Zoom out.

This is a phrase I say to myself whenever I notice I’m feeling activated (angry, sad, shocked, etc. This works with all emotions). It’s a reminder to take a breath (never underestimate the power of the breath), let the context sink in, look at it from other perspectives, and ask myself, “am I going to be upset by this 1 year from now? 1 month from now? 1 day from now? Probably not? Then why am I letting it upset me now?”

I’m sure I’m not the only therapist who suffers from Impostor Syndrome (a psychological pattern in which an individual doubts their accomplishments and has a persistent internalized fear of being exposed as a "fraud") when first starting. After four years of grad school, I still didn’t feel ready to actually sit in front of people and tell them how to make their lives better (who the heck was I to do that??).

*Trigger warning: mentions gang violence

Before getting licensed, I was an intern at Head Start, (a program of the United States Department of Health and Human Services that provides comprehensive early childhood education, health & mental health, nutrition, and parent involvement services to low-income children and families) working with preschool-aged children and their families.

In this age of technology and distractions, our attention is almost always divided among a plethora of notifications battling for our time. Why do you have some of your best ideas, thoughts, reminders in the shower? Because you’re not reaching for your phone the second it dings (or hopefully not).

From smoke signals to snail mail to electronic messaging in all its various short-forms, communication has evolved to be lightning fast and as easy as opening the mouth and pressing a button. But what happens when words get sent as quickly as neurons fire? It once took months, miles, and great hardship for communication to be transmitted. How pensively one must have thought about a message before letting it loose into the world.