Monthly Archives: January 2011

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26Jan 2011

I Fell Off the Wagon!!

Ok! I admit it! I have completely fallen off the SELF-CARE wagon the past 7 months!! I have a good excuse though- giving birth to my 3rd child, sleepless nights, nurturing my marriage, making sure my other 2 children’s needs are met, nutritious meals…..blah blah blah blah blah! No excuses, right? I’ve just fallen off!

Once we have fallen off the wagon, so to speak, I think it is really easy to just stay on the pavement where we’ve hit the ground. The positive rewards we received from being on the wagon are quickly forgotten as we fall into old habits and they become a part of us. Honestly, this is what happened to me. I told myself, “Once the baby is sleeping more. Once my oldest goes to school. Once I’m not so busy at work. Once this, once that!” Then I found myself just forgetting the importance of doing it when I could actually make the time. I was recently inspired by Teri Claassen with her blog, “Self Care Resolution” http://www.imaginehopecounseling.com/tcblog and then again this week with Elizabeth White’s blog for The Confident Mom http://www.theconfidentmom.com They both talked about the importance of taking care of ourselves as Mom’s. We are the mortar of the family, as The Confident Mom says. If we don’t take care of ourselves, who will? Then what will we have to give to our family?

So the past couple of weeks, I have decided to get back on the wagon. I am doing my Yoga again at night, put myself back on my schedule once a week for “me time”, and have been putting more girls nights on my calendar. IT FEELS SO GOOD! I had forgotten what a natural rush my body feels after each Yoga session. how much I enjoy the quiet of “me time”, and how good it feels to catch up with my girlfriends. All important parts of my self-care. I am reminded of how much better I handle my children’s temper tantrums. It’s much easier it is to listen to my husband, truly listen. I just feel better about me, which pours onto my family.

This is also a great reminder for us all, too, that there are seasons in our lives when self-care just naturally takes a back seat. Unfortunately, there is only so many hours in the day. When you have a newborn and multiple other responsibilities, self-care will be more about getting a shower for the day or having 5 minutes alone at night before falling asleep. Self-care will look different at different times. But it is important not to let ourselves get in the rut of continuing the “just 5 minutes or just a shower” when we can take time for more. Get up off the pavement and get back on the wagon! I’m loving it!!

If you are on the wagon, pat yourself on the back. If you’re off the wagon, what can you do today to get back on the wagon? I would love to hear your comments! Thank you for reading! Have a wonderful day!

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

19Jan 2011

Life’s Most Persistent Question~ “What have you done for me lately?”

Every year when Martin Luther King Day comes around, I think about him. I think about what rights members of my family have because of what he and so many others sacrificed. It amazes me that it was just less than 50 years ago that this all took place. It seems so long ago to live a life where we were all so separate. And that was “normal”. Although I am not naive enough to believe that prejudice no longer exists, I am grateful for how far we have come.

I am also grateful that children bring a fresh perspective to all of this. As I said, every year I think about MLK. However, this year, I had questions from my 6 year-old about him. He had the day off school and was interested in why. We talked to him a lot over the past several weeks about the upcoming Holiday, what it meant and who MLK was. It was amazing to me how much he could understand yet how he just could not wrap his mind around what used to take place in this country. He was amazed that 50+ years ago he would not have been able to go to school with one of his best buddies next door, simply because his buddy is white. He couldn’t drink out of the same water fountain? What was that all about? He just couldn’t get it. But slowly we saw his little mind “get it” as much as he could and become grateful for what MLK and other civil rights participants did. It was really cool.

I say all this to actually get to the point of my blog today, which was my favorite Martin Luther King Jr. quote-
“Life’s most persistent and urgent question is, What are you doing for others?”

I love this quote but wanted to blog about it because I think we have become a society where our most persistent and urgent question has become, “What have you done for me lately?” What are YOU doing for ME? Me, ME, Me, ME MEEE! We have become so focused on what we can get out of it, how does this help me, and how will that make me happy. I’m not saying we shouldn’t take care of ourselves and focus on our needs to make ourselves better people. That is important. To take care of others, self-care is a must! But come on, selfishness is out of control! We are teaching it to our kids, too! We need to get out of this thinking and focus on how we can help others. So many people are struggling right now. People are suffering right next to you. Trust me, we see it everyday!

So what do we do about it? Start small. Start with intentionally doing one kind thing for someone every day. Either plan to do or say something to someone that will lift them. Or watch throughout your day for opportunities to help others. These little tiny acts get you focused outside instead of inside. Once you do that, you start seeing bigger things you can help with. You will feel so much better from focusing on helping others that you will WANT to do it more.

