rooms. I have also included handwritten clips from the actual bulletin boards. My photographs will, I hope, complement the writing.

All the writing except mine is anonymous, and that has helped with the spontaneity of the responses.  Any names used in this booklet have been changed or shortened.

Phyllis Klein, LCSW, Art for Recovery Intern

August 2007

An Art for Recovery© UCSF Helen Diller Family Comprehensive Cancer Center Project
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