Lynn Lott Therapy Talk

Come to Lynn Lott with questions and leave
with answers that enrich your life and
the lives of others

This is a topic near and dear to my heart.  My training for the last 35 years is to look at problems as incidents of discouragement rather than illnesses.  I know I’m outside the norm to think the way I do, and there are times it is damn discouraging because in today’s world, everything seems to be labeled an illness with a corresponding pill (expensive, too) that will fix all.  Feeling tired -  there’s a pill for that.  Feeling anxious – here’s the pill.  Feeling scattered – you’re ADD and there’s a pill for that.  Feeling worried, scared, depressed – heck, there are tons of pills for that, and corresponding illness labels for all of the above and more.  Doesn’t anyone every wonder how an entire country, well probably most of the world, suddenly came down with a chemical imbalance.  In my opinion, the emperor has no clothes, but rather than calling him naked as a jay bird, he’s probably got a corresponding illness and a pill to fix that, too!

Alone as I may feel, I don’t normally falter in my position, but I do struggle to think of ways to communicate my views to others so they can consider them and perhaps make changes in their lives so they feel better and live better.  I am forever amazed at the number of people I encounter who are so set in their ways that they don’t have an ounce of curiosity.  I question everything, so in some ways I envy people who can be so sure.  But in other ways, I find them unsettling.  I was walking with a friend yesterday (more…)

The other day I was talking with a client on the phone and I jokingly asked her what brought her back to my couch, to which she replied, “You mean your virtual couch?”  “May I use that for the title of a blog?” I asked.  “Of course,” she said.

Don’t get me wrong.  My clients don’t really lay on a couch.  In fact, if I can get the couch, I grab it while they take the chair that looks like the ‘therapist chair.’  But most of my clients meet with me in person in my office in Santa Rosa.  At least, they used to.  Recently, my phone therapy practice has expanded, and it’s a marvel to me and to my clients that we can work so well by phone.  There was a time I wouldn’t have considered doing this as I would miss out on the body language, the tears, the comradery, and more.  Like most changes I make in my life, this happened quite by accident when someone I’d never met asked if I’d work with her by phone.  I had done sessions with clients I already knew when they moved away or were out of town temporarily, so I thought, “Why not give it a try.”  To my amazement, it worked, even though it’s very different than a face-to-face encounter.

Working by phone is probably similar to what it would be like if I lost my sight.  All my other senses sharpen.  Sometimes it’s a little hard to hear if one of us is on a cell phone.  Often we will use a conference line with three of us in 3 different locations.  Once I had the phone on speaker with a client in my office and his wife in Australia.  It felt like we were all in the same place. (more…)

I love to cook, and I love to work with clients.  Do they have anything in common?  For me–a lot. 

When I cook, I spend hours collecting recipes, reading cookbooks, looking through my old recipes and picking the ones that inspire me.  Then I create a list of ingredients and make sure everything is available in my kitchen, so that anytime during the week, I can make the dishes that I’m in the mood to cook.  Whatever I make is similar to the recipes in front of me, but always with my interpretation.  I can never make the same exact dish twice, but that’s fine with me.

When I work with clients, I bring all my years of study, reading, workshops, listening to speakers, attending seminars, and writing books to the office.  I’ve put my own spin and interpretation on everything I’ve learned.  And like cooking, where each dish is always a bit different from the last time I made it, I’m different with every client and we never seem to do the same thing twice.

My philosophy in the kitchen is to create dishes that are healthy, interesting, different, and require few steps.  (more…)

For about 5 years I lived in the East Bay.  Yesterday, Hal and I took our favorite walk along the Bay with our dog Magic.  It brought back so many memories of living there and a lot of nostalgia.  We used to walk along this particular trail almost every morning, and I was reminded of a book I wanted to write, but never did, called Morning Walks.  I started going through some of my notes for the book, and found this entry.  It’s especially relevant because I am working with so many couples who spend so little time together, and I hope this entry will encourage them to look for ways to have some special time every day to connect and to be intimate.  It wouldn’t have to be a walk, nor would it have to be an hour each day, but it could be a special time (even 10 minutes would help) where there were no distractions allowed and the purpose would be to share some quality time without dealing with logistics of life or without fighting.  When I say no distractions allowed, I mean that the phone goes unanswered, the TV is off, and the kids are trained to give Mom and Dad some space.  It can be done, believe me, if you want to make it happen.  So come along with us on our morning walk that we took in April of 2002 so you can experience the possibilities and decide if special time would add to your life.

This morning the four of us, Hal, me and the two dogs, head out on our usual route, past the tennis courts, down the walkway to The Bay Trail along San Francisco Bay.  It’s early, so the roller bladers and families on bicycles are still in bed.  The ceonothus are just past the height of their bloom, but we can still smell the sweet fragrance of lilac emanating from bushes covered in purple flowers.  As we get closer to the Bay, the ice plant greets us, complete with blooms about to open, and other plants, whose names are unfamiliar, accent our path with colors of pink and yellow and violet.  The tide is out and ducks and birds abound, but to know their names, I’d have to walk with my son.  He’d tell me what they are called, how they mate, where they migrate and even imitate their calls.  Wish he wasn’t so far away so we could take the occasional walk together. 