I feel like I need to put a disclaimer here- There needs to be a balance! I am not encouraging Codependency or Approval Addiction either! You still need to take care of yourself. And you aren’t doing these things to get approval. You are doing these things to make the world a better place. To pass on kindness to someone else-hoping they will pass it along as well. Again- it’s not about YOU! It’s about getting outside of YOU!

So I challenge you today- do a random act of kindness. Get outside of yourself. Don’t ask “What have you done for me lately?”. What have you done for others lately? Thank you for reading. And by the way, I needed the message for myself, too!

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

13Jan 2011

Are you resilient? 3 Ways to help fight negative situations


I know you are all probably sick of seeing pictures of my poinsettia. But look at the poor thing! I realized, yet again, that I had not been taking good care of it. I should put the poor thing out of its misery and give it to someone, shouldn’t I?? That’s what I was thinking Tuesday when I took this picture. But yet again, I gave it some water and some oxygen when I spoke to it and said, “I’m sorry! I wish you had a better home!” Yesterday I came in and it was back to life. Wow! Resilient little thing, isn’t it?

This triggered me to start thinking about resiliency. Why are some plants more resilient than others? Why are some people more resilient than others? I think some people are more resilient because of their circumstances. If you grow up where you are forced to be reliant, guess what, you develop resiliency. I remember reading a journal in Graduate School that talked about Adult Children of Alcoholics and how they show more resiliency than the average person. That makes sense to me. So some of it is circumstances. But I do believe we can also develop resiliency. I was able to identify 3 things right off the bat that could help us be more resilient in difficult situations.

The first thing is thinking positive. When something negative happens, it is natural for us to think something negative. But do we go into a spiral or think positive? I’m not saying to deny your negative feelings. However, it won’t do you any good to let yourself spiral into a negative thinking pattern that only brings on more negative emotions. TRY to see the positive in a situation.

The second things is to get historical. Think of a time in your life that you were down and out. What did you do to get out of it? What strengths did you have that helped you make it thru? You may have struggled, but you obviously made it thru because you are here, reading this today. So you lived! What was it that kept you hanging on? Did you ask for help? Did you think positive? Did you get on your knees? What did you do? Get historical and do it again!

The final thing that I find VERY helpful in helping me be resilient is quoting the Serenity Prayer:
God, Grant me the serenity to accept the things I cannot change, courage to change the things that I can, and the wisdom to know the difference.
That says it all:
What CAN I do?
Doing it.
And letting go of the rest!

I can imagine there are several other things that we can do to be more resilient. Those are just what came to mind today.

Feel free to drop me a comment on what you have found useful to help you be more resilient. Thank you so much for reading. I hope you have a great weekend!

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

06Jan 2011

Are you using survival skills that are no longer needed?

Many times in our lives, we have certain things we do that we do not understand. It may be something we have been doing for a long time and now it’s just a habit. For example, maybe we feel like the house has to be perfect before we go to bed at night. Or perhaps we think we have to be perfect at work or we will get into trouble. Maybe in our relationships, when the conversations gets heated, we remove ourselves.

Oftentimes, what we find in doing therapy with individuals, is that some behaviors were actually survival mechanisms from when they were younger. For example, maybe in a person’s home, if the house wasn’t perfect before they went to bed and their parent came home from work, they would be awakened, yelled at, and punished for the house being dirty. Or if someone grew up in a home where mistakes were not allowed and there were punishments for them, they now believe they can’t make mistakes at work or they will lose their job. If the home was not safe emotionally or physically when conversations got heated, they now believe they have to withdrawal to avoid any conflict in their relationships.

Even though they are not back there in time, they are still doing the things they did in order to survive. Sometimes we have to point this out and literally give them permission to not use this “survival skill” anymore. They realize it really is no longer needed and they can let it go.

Many addictions start out this way. A teen may start drinking to cope with their home. When they leave home, they may no longer be in the chaos, but drinking is now a habit and they are doing it because it’s a habit, not because it’s needed to survive.

Interesting concept. What might you be doing now that you no longer need to be doing? Asking myself this question has been eye opening to me. It gave me the ability to see something that was no longer needed and to take the steps I needed to take to stop the behavior. Additionally, it has helped me see some of my behaviors as a child and teen that I was using just to emotionally “survive”. This helped me offer myself forgiveness for mistakes that I made. This was a big step for me in moving forward in my recovery.

Thank you for reading. I hope you have a wonderful and blessed week!

*Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.

Location:N Keystone Ave,Indianapolis,United States