Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

I'm discussing  triggers from a different perspective than how I usually discuss them as a trauma therapist (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

What Are Triggers?

Therapists, especially trauma therapists, tend to focus on trauma triggers because it's helpful for traumatized clients to know how to recognize and cope with triggers. But it's also important to recognize happiness triggers to add to the quality of your life.

Although the word "trigger" tends to have a negative connotation, psychologically speaking, triggers are neither negative or positive. Triggers are experiences that evoke memories. 

What Are Happiness Triggers?

Happiness triggers refers to rituals and routines we engage in to tap into positive memories and cultivate positive experiences.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

The term "happiness triggers" is usually associated with Valorie Burton, life coach, author and motivational speaker.

What Are the Benefits of Discovering Your Happiness Triggers?

Discovering your happiness triggers can be a way of starting new positive habits because these triggers are associated with positive experiences and they can motivate you to develop positive habits.

Happiness triggers can also serve as an anchor in your life.

When happiness triggers evoke positive experiences, they access positive memories that are neurochemically wired in your brain.  

Happiness triggers can also help to pull you out of a funk when you're feeling low.

How to Develop Happiness Triggers

Happiness triggers are based on individual experiences, memories, needs, interests and values so they will be unique for each person.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

To discover your own unique happiness triggers, start by thinking about the small things in your life in the present or in the past that lift your mood and energy. It can be as simple as the ritual of having your morning coffee or tea, listening to your favorite podcast, taking a walk in the park and so on.

If you're still unsure, practice being present in the moment to experiences that bring you joy. Pay attention to your bodily experiences when you experience memories that were joyful or  evoke a sense of well-being.

Happiness Triggers Require Practice

Once you have discovered your unique happiness triggers, you need to practice them over and over again in order to develop them into positive habits.

These new habits can include behavioral, cognitive (thinking) or emotional triggers.

Behavioral Happiness Triggers

Behavioral happiness might include:

• Exercising

• Yoga
  

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

• Going for a walk in nature

• Dancing

• Listening to music

• Performing an act of kindness for someone

• Reading a favorite book

• Engaging in a favorite hobby

Cognitive (Thinking) Happiness Triggers

Cognitive happiness triggers might include:

• Reframing negative thoughts with positive self talk or affirmations

• Making friends with your inner critic

• Recalling and re-experiencing positive memories and experiences

• Practicing mindfulness meditation
  

Emotional Happiness Triggers

• Practicing gratitude by keeping a gratitude journal

• Practicing acceptance and self compassion

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

• Engaging your five senses (sight, sound, taste, smell and touch)

• Getting a massage

• Getting a manicure

• Playing a sport

• Connecting or reconnecting with a friend or loved one

Conclusion

Developing and practicing happiness triggers can increase your sense of joy and well-being.

Discovering Your Happiness Triggers

You can also discover happiness triggers by connecting to your inner world and connecting to a loved one to discover what is most meaningful and fulfilling to you.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

I have over 20 years of experience helping individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Happy Thanksgiving

Thanksgiving is a time to get together with family and friends to celebrate and express gratitude for all that we have in our lives.

Even when we're going through rough times, we can usually find simple things in our lives that we can feel grateful for.

Keeping a gratitude journal where we keep track of the daily blessings in our lives can help to shift our perspective from one of pessimism to a more optimistic point of view.

Taking the time to write down even two or three things we're grateful for each day can help us to notice positive things that we might otherwise take for granted.

Wishing everyone a happy, healthy and safe Thanksgiving.

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR therapist, and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at 212 726-1006.

Steps You Can Take to Overcome Loneliness

In prior articles, I addressed loneliness and social isolation from various perspectives (see my articles: On Being Alone and Solitude vs. Loneliness).  In this article, I'm focusing on steps that you can take to overcome loneliness.

Steps You Can Take to Overcome Loneliness

Steps You Can Take to Overcome Loneliness

• Stay in the Present: It's so easy to ruminate about the past and things you think you did wrong, but as long as you continue to hold onto the past, you're not allowing yourself to be in the present.  Make an effort to let go of mistakes that you made and resentments you have against others.

• Keep a Gratitude Journal (see my article: Keeping a Gratitude Journal).

• Find Meaning and Purpose in Life: Rather than focusing on how lonely you are, think about what you can do make someone else's life better.  Maybe you can volunteer for a community group or in the local school.  When you feel you have a purpose in life, it helps you to feel more fulfilled and less lonely and isolated (see my article: A Search For a Meaningful Life).