We pass an occasional jogger or walker, but mostly, the Bay is ours for the next hour. Berkeley and Oakland are at our backs as soon as we turn the corner onto the Bay Trail.  San Francisco’s familiar skyline looms in the distance, (more…)

Do you ever get into that black and white thinking, certain there are only two choices to a given situation?  It’s not unusual with my clients, and since they normally hate either choice, they feel trapped and stuck, unable to move forward.  Normally, when I think there are only two choices, I remember there’s grey and look for more options which are almost always lurking around the corner.  So it was a surprise to me to realize that I had fallen into the trap while on my road trip, and hadn’t realized that was the situation.  My husband and I were laughing about how I worked so hard to either find a campsite that had an electrical outlet near the picnic table OR find a campsite where the table wasn’t so far from the outlet that I could physically maneuver the table (with great difficulty) closer to the outlet.  There I was, in that old either/or, black or white thinking.  My husband asked me why I didn’t simply buy an extension cord, and the suggestion caught me completely by surprise.  It was so simple and so obvious and so do-able, but it had never occurred to me.  I had limited my options in my mind and had forgotten that there could be a “grey” choice.

Often those “grey” choices aren’t quite as easy to find, but they do exist.  If you’re stuck between a rock and a hard spot, it might help to tell someone else your thinking and ask for their help to find more options.  Surely, there will be “an extension cord” just around the corner for you, too.

FOLLOW YOUR DREAMS…SORT OF!

When does a trip begin?  Every Autumn I have to tie myself to my chair to keep from hitting the road.  It’s my favorite time of year, and it’s also the time of year that marks the anniversary of the time our family took off from our secure life in Minnesota to find a new place to live.  I was 30, feeling bogged down by other people’s expectations that we have more kids, buy a bigger house, get more expensive furniture, and obtain all the trappings of a middle class life.  My life felt planned by others, and I wanted to write my own story.  On a whim, we decided to sell everything we owned and look for a new place to live.  We sold our home, all of our earthly possessions (we did hold on to my grandmother’s cookie sheets), and hit the road.  The plan was as uncomplicated as “let’s follow the fall.”  We had enough money from the sale of our house to travel for 6 months if we only spent $10/day, not counting gas.  We saved a couple thousand dollars for a down payment on a new home when the time came.  It was a great trip.  We traveled 23,000 miles in 7 months and ended up in California, the last place on earth we thought we’d live.

Now it’s 35 years later, and every fall for at least the last 10 years, I’ve been ready to “follow the fall.”  But instead of taking off, I’ve given in to my sense of responsibility and stuck around to work, pay bills, take care of grandkids, settle into our homes in Tahoe and Florida.  It’s always surprising to me what the turning point will be (more…)

Corny title, I know, but it sort of fits for me.  Sometimes I learn a lot after the fact, as I tend to be very much in the moment most of the time.  I took a road trip and kept a journal on my trip.  I would have blogged, but I hadn’t figured out how to set up the site yet.  After the trip, I went back over the journal and put headings in.  As I reviewed the headings, I realized I had accidentally created a list of 15 Suggestions to Improve Your Life.  Had I created the list before my trip and tried to create the experiences, it probably wouldn’t have worked.  But I do like these suggestions and think they might give you pause for thought.  I know I’ll look at the list when I’m feeling down and trying to figure out some action that can give me a jump start out of the blues.   Here’s the list:

Follow your dreams…sort of!

Surround yourself with people who know and support you.

Even the best laid plans can fall apart, so be ready to turn mistakes into adventures.

Connect with family.

Find it, save it. Think it, do it.

Make time for friends.

Be ready for surprises since things aren’t always what you think they’ll be.

Begging and whining (and other childish habits) have their place, so go for it!

Create routines that work for you.

Make time to play…and learn.

Meditate and gain insight.

Welcome the unexpected.

Revisit the familiar.

Bad is bad, so don’t sugar coat it.

Life is a circle and endings are rarely the end.

The trip journal called Roadtrip is long and may be boring to anyone who didn’t take the trip, but you might want to search for some of the suggestions from the above list and see if you could create that behavior in your life.  When you change what you do, it changes how you feel and how you think about yourself.  Go for it!

Listen to Podcast: Interview with Ken Ainge & Lynn Lott

Part one we discuss MySpace and Internet Safety for Kids with Lynn.
Part two Lynn talks about the new book Pup Parenting co-authored with Jane Nelsen.
March 2006

Other people blog, but not me. At least that was what I thought, but the temptation is too strong. I want to create a blog that’s as therapeutic as a jacuzzi. After all, I am a therapist, and I spend most of my waking hours helping people feel better and do better. I’ve got a lot to say on the subject, and not all of it agrees with the conventional wisdom. Perhaps very little matches the conventional wisdom, but that will be for you to decide. Everyone has an opinion and obviously I have mine, so it’s time I put it out there for folks who don’t show up in my office or call me on the phone or email with a request for help. I welcome your comments and questions and will do my best to respond, though given how little I know about blogging, I may be the only person who reads this.

Therapy is about having the desire to grow and change and to be open to possibilities. If you have the desire to grow and become aware of what is happening around you and your part in all of it, and if you can accept that what is, is, amazingly, many options present themselves. Options include changing your thoughts, changing your feelings, and/or changing your behavior. They’re all inter-linked, so if you change one, all the rest change, too. All of this can be done without drugs, though modern day thinking would have you believe otherwise. But more on this as we get to know each other better. For now, open yourself to the iconcept that drug-free is a possibility.

My model for therapy is an encouragement and empowerment model instead of a disease model. I believe that when relationships aren’t working (with kids, spouses, friends, family, self) it’s because we’re discouraged, not sick. If that’s true, than we need to look for ways to feel encouraged, and there are lots of those around. One of the ways I encouraged myself was to take a road trip. A lot can be learned doing something out of the ordinary and allowing yourself to follow a dream. If you’d like to read my trip journal, check it out at Road Trip.