Blog

By: Petra Najafee, Registered Psychotherapist

This is something I get a lot. People know that they want support of some kind, but they don’t know what that looks like. So, if you’ve ever wondered about this, here you go!

Although there are different types of psychotherapists, what I do is primarily talk therapy. This means that we sit down together and talk about the things that are working in your life, the things that are not working in your life, and we work to together to figure out a way to make things better. But even though it feels like a conversations, it’s different than talking to a friend. There are “rules” to friend relationships that are different from the “rules” of a therapeutic relationship. With friends, there is an expectation that both people talk about their thoughts, feelings and experiences. In a therapeutic relationship, the focus is exclusively on the client. Imagine that?! Almost an hour every week or every other week devoted completely to you?

Therapy is also more structured than a coffee date with a friend. In my work, I ask clients to develop goals for therapy when they are starting out. I find this is helpful in using people’s time effectively. That’s not to say that we can never discuss other things as they come up. After all, life happens. But, a lot of time can be spent avoiding what someone really wants to work on if we don’t both have a goal in mind. It can be difficult to set goals for therapy. So I frame it like this, "What's going to be different in your life....in how you're feeling, thinking, behaving....that's going to allow you to know that you're done with therapy for now?" This helps to give us some direction and puts you in charge of the process.

How is the support you get in psychotherapy different from the support you get from your friends? The lucky ones out there have friends who will be with them through thick and thin, listen and support them no matter what. But sometimes the idea of always having your back can make it difficult for a friend to disagree with you or call you out on things. While this feels good, it doesn’t really support change. Psychotherapists are trained to listen differently to what you are saying, to look for patterns in behaviour, thought, and mood and to challenge you in different ways. This might mean learning to sit with the emotions you’re trying to avoid. It might mean challenging you to experiment with thinking or behaving in different ways than you’re used to. It might mean re-writing the story you’re used to telling yourself about yourself. It all depends on you and what works best for you.

I see clients who come to me for a variety of reasons. Sometimes it is because they are experiencing anxiety, or depression, (sometimes diagnosed, sometimes not) or are dealing with the impacts of a past trauma. Often clients are dealing with the problems of living….transition to parenthood, difficulties in their relationships, grief, divorce, stress. Sometimes people just know that something doesn’t feel right and they come to therapy to figure out why, to learn about themselves and to grow.

I always let clients know that there are no guarantees in therapy. Humans are way too complicated to offer a guaranteed outcome. But I can tell you that many people find therapy helpful. You might have some more specific questions about psychotherapy or how I practice. If so, I encourage you to make an appointment for a complimentary Online Meet and Greet. I look forward to speaking with you.

By: Dr. Michelle Pobega, ND

It is becoming more and more recognized that our overall health depends on our gut health and the balance of our gut microbiome (bacteria and other microbes that live in our GI tract).Research is beginning to discover the various ways that our gut microbiome impacts our lives, and especially our immune system. Here are some key highlights:

• Bacteria teach our immune system how to behave. This education starts before we’re even born and gets amplified at birth. Experiments on mice born in a germ free lab, without any bacteria end up with immature immune systems lacking in important types of immune cells. When they are provided with even a restricted bacteria flora for the gut, the immune cells mature.
• Gut bacteria helps regulate a balanced immune response. Throughout our life we are constantly exposed to various things (like non pathogenic microbes, pollen, toxins, food additives etc) through the food, air and liquids we take in. The health and diversity of our gut bacteria influences the immune system’s response to all these invading objects. A healthy microbiome helps our immune system respond in a balanced and decisive way between reaction and tolerance. Too many non-healthy microbes in the gut will lead to more inflamed immune response and can affect other body systems. Autoimmune disease, allergies and inflammatory diseases are all associated with a dysregulated immune response, and have been connected to imbalanced gut microbiome.
• An abundance of beneficial microbes in our gut not only help maintain the health of our gut lining and produce food for our gut lining cells, but also compete with harmful microbes (including viruses) for space in the the body. The can also communicate with each other when they are in high numbers and strong, to sense each other and react faster. They can maintain the memory of this defense and pass on this immunity to future generations.
• New research is showing that our gut microbes help support our “adaptive immunity”, our specialized immune response, by helping provide the immune system with the right signals to quickly recognize various pathogens to produce antibodies against them.