Steps You Can Take to Overcome Loneliness: Get Active

• Get Active:  Running, walking, doing yoga or other healthy activities can help you to have more of a sense of well-being (always check with your doctor before you start any new physical activity).

• Discover a New Social Group:  Whether it's the local book club or some other social group, being part of a group where there's a shared interest can help to enliven you and increase your social network.

• Learn to Play Again: Humor and comedy can be so healing.  Whether you watch a funny movie, read a humorous book or find other ways to increase humor and playfulness in your life, learning to play again is an important step towards helping to decrease your sense of loneliness.

Getting Help in Therapy
There are times when you've tried everything on your own to overcome loneliness, but longstanding unresolved psychological problems get in your way.

If this is the case, you could benefit from seeing a licensed psychotherapist who can help you to discover the possible underlying issues that keep you lonely and isolated.

Rather than continuing to be frustrated by obstacles in your way, working with a skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome the impediments that are keeping you lonely and isolated so you can lead a more fulfilling life.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Is It Possible to Feel Gratitude Even When You're Sad?

I've written prior articles about gratitude for this psychotherapy blog (see: Psychotherapy, Balance and Gratitude,  Keeping a Gratitude Journal, The Importance of Expressing Gratitude To Your Spouse and Being in the Present Moment).  I'm focusing on a particular topic relating to gratitude in this article, which is a question that often comes up in therapy:  Is is possible to feel gratitude even when you're sad?

Is It Possible To Feel Gratitude Even When You're Sad?

It might sound pollyanaish or naive to talk about feeling grateful when you feel sad.  But cultivating an attitude of gratefulness on a regular basis helps you, especially during the times when you're not at your best.

Why is this?  Well, when you develop the ability to find things in your life that you can be grateful for, you're developing a particular skill that will help you during good times and bad.

In many ways, it's easier to focus on the things that aren't going well in your life and, at any given time, you might have numerous challenges.

But if you have developed a habit of looking for the positive things, the things that are going well in your life, no matter how small, it helps to alleviate some of the emotional pain that you might be going through.

Is It Possible to Feel Gratitude Even When You're Sad?

Developing a habit of noticing things to be grateful for doesn't mean that you're trying to deny that you have problems or that you're upset or depressed (see my article: What is the Difference Between Sadness and Depression?)

It's a way of getting a bigger perspective about your life and the people in your life that includes the challenges as well as the positive aspects.

So, how to you do this?

How to Begin to Develop the Ability to Notice Positive Aspects of Your Life:

If you've never tried to develop the ability to find the positive things in your life to be grateful for, you can start in small ways by jotting down things that were positive each day.  

Make a List:

This list can be as simple as the smallest things:  

• Someone smiled at you and lifted your spirits for a moment.
• You heard your favorite song.
• You remembered a happy memory.
• You heard from a friend.
• You noticed a job online that you could apply for to get out of your current job.
• Someone complimented you.
• You found a parking space easily.
• The sales assistant in the store was helpful to you.

Keeping a Gratitude List

And so on.

Getting into the habit of noticing the positive aspects of your life each day helps you to begin to be attuned to these experiences on a regular basis.

It can also help you to realize that, even though you might be sad, life is complex and good feelings can still coexist with sad feelings.

Once you've begun to notice that there are usually at least one or two things that make you feel good and that you can appreciate, you can learn to deepen these feelings by using the mind-body connection.

Using the Mind-Body Connection to Deepen Your Sense of Gratitude

It's not unusual, especially if you're feeling sad, to notice positive aspects of your day and experience them in only an intellectual way.

Experiencing something in an intellectual way is very different from feeling it on an emotional and physical level.

One way to go from experiencing these positive aspects from purely an intellectual perspective to deepening the feeling to an emotional and physical level is to use the mind-body connection.

One method that I use with my therapy clients when they're starting therapy is called "internal resource building."

When we're engaged in internal resource building (also known as developing coping skills), I ask clients to bring in 10 positive memories from their life, no matter how long ago it was and no matter how fleeting the memory might be.  If they can't come up with 10, I'll use whatever they bring in and that's just fine.

I ask the client to close her eyes, get back into the memory and notice what emotions and sensations she feels in her body.  Then, we use some form of what is called "bilateral stimulation" (from EMDR Therapy) to reinforce that feeling.

