[Music] good evening and welcome to this special mental health edition of doctors on call i'm dina claibaugh a psychotherapist and founder of insight counseling of duluth and virginia and i will be your host for the program tonight on holiday stress this is the second of four special mental health episodes that will be airing throughout this season of doctors on call our program is here to answer your questions about mental health issues that may affect you your family or friends please call or email your questions and we will do our best to address them the telephone numbers and email addresses can be found at the bottom of your screen our expert guests this evening are dr corey duffy a licensed psychologist and proprietor of rooted psychology in duluth and mary morehouse is a licensed clinical social worker with insight counseling in duluth our phone and email questions are being received this evening by members of the wdse board of directors who will bring them here to me in the studio now let's begin with a discussion of holiday stress welcome thank you thanks for having us yes i'm glad you made it here it's a winter wonderland it is we will we will have white for christmas there's no thunder snow tonight yeah that was fascinating so thank you for being here i would love both of you to take a moment mary if you want to start and just share a little bit about your practice who you work with and yeah so i'm at inside counseling i work with mainly adolescents and young adults and primarily anxiety that's my specialty and so i i love what i do i love my clients and i'm fortunate to be able to be in this field and and do what i do every day yeah thank you thank you for you corey yeah so i um started a private practice in january before that i was working at arrowhead psychological clinic and i work primarily with adults i also work with couples so and kind of a lot of the stuff that we work with is just around anxiety depression some trauma stuff a lot of relationship issues and so yeah i do love what i do yeah thank you well i thought i'd start tonight by sharing an experience that i had last night and it feels relevant to our topic uh tonight on holiday stress and i'll even call it holiday emotions it's like a symphony right of emotions that contribute um to the stress and an evening where i was finally putting up my christmas decorations um i i haven't been able to find christmas lights i did um tonight at ace hardware thank you local ace hardware um but before i kind of gave up waiting you know i was kind of frightened and started so um opened up my bin of holiday decor and right on top is um would be my stockings and my solar stocking and i i my kitty sola 19 years old died in march this year so we had a special bond it's been very yeah i miss her and i didn't think of that when i opened up these decorations and it hit me the wave of grief like comes you know in my chest took my breath away and i had to pause and decide what to do and and i know turning toward my grief which is is um really important to do uh would be important and i also feared that if i cried all night i would have puffy eyes and not be able to read the teleprompter so took care of myself took a bath you know put it away for now um and i will i also then spent a moment thinking about all the people in our world who are sharing that experience absolutely death has always been amongst us um grieving and losing uh around the holidays and i mean with covet and i mean you don't have to go very far today i i think i heard 800 000 people have died of covet to be far from the grief so i thought we could start by just talking a little bit about grief and loss and and how you see that around the holiday season and and some ways that we can help folks um in their coping and healing around that yeah yeah great absolutely i mean i think that this is um you know it just comes to be even more present in the holiday season because of a lot of the things that you described you know there's so many rituals involved in the holidays and we you know associate those rituals with these loved ones that we've spent time with and so when that comes around it's just like these milestone moments that just kind of highlight that loss all over again and so you're absolutely right i mean just to be able to take that moment and be kind of kind to yourself and say well what do i really need in this moment is this something where you know am i ready to face this or do i need to just take a step back but i think that one of the harder aspects can be you know say you're in a group of of people and this hits you and then what do we do right so it's like okay so can you kind of prepare yourself ahead of time to know like okay like if i do get a little overwhelmed in this group what's my exit strategy how am i going to know to take a little step back and to have a little moment to just kind of regroup yeah excellent thank you corey yeah and made it made me think of um it made me think of wise mind which is a classic dbt you know a thought process is recognize and respect what you're feeling recognize your body you know what what you are feeling and then respect the heck out of it and i you know not just aretha franklin says that um you know we really respect your feelings and say of course be kind to yourself of course i feel this of course i i feel this grief sadness emotion whatever it is and then you know to get that reasonable mind over there is how do i respond in a rational manner based on where i am am i at a party am i alone in my home putting up my stocking am i at a work party am i at a you know driving down the highway and so so recognize and respect what you're feeling and then respond in a rational manner based on your environment based on where you are wonderful thank you and i think too for you know other people just sort of having this awareness that other that the people around you might be going through some of this stuff this season so if you're not you know at that moment kind of hit