This is just the beginning of new research emerging in support of maintaining a healthy and robust microbiome in our digestive tract.

So what can you do?

• Start with the basics - drink ample amounts of clean water daily, eat a primarily whole foods diet rich in a VARIETY of vegetarian fibers (vegetables, nuts, seeds, legumes, fruits and mindful servings of whole grains), avoid or limit the intake of highly processed and high sugar foods, and be mindful of your intake of antibiotics, drugs and alcohol which can all disrupt the microbiome.
• Book an appointment for a personalized deep dive into rebalancing the gut microbiome and optimizing digestive function.

By: Petra Najafee, RP

Almost every year since I was 8 years old, the last week of August has brought strange dreams. I may not have had the word “anxiety” in my vocabulary at the age of 8, but even then, I knew the dreams were because I was going back to school and I didn’t know what to expect. And there has been little reprieve from this yearly experience. You see, for all but one year of my life since then, I have either been a student, a teacher, or the mother of a child going back to school in September. And whether it’s about excitement, or fear, or both, there’s always a little bit of anxiety. That’s a pretty normal emotion when we’re faced with something new.

And here we are, in August of 2020. And there’s some serious anxiety being felt by anyone who is connected with the school system. And that’s to be expected because we are all being faced with something new. Whether your kids are returning to school or learning from home, it’s going to be new for both of you. But you can figure out a way to navigate this.

How your kids handle the transition back to school will be largely dependent on how you handle it. They will take their cues from you. Now I’m not saying that you should just buck up and not be anxious (that never works). I’m just saying that those conversations where you’re spinning your anxious thoughts should happen when they’re not around. When you’re feeling calmer, that’s when you sit down with them and talk to them about starting back to school/homeschool. They’re going to have questions about what the routines will be, about what happens if someone gets sick at school, about why some of their friend’s families are making different choices about school. You won’t know all the answers and it’s okay to say so. This can be a wonderful opportunity for kids (and maybe parents ????) to learn that we can’t always predict how things will go but that we can still get through the unknown. Anxiety is largely about fearing uncertainty. If we can teach our kids that we can be uncertain about things, we can figure it out as we go, and we can come out the other side healthy and whole, then we are teaching them to handle the anxiety that is an inevitable part of life.

Now might be a good time to break out your favourite meditation app. There are a number of them out there including Calm, Headspace, and InsightTimer. Mindfulness practice has been shown to reduce anxiety. This is not a short term kind of endeavour, that’s why they call it a “practice”, but it is well worth the effort. You can also support your kids by getting them in on some mindfulness activities. Shambhala Publications has Mindful Games Activity Cards that you can do with your kids. A quick google search will allow you to find other mindfulness resources for kids both online and offline.

One last word to parents about the anxiety surrounding this school year. Please support one another. I believe that the anxiety this year is heightened by the uncertainty about doing the “right thing”. The problem is, there is no right thing. There’s probably only what works for your family. I think every family with school aged children has struggled with this idea of sending their kids to school or schooling them at home. This struggle has likely been informed by questions of balancing logistics, finances, physical health, mental health, occupational health, and public health. One thing my work as a psychotherapist has taught me is that we can’t know what goes on inside someone’s home, family, or mind which means that we can’t judge them for the choices they make. Our way through this pandemic is not through judgement and division. Our way through is through mutual support and kindness. In this way, we can help not only ourselves, but our communities, deal with the anxiety of facing realities that we’ve never had to face.

Anxiety is a normal human emotion and something that most people are experiencing to varying degrees these days. But if it feels unmanageable for you or your children, please reach out. Help is available.

So as we move toward September, know that you are not alone in what you are feeling. Try to take time to enjoy whatever summer activities you have been able to engage in. And I mean really try to enjoy those moments, try to bring your focus to whatever you see, hear, feel, taste, smell in those moments… rather than focusing on whatever random thoughts are spinning round in your mind. For me, I’ll be doing my best to really enjoy the bike rides, walks and swims in the lake. And I’ll be curious to see what my dreams are like in the last week of August…they’re sure to be doozies!