The bilateral stimulation can be done with "tappers" (one tapper in each hand) that provide alternate or bilateral buzzing in each hand.  This is done for only a few seconds to focus on the positive aspect of the memory and to try to prevent negative aspects from coming up so the memory remains positive.

Since you won't have tappers, you can use another EMDR therapy technique, which is alternate tapping.  Alternate tapping, which is a form of bilateral stimulation can be done by using your hands to gently tap, and it can be done in several ways:  

• Alternate tapping of your leg--right leg, then left leg, back and forth (see Laurel Parnell's Book, Tapping In).
• The "Butterfly Tap" where you cross your arms in front of your chest and do alternate taps of your upper arms
• Bilateral music that goes from one ear to the other (see Bilateral Music).

The idea is that you're focusing on the positive emotion that you're feeling in your body, and this helps to strengthen the positive feelings.  

By strengthening the positive feelings, your experience of gratitude usually goes from an intellectual experience to a felt sense of gratitude.

It also provides you with a reprieve from your sadness.

So, to answer the question that I posed at the beginning of this article:  Yes, it is possible to feel both sadness and gratitude, but it can be challenging to feel gratitude when you're overcome with depression or unresolved trauma.  At that point, you might need the help of an experienced psychotherapist.

Getting Help in Therapy

There's a difference from feeling sad and feeling depressed.

When you're depressed, it's harder to access positive feelings and gratitude and you could benefit from seeking help from a licensed psychotherapist who has an expertise is helping clients to over come depression.

Depression is episodic and you can have multiple episodes throughout your life.  Getting help from a mental health professional can help you to overcome these depressive episodes so that they are shorter than they would be without help.

Getting help in therapy also helps you to develop the necessary coping skills to help you lead a more fulfilling life (see my article:  How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

If you've tried to cultivate an ability to feeling grateful, but emotional problems or a history of trauma are hindering you, rather than suffering alone, find a skilled therapist to help you through these challenges.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works with individuals and adults.

I have over 20 years of experience as a therapist and I helped many clients to overcome their problems.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

How to Stop Comparing Yourself Unfavorably to Others

All of us compare ourselves to others at one time or another.  From the time we're born, someone is comparing us to others--if we were bigger or smaller than our siblings, how we behaved compared to other babies, and so on.  The comparisons continue throughout childhood ("Why can't you be more like your brother?").  So, is it any wonder that many people spend their lives comparing themselves unfavorably with others? 

Stop Comparing Yourself Unfavorably to Others

The problem is that when you make a habit out of comparing yourself unfavorably to others, you make yourself feel inadequate:

• "She's so much thinner than I am."
• "He makes more money than I do."
• "He's funnier than I am."
• "She's prettier than I am."

When you find yourself always on the losing end of the comparison, you're reinforcing a negative habit that will keep you immersed in shame.

Some Tips to Stop Comparing Yourself Unfavorably With Others:

• Recognize that everyone is different and each of us has unique qualities.

• Be aware that, even though you might think that you're being "objective" in your comparisons, people often project their own sense of self doubt into their comparisons.

• Transform feelings of envy toward others into admiration, and if there's something that you can learn from someone that might help you to make a positive change, be open to discovering it.

Learn to Develop a Sense of Gratitude 

When you allow yourself to be consumed by envy, you're making yourself miserable.  Envy can be very corrosive, and it has a way of feeding on itself.

If you're constantly comparing yourself to people that you think have more than you do, try comparing yourself to others who have less.  When you recognize that you might be more fortunate than many other people, you have an opportunity to develop a sense of gratitude for what you do have rather than yearning for what you don't.  

Keep a gratitude journal where every day you write down three things that you're grateful for--no matter how small.  This will help to realize how many things you have to be grateful for in your life that you might be overlooking.

A Worthy Challenge:  From Envy to Gratitude

Changing an ingrained habit isn't easy.  But changing an ingrained negative habit of comparing yourself unfavorably to others and developing a sense of gratitude for what you do have is worth the effort.  

Getting Help in Therapy

Certain ingrained habits are difficult to change on your own, especially when longstanding habits are rooted in shame.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you to overcome the obstacles that you can't overcome on your own, so rather than struggling on your own, seek help from a licensed mental health professional.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Keeping a Gratitude Journal

A gratitude journal is a daily diary where you write about the people, places and events in your life that you feel grateful about.

Keeping a Gratitude Journal

It can change your perspective about your life and the world around you, especially when you are feeling down or if you have developed a habit of looking at yourself and the world in a negative way.

