Tag Archives: adult counseling

Dear Absent Parent

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Dear Absent Parent,

Let me be the voice for the child who is “too something” to tell you.  Maybe too sad, too hurt, too pessimistic, too distrusting, too out of touch with reality, too drunk, too high, too anxious, too caught up in their own drama, too scared.  If you have a child somewhere you are not involved with, then chances are real good, this is what they are experiencing….right now.  Please reconsider your place with your child.

If you are actively using drugs or alcohol or someone who cannot care for yourself let alone your child, you may be better off having no direct physical contact.  It doesn’t mean you can’t communicate with your child.  Not call with the promises filling your child up as they wonder if you will really do what you said you will.  Not the empty promises that scar kids deep down and impair their ability to trust people.  But call with an interest in them and let them know they are loved.  Point out how you see the good in who they are.

Other types of absent parents are those who live under the radar thinking the damage is done.  Or those who are in the same home but unavailable to their child.  Please take responsibility for your actions, get the help you need, and try to build a relationship with the one person who needs you most in the world.  Stop the vicious cycles that plague families and get passed down from generation to generation.

You have the opportunity to be more than you are if you only allow yourself to be.  Please take the chance.  Maybe your child can then be: too loving, too connected, too future oriented, too sober, too happy….

Hopefully Yours,

Sierra

Valuable Advice For Parents

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IMG_1724A few weeks ago I gave a community talk titled “Sink or Swim: 5 Tips To A Successful Summer (with Your Junior High Kid).” With nearly every chair filled, an amazing thing began to happen.  Parents started to connect and learn from one another.

Topics of technology, gaming, checking your teen’s Facebook page, texting, sexting, and all sorts of other juicy topics got brought to the forefront. Parents were eager to talk about these issues, and like their teen counterparts, were relieved to know they aren’t alone in dealing with the challenges of this age group.

One parent came up to me at the end of the talk and said she was wondering what to expect from the presentation and said, “It was good. I mean REALLY good.” I would like to take all the credit for it being so good but my honest bones know it was in part from sharing the floor with my two colleagues, Marcus Moore, MFT and Uriah Guilford, MFT, and also to the parents who asked questions, expressed their confusion, and divulged what works for their family and their worries.

I felt a real sense of community as parents opened up and shared as we dialogued about what really has them stumped. This day and age is so drastically different than our time, when cell phones weren’t even in existence except for very large car phones that only super rich people had. Nobody had a computer. Nintendo was as good as it got. In order to access porn, you had to go back to the curtained side of the movie store to access it. And the only type of bullying that went on was either to your face or getting your locker TP’d. Back when we had lockers.

The beautiful part for me was watching parents share what works for them and helping one another to not feel so alone. This is exactly what happens in the Middle School Girls’ Group I run on Tuesday afternoons. The girls share and help one another to not feel so alone. What a similar process parents and their teens go through.

My cheap, valuable advice: Talk with other parents. Get a gauge on what is normal around you and know ultimately you have to decide what feels best to you. If you are feeling super yucky about something going down with your teen, follow your gut and adjust.

AFFIRMATION

I learn from the community and listen to what is right within in me to guide my child in a positive direction.

Keep Your Eyes On Your Own Mat

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As I lunge forward into downward dog, I scan the crowd behind me to see who actually has their heels down. And then I think, “Sierra, get your eyes on your own mat.” I retract Woman sitting cross legged with back to camera on wooden deckthem back to my pose and take a deep breath in. I think about how I am doing alright, and it doesn’t matter what everyone has going on.

I always thought this a metaphor for my life in general. “Sierra, keep your eyes on your own mat.” Don’t compare yourself to other athletes, other professionals, other parents, other women. Just look at you.

But my eyes do drift. I may not want to be the best at whatever role I am in, but I at least want to know I can hang. “What does that even matter?” I wonder.