with with an acute loss to maybe to be able to recognize you know what a lot of these people probably are and how do we bring that loved one into the conversation that we're having you know around the holidays how do we maybe we decide you know this is a a ritual that we want to try to kind of include that loved one to to hold that memory i love that you say that and to ask for you know what we need and that's okay and on the other side when we're being asked to respond with compassion and understanding the incident last night when my husband he was on in a virtual meeting he came out all excited to be done for the night and you know was hooting and excited and i just said you know oh mike i had a moment you know with uh and he's just i'm so sorry you know and i'm was proud of myself for asking for that compassion and yeah well we've got some questions very excited mary we'll start with you i miss my family but i'm also afraid to spend time with them because of covid i'm lonely and sad what tools do you have to help me cope yeah so this you know this covet has been so incredibly difficult we're hardwired to connect you know as human beings we're hardwired to connect and so this disconnection with covid has been a universal truth if you will and also you know hitting us you know last year we kind of i think a lot of us hoped that that this year would be would be better and so being afraid or being cautious about being careful about covet understanding so connect how we can one of the great things about the technology today is that we can connect when we went on lockdown we were all able to do telehealth which is fabulous and so being able to virtually it's not as good as being there absolutely but perhaps more virtual connections face timing or whatever that type that that kind of thing is as they feel comfortable and as technology um around and then also those those feeling of loneliness so reaching out so not being able to be with family what you know what other connections other than family do you have what sort of friends can you connect with who is your you know who is that safety net who all can you connect um out with in a in kind of a broader sense you know if it's a long-lost friend or relatives or or connect um connect on a on with people may you you may not normally connect with i remember years ago one of my favorite birthdays was i just talked i'm dating myself talked on the phone um with all my aunts and my grandmas and and people that i i don't normally talk to but it was just great and so maybe you have to think outside kind of the the who you would traditionally connect with and maybe expand that circle a little bit beautiful and being thoughtful what you said made me think about the number of people i know a number of people who have not even with vaccinations and so on still do not feel safe autoimmune you know immune compromise so on and so forth and are still very much in in lockdown so i think that being thoughtful of those and and kind of going an extra step reaching out care package you know incorporating some virtual time into what may be a gathering it's nice yeah yeah corey anything to add well i mean one thing that i have been thinking a little bit about and this is you know not to assume anything about a particular individual's success susceptibility to covid but i do think that we all got so ingrained that everything is dangerous and i think that there is a little bit more nuance to the picture now and i think that sometimes that anxiety is maybe part of what's getting in the way of connecting and so to be able to maybe reach out to your doctor or a trusted medical source to kind of check out you know here are the things that i'm afraid of can you help me navigate you know yeah where's my as an individual you know where is my appropriate safety measures absolutely wonderful thank you we have a question from robert i often seem to have a tough time getting through this getting old i'm 75 and get down more often give me a tip also i get so teary-eyed so easily cory do you want to start with that one sure yeah i mean it's a tough process right everything changes there's more loss there's um you know maybe sometimes more loneliness our bodies betray us we can't do all the things that we maybe used to be able to do um and so i think part of it is really just to be able to honor and respect the fact that he is having these these emotions and that he's recognizing those emotions you know but what to do about that i think is being creative right about what are the things that you still can do what are ways that you still can connect with other people maybe trying you know new things new hobbies things that you never thought that you would enjoy but with the with that heightened emotionality i think that part of that is um i don't know this maybe gets a little too deep but part of that is just our way of connecting with the world and the longer you've been in the world the more connected you feel with it and so it's going to bring up a little bit more emotion and just with aging too um and we were talking before um going on air about just you know you expect it is post-retirement you know to be traveling and doing some things and again covet you know has made a lot of that more challenging certainly older adults are at higher risk uh during this time and with the teary eyed too i can i i love that he's connecting with the tears and i just think of um dr catchatory one of my mentors tears are your superpower you know so i'm hopeful in connections robert is sharing how he's feeling and letting himself express that mary anything that you would want to add no i i think that just you know being able to um being being able to look back at that the 75 years with um um uh a kind lens and knowing that you know whatever you did was was you did your best with the information you had at the time and to have a little bit of self-kindness i think of um i think of dr kristen f's self-compassion which is a common humanity self-kindness