It's Easy to Keep a Gratitude Journal
At the end of the day, write down 5 things that you feel grateful about. At first, you might feel that this would be a waste of time, but I invite you to do it for a week.

Even if, at first, you come up with two things, overtime, as you continue this process, you will probably begin to notice that you will come up with more and more items to write in your daily gratitude journal.

Your journal entries can be as basic as being grateful for the food you eat, your clothing, that you have a roof over your head or that you are alive.

How Can Keeping a Gratitude Journal Help You?
Keeping a gratitude journal helps you to be more aware of your view of yourself and the world around you:

• Do you tend to see things as being mostly negative? 
• Is the glass always half empty rather than half full? 
• Do you tend to engage in all-or-nothing thinking? 
• Are you overlooking the blessings in your life, no matter how simple they might be? 
• Have you taken for granted friends and family who are loving and supportive?

As your awareness expands with your gratitude journal, you can learn to let go of negative patterns of thinking that have held you back.

You may begin to feel more inspired to open yourself up to new opportunities. 

Remember, this is a process. Many of my clients have used a gratitude journal with success. It has helped them to overcome old negative habits that have kept them stuck and allowed them to have more of what they want in their lives.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming the Morning Blues

If you struggle with the morning blues, you're not alone.  Millions of people wake up in the morning and want to go right back to sleep because they find it hard to face the day.  Assuming you've gotten enough sleep, the temptation to go back to sleep can be a way to avoid facing the day.  For many people who are confronted with the morning blues, their attitude is "Why bother?"  They have a sense of purposelessness. But you can overcome the morning blues by changing the way you approach the start of your day.

Overcoming the Morning Blues

One way to overcome the morning blues and that negative inner voice that can be so self defeating is to start each day with something that will inspire you.

Overcoming the Morning Blues

You'll need to plan this ahead of time so that when you wake up, it's available to you when you wake up.  For each person this will be different.  It can include:

Read an Inspiring Passage:
Many people find it uplifting to read an inspiring passage, whether it's spiritual material from one of the many One Day at a Time books or other reading material.

Overcoming the Morning Blues: Read an Inspiring Passage, Write Down Your Dreams, Set an Intention for the Day

Starting your day by reading an inspiring passage can change your attitude for the day and challenge your negative self thoughts.

Write Down Your Dreams:
Rather than giving in to that "Why bother?" negative inner voice, wake up with the goal that you'll write down your dreams.  

The best time to write down your dreams is when you first wake up.  If you keep a pad and pen by your bed and tell yourself before you go to sleep that you want to remember your dreams, you're more likely to remember your dreams.  Your dreams can provide you with interesting insights into yourself.  Some people discover that they become more in touch with their intuition once they start paying attention to their dreams.

Set the Tone with an Intention for the Day:
This is something you can decide before you go to sleep.  Alternatively, you can give yourself the suggestion before you go to sleep that you want to wake up with an intention for the day (see my article:  The Power of Starting the Day with an Intention).

Either way, having an intention for the day gives you a sense of meaning and purpose.  For instance, if your intention for the day is to be more compassionate, you can observe yourself throughout the day:  Are you getting impatient and angry with your coworkers?  Are you getting irritated with other drivers on the road?  Instead of being impatient and irritated, how might your attitude be different if you were more compassionate and put yourself in the other person's shoes for a moment?

Practice Morning Meditation:
Taking even just a few minutes every morning to start your day with morning meditation can change how you feel when you wake up and your attitude throughout your day (see my article: Wellness: Safe Place Meditation).

If you're new to meditation, there are many meditation CDs or downloads that can lead you through a guided meditation if that's what you would prefer.  You can also just spend a few minutes with your eyes closed observing your thoughts.  Whenever a negative thought comes to mind, just see it go by like a cloud passing in the sky.  Don't hold onto it.

Practice Yoga:
Whether you go to a yoga class to begin your day, which I highly recommend, or you do a few yoga poses on your own, beginning your day with yoga poses can be an uplifting way to start your day.  Not only will you quiet your mind, but you will feel more relaxed and refreshed.

Volunteer in Your Community:
When you wake up with the intention of helping others, you're less likely to be consumed with negative self thoughts.

Overcoming the Morning Blues: Volunteer in Your Community

There are many nonprofit organizations that need volunteers.  Not only is it a good feeling to be helping others, but you also can often feel gratitude for what you have in your own life.

