By Paige Zuckerman, Clinical Director

Having to Say Goodbye

Goodbyes are a generally a thankless experience that we tend to want to avoid, minimize or defer. They are some of our most vulnerable human moments, and we humans are historically not so naturally adept at vulnerability. Our fear of goodbyes (be the transitions, death or change of any fashion) all too often prevents us from standing in the power of that process.

There are Pearls to be Found

I challenge us to take a moment to bow to the grateful and profound energy of goodbye.  Sometimes our most brilliant capacity to grow, wisen, affirm and appreciate is borne from the inevitable farewells of our lifetimes. There’s something to be said for the beauty in things not
meant to last; maybe we cherish them more deeply.

“Memento Mori”

I’m a lover of the notion of “memento mori,” an ancient concept that translates to ‘remember that you will die.’ This phrase calls to our awareness the deep, abiding impermanence of life, and the
treasure of that ephemeral truth. In the art world, memento mori served as a movement-of-sorts to depict withering flowers, melted candles and bleached skulls to symbolize the transience of mortal life. Art saw memento mori as profoundly lovely.

If you are facing a farewell, perhaps you can pause to breathe in the beauty of the experience.  Perhaps you can feel the deep love and appreciation for what was, and the lovely ache of what is. Perhaps goodbye is a teacher, not an enemy. Let us hold with that for a moment.

By Paige Zuckerman, Clinical Director

You might be finding that lately it feels like life is ‘a lot.’ Maybe family, work, health, money, your spiritual life, your pets…they’re all asking for time, resources and headspace. Maybe you’re even feeling overwhelmed and burned-out. 

If you can relate to this, you’re not alone.

So what causes us to reach that place where we are hanging onto life’s ledge by our shaky, loosening emotional grip? 

The Window of Tolerance

As it turns out, we all have a finite container for our ability to regulate our mental health, or in this case our emotional state and nervous system response. Each of our containers is different in size depending on many factors, most of all our contexts. A sound way to think of this is as a window. The “window of tolerance” is a term originally coined by Psychologist Dan Siegel to describe the space wherein we can function our best, and how to understand when and why we might be outside our window. 

As you can see above, there’s a space within our Window of Tolerance where we can feel our most ‘baseline,’ or our generally normal, more stable sense of homeostasis. In the upper edge of our window, we will feel anxiety and intensity, or the ‘fight’ responses. In the lower end of our window, we will tend to shut down, tune out or even dissociate. When we exit the ideal middle zone of our window and exit our tolerance space, our autonomic nervous system will bring distressing symptoms into the picture. We may feel ill and fatigued, and may have notably less energy. 

How Do I Stay Within my Window?

So what do we do with this awareness? How do we bring ourselves back into our window of tolerance? This is where tools like therapy, meditation, your favorite exercise, listening to music (not while scrolling your feeds), taking your dog for a walk and the wide array of restorative self care can come into play. This is also the invitation for rest, breaks and boundaries. Saying “I can’t right now, and I’ll get to it soon” or even just a ‘no’ can mean so much for your mental health. 

You Can Do This

You have more power than you may perceive when it comes to your window, and responding promptly to care for yourself and seek support when you recognize being out of your window is one way to use that power. Another, perhaps even more important power, is to stay committed to practicing the tools and self-care strategies that proactively hold you in your window of tolerance and help expand it.

By Paige Zuckerman, Clinical Director

It’s a fairly well known fact that in most of the US things are ‘reopening’ as COVID vaccination numbers steadily increase and CDC guidelines expand. Maybe you’ve already reinvigorated your world, and it’s unfolding into the next phase of a ‘sort-of post-pandemic’ life.

One of my beloved local coffee shops-the one that my week starts with on Monday mornings and ends with much the same on Fridays-sloughed off their masks last week after diligent safety standards for almost a year and a half. I was taken aback by the extent of thrill I experienced in seeing the full facial expressions of my familiar favorite baristas, as though I was discovering their fuller self for the first time. That sense got me thinking; just exactly how has our internal computation been affected by the missing half of the faces of people we love and respect this past long year?

What Does the Science Say?

The science bears out evidence that the specific wiring in our brain that recognizes and reflects expression is implicated in our social schematic. Mirror neurons, the little tangles of electrical recognition in our brains, allow us to-as they might connote-reflect on what we experience. Social cognition appears to be innately tied to our ability to observe and make sense of the expressions of others.

So what happens when you lose half of the information for an extended period of time? How might our wonderful little mirror neurons been pruned or partially deactivated due to the loss of data? Have they had to grow to work even harder to complete the missing patterns on masked faces all around us? It’s a bit early to know…and it merits a tremendous scientific effort and curiosity.

Keep an Open Mind

For now, what I am allowing myself to be curious for are the ways I will be surprised, thrilled, confused and maybe even incorrect as I attempt to re-integrate the full, expressive and wonderful faces of the people in my life.  How might I use that interesting experience to enliven my gratitude, my attentiveness, my compassion and my own reflection with people moving forward?  What might it mean for you?