and mindfulness and so um that is just some some self-kindness we all do the best we can with you know with the information that we have and so to you know common humanity to to understand that you know you're you're human at at at 75 and and things are getting tough and that's and that's okay and to be just a little a little bit more um kind to ourselves and to and maybe a little bit of mindfulness to enjoy the moment to really look in the beauty i don't know if there's beauty and thunder snow but or and rain in december but you know today was the snow was was pretty into just to kind of appreciate the moments that we do have thank you well it looks like i was hoping we'd have a question about family dynamics as everybody gets together when we can right i believe there will be plenty of groups getting together so corey um holidays are stressful as family comes together and we don't see each other throughout the year it's like there are expectations from each other with covid we expect people to show up vaccinated when we find out they aren't there's an immediate disconnect a breakdown in our communication and it's stressful how do we handle it oh there's a lot of tough dynamics this year with the vaccinations i think that i mean ideally right we want to be able to go into these already kind of heightened stressful situations with as much information as we can so to be able to know ahead of time the vaccination status of the people that you're going to be gathering with i think would be you know appropriate question to ask ahead of time um so that you can kind of make your decisions on you know what do you feel comfortable with um now if you're you're there and you get kind of surprised with this information or an unexpected guest arrives and and you kind of realize oh gosh this isn't what i thought i signed up for um maybe think about that ahead of time too and say well what would you know am i willing to sort of um you know what's the cost benefit here and you know is it something where i can stay for a few minutes and then make it make an exit or you know how to how to handle that i don't know i feel like everybody's going to have a different comfort level with all of that okay thank you and for anybody who has maybe joined us later uh we're having a conversation about holiday stress mary anything that you would want to add to that yeah i think that you know along those along those lines just um you know understanding that we all have our different um you know people have different ideas about vaccinations and vaccination statuses and and that's and we're all different we're all you know we can all make our own choices but there are consequences to choices that we make whether it's triple vaccinated or not vaccinated exhibition and it's all we there's no judgment there but they're just consequences to actions or inactions and so to be kind of to elevate it to not make it personal and so just to kind of make it well these are these are these are your choices and then these are these are consequences and not and not and pull away the judgment from it and and respect you know just to kind of have a level of respect of other people's um opinions great another question kind of were you going to say something well it might be it's sort of related so it might be sort of along the lines of the next question go ahead sticking with the political realm yeah do you have any tips for handling the stresses of differences in political opinions among family members that can weigh down what would be a joyous holiday and i will say i know i read this recently that american psychological association had surveyed folks last november november 2020 and 40 percent of people were experiencing disconnection with family around politics so yeah yeah yeah well i mean there are a couple of schools of thought with that you know i mean i think that you know you don't have to just talk about the weather even though whether okay what we've brought up weather like several times tonight but you don't just have to talk about the weather and to not make it political um and so but we also again respect other differences and i think that we can um you know for instance in in my family we have three people who are really excited talking about all sorts of political things and then there are three of us who don't want to do to to talk about that and so we let those three you know kind of go to their own little space and then the three of us can talk about whatever we want to and so so i so i think that it's um some families want to get into it and really talk about it and that's great so again half of my family just loves to talk about that and that's great and they recognize and you know they respect boundaries and and they have good conversations but then the rest of us don't and so i think maybe if there could be if there could be a natural okay if you know this group wants to kind of go there about whatever that political issue is then that's then that's that's that's not necessarily right or wrong that's those are their choices but then to you know i don't want to say ground rules but kind of you know elevate make sure that the conversation is somewhat elevated and then but it doesn't have to you know i think it would be okay to like not have it take over the uh perhaps holiday dinner conversation it could be you know before after but i think it's okay to kind of put some boundaries on it if it cause so it sounds like this collar it creates problems so we were talking earlier about boundaries and i think that maybe putting some boundaries around political discussions would be is is okay yeah and again i'm hearing preparation that is and i think that for this topic in particular you know i you know if you know we get together you know with the families once a year maybe you don't see each other all that much especially in those scenarios i think people should just try to avoid you know highlighting the differences that they have right it's like we don't have too many