Keep a gratitude journal:
Before you go to sleep each night, you can write down things you feel grateful for in your life.  They don't need to be big things.  They can be about the simple things in life that you might usually overlook: finding a parking space without having to drive around for a long time, hearing from a good friend, eating a delicious meal, and so on (see my article: Journal Writing Can Help Relieve Stress and Anxiety).

Overcoming the Morning Blues: Keep a Gratitude Journal

If you get into the habit of writing down at least three things every night, you'll begin to sensitize yourself to all the things you can feel grateful for in your life.  When you do this before you go to sleep, it can set the tone for when you wake up.

Overcoming the morning blues can be challenging, but not impossible.  Often, it's a matter of overcoming habitual negative thinking.  In other words, it's possible that the morning blues has become an unconscious habit that can be overcome with new positive habits.

Getting Help in Therapy
These are some ideas about how you can overcome the morning blues.  If rather than the morning blues you're feeling depressed, these ideas can be helpful.  But if they're not and your feelings of sadness and purposelessness last more than two weeks, you should seek the help of a licensed mental health practitioner who has experiencing working with clients who are depressed.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. 

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Balance, Gratitude and the Evolution of Contemporary Psychotherapy

A common myth about psychotherapy, especially among people who have never been in in-depth psychotherapy before, is that clients primarily "complain" to their psychotherapists about their families and their lives or come in to "fix" a particular problem. 

Balance, Gratitude and the Evolution of Contemporary Psychotherapy

This is a very narrow view of psychotherapy and does not take into account the full richness and experience of the in-depth psychotherapy process as a place where clients, in addition to resolving particular problems, often find balance and gratitude in their lives, their relationships and for themselves as well.

During this Thanksgiving season, when we tend to be more aware of the people and things in our lives that we are grateful for, I'd like to focus in this post on how in-depth psychotherapy often leads to a greater sense of balance and gratitude.

Often, when people first begin psychotherapy, they either come for a particular problem or they have a sense that "something is wrong" in their lives, but they don't know what it is. In our culture, our tendency is to approach problems in a logical, linear way: identify the problem, analyze the various options, chose an option, fix the problem, and the process is finished.

There's nothing wrong with this approach and, in many instances, it works very well. It also often works well for some specific problems in psychotherapy and hypnosis, like smoking cessation or overcoming a particular fear or phobia. However, in-depth psychotherapy can be so much more than this for people who are interested in finding a greater sense of balance and contentment in their lives.

How Contemporary Psychotherapy Has Evolved Over the Years:
As psychotherapy has evolved over the years, there has been more of an emphasis on cultivating and building a more balanced sense of self. As opposed to more classical ways of working in psychotherapy where the emphasis was primarily on uncovering and working through problems, contemporary psychotherapists also help clients to build a stronger sense of self.

This is done, in part, through the development of clients' internal resources. These internal resources can take many different forms. Sometimes, they're coping abilities that clients have had all along but have been overlooked and under utilized. Often, they're internal resources, or parts of ourselves, that are discovered and developed during the psychotherapy process.

When people are depressed or anxious, it's common to focus on what's wrong or missing in their lives. This is understandable. Often, under these circumstances, their view starts out being narrow until they begin to feel some relief from their anxiety-related or depressive symptoms in a supportive psychotherapy treatment environment.

In contemporary in-depth psychotherapy, clients can begin the process of building a stronger sense of equanimity: a greater capacity to soothe themselves, love and value themselves more, appreciate subtle and richer aspects of themselves, and develop a stronger sense of identity.

With a greater sense of balance for themselves often comes an increased capacity to value and have a greater sense of gratitude and compassion in their relationships, their work, and other important areas in their lives. So, what might have started as a narrow view at the start of psychotherapy begins to open up and broaden to include a more holistic and nuanced view of themselves and others: Not just what's wrong--but what's right too.

Keeping a Gratitude Journal:
I often recommend to clients that they keep a gratitude journal as a way to start developing a greater awareness and appreciation for the positive things that occur in their lives on a daily basis. 

The gratitude journal can be a simple list of two, three or more things that you feel grateful for each day. Over time, cultivating a sense of gratitude, even for the small things in life, can help to create a greater sense of balance, appreciation, and compassion in how we see our world as well as how we see ourselves.

About Me
I am a psychotherapist and hypnotherapist in New York City. 

I have helped many clients to develop a greater sense of self and an increased sense of balance and gratitude in their lives.

To find out more about me, visit my web site: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.