opportunities to get together let's use this opportunity to focus on the things that bring us together maybe old memories that we share or maybe you know something that we all can some um hobby that we all can get excited about or you know do a puzzle together or you know something the card decks yes until so many of my clients gonna purchase these card decks pass them around you don't have to come up with the questions somebody else will do it for the conversation card yeah conversation cards but just something so that you can really like um try to kind of circumvent those highlighting those differences because that's not the kind of stuff that we want to walk away from the holidays with most of us because some people like them patience respect non-judgment non-judgmental yeah more preparation preparation preparing i recently lost a spouse to terminal illness as the one who took care of her i look back and see where i have regrets on how i handled it what do i do three yeah corey oh i go back to what mary was saying earlier about that self-compassion i mean the thing about caring for a family member with a terminal illness is that it's profoundly stressful i mean that is something that's taxing on your brain just cognitively remembering all the things that need to happen on your emotions because you are trying to ease this person's pain but you're also dealing with your own pain it's taxing physically because it's a lot of you know physical care that's required and i just feel like there is so much grace that's deserved in that moment for the caregiver um so it's really just saying well looking back you know if you were in your sort of semi-rested state now you know where you've had a little bit of chance to maybe recover a little bit of physical wellness then maybe you can say well i could have done something differently but in that moment we do the best that we can yeah i recently heard dr david kessler speak and he's an expert in grief on wrote books with dr elizabeth kubler-ross i'm sure many of you have heard of her and i love he said the guilt is is also our way of trying to get control take control of an uncontrollable situation and for this caller you know the terminal illnesses and on myself and still honoring that that's the experience and processing through that but of course it's part of part of that journey yeah yeah mary yeah common humanity i mean where there's you know depending on i have to make this caveat depending on your faith or may or may not have been one perfect person who walked this earth and so you know we're imperfect and you know we are and that you know we try our best and even in that moment if it's something we cringe and we look back on and go oh i wish i would have done something differently i don't know any person that walks this earth that doesn't have a moment in time that they don't look back on and go gosh i wish i would have done something differently and then you layer in eternal illness and the grief and the caretaking and everything i i i you know they're just nobody has ever done it perfectly and so we can't we can't expect that that we could have ever done that and in my experience working with um people who are grieving i have learned um that it is the the guilt in particular that can take what is more typical grieving bereavement if you will and and turn it into depression so just really being thoughtful about that guilt and yes and seeking support and processing absolutely if there's a support if there's a support group you know for for that um so you can so this person could hear that he or she is not alone in those thoughts whether it's virtual i know that there are just a lot of groups so i just i mean we are saying that but i think if there are other people who've cared so any sort of you know support type group would probably be really good for for that situation absolutely yeah great idea um so many questions coming in i want to share them all there was one about about exercise and i do think it's important to talk about uh what we call self-care and recently i heard this quote self-care is not self-indulgence it is self-discipline and i love that let's talk about a little bit of self-care what that i mean we know is going to help us cope and manage um what's happening during this holiday stressful time yeah i mean so it's funny i think because the holidays is it you know we all it's a lot of indulgence right it's like um maybe allowing yourself to be a little bit more you know less active maybe eating a little bit uh more stuff than you normally would but i think that you know having some um you know healthy habits but being flexible about it you know that flexibility is going to be the approach right and so if we go from you know following our strict rules that we always follow versus you know uh doing nothing you know having no rules at all and doing whatever we want right like we have to follow we have to find somewhere in the middle where we can kind of bounce back and forth yeah yeah black and white thinking versus gray you know that i always go back i always talk about this that each sleep exercise is a three-legged stool that's the foundation for everything else and so when the eating the sleeping and the exercise you know just try and figure out the best we can during the holidays how we can but that to understand that that's always been our foundation and so to kind of just if we all go back to that east sleep exercise and to do the best we can then then the rest of it can kind of be paced a little bit yeah balance back to the basics and balance yeah thank you i want to thank our panelists dr corey duffy and mary morehouse for their time and expertise tonight to our board members for answering the phones and for those of you who called in or email questions please join dr mary owen on january 6 for a coven 19 update when her guests will be dr andrew thompson and dr j dave bupal i'm dina claiba for the guests and crew here at wdse thank you for watching good night [Music] you