I have been a novice swimmer since I hit the pool on my middle school swim team in 5th grade. Yep, where I grew up, 5th grade was in middle school.  Needless to say, I wasn’t very good. I tried and eventually retired the Speedo but have picked it up throughout my life, certainly a different size, and have used swim as recreational exercise.

Now when I am in the pool, I know I can’t hang with the pros. Sometimes I catch a glimpse so I can better understand how to swim or watch how gracefully others move through the water. I never feel competitive, just humbled. I trudge along.

Does it pay to look at what others are doing? Maybe.  From looking at others, there are some benefits. I can gain a better sense of how I might like to do things. I can see I might be doing just fine or even better than some. I can also look at how I might like to change or challenge myself.

I think there is a distinction to be made of when it is OK to look around, and it lies in our motive. Am I looking around to better myself or to put others or myself down? Am I looking around so I can judge or so I can challenge myself? Maybe push myself to do things I didn’t think were possible. Not with animosity or negativity but with genuine heart. This distinction can be hard to determine as there can be many layers as to why we do what we do.

All I know is it feels better, whether I am on the yoga mat or in the pool, and I am truley focused on me.  When I am not competing with anyone but myself to be just who I need to be for that day.  The strong athlete or the soft woman or maybe even a bit of both.

Maybe its time for you to keep your eyes on your own mat.  Be an observer of yourself.  What does it feel like when you focus on you and not what everyone else is doing?  What happens when you don’t compete or compare?

Remember, being you just as you are is good enough.  Namaste.

Fester

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7874770862_1d83a7bbde_qWhen I was in my late 20s, I got mad. Real mad. It was hard to even find the words to put it all together. It didn’t make sense that after over 10 years of being out of my parents’ house, I was truly angry about all the things they didn’t do. The limits they didn’t set. The times they turned the other cheek. “Hello?  Is anybody listening? Did anybody see?”

I was scared to confront my parents. I wasn’t sure what it would do to our relationship. I wasn’t sure I would be able to handle what came back at me. Sadness? Anger? Pointing the finger back at me? I sat on it for a long time, and it festered.

Festering is not pretty. Imagine what festering can do to your insides. To your mind. When something festers and is not taken care of, it only gets bigger, uglier, and deeper. Soon it leaks into all parts of your world: relationships, work, school, friendships. It can lead to a deep sadness about oneself and the world. It can create anxiety, severe depression, abuse of yourself and others, and even lead to suicide.  Not pretty at all.

This story addresses a really poignant part of my life and for anyone who has an awakening about the things that weren’t ok stemming from childhood or teenage years. It is poignant because once we have an awareness about something, life can never be the same. We can try to hide but our minds and bodies know our truth and cannot turn back.

How difficult it is to listen to our truth and allow ourselves to be aware and awakened. Contrary, how beautiful it is to listen to our truth and be aware and awakened. When we listen to what is true and allow the awareness in, our whole being opens up, and we become free.

On a calm winter night in North Carolina, I finally got the courage to release my anger and heal the festering pain I held inside. I am free.

AFFIRMATION
I allow truth to set me free.

“Parents Just Don’t Understand”

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What if I don’t get a Valentine?  What if I never date?  What if I don’t get asked to prom? 3262670006_b506c311e0_m (1)What if the only guy to ever kiss me is my dad?….gross.  What if I never get married?  What if I live with my parents forever?  I need a Valentine. Gretta got a rose from Steve last year.  She is so pretty.  I am not pretty.  I saw someone looking at my hair in class today. I know they were laughing at me.  I am ugly. I need to get up earlier before school. Do my hair.  And my makeup. I need to ask my mom for new makeup. Is makeup really going to help me? Maybe. It helps those girls in the magazines. It could help me. Probably not, I am ugly. I should text Gretta. Find out where she gets her hair done. Oh, and I have to do this stinkin homework. Really? I am awful at math………on and on and on and on……………..

Anybody else’s brain ever race like this?  Exhausting and self-deprecating.  Teenage girls are in the ranks among the people to be the most hard on themselves.  Constantly feeling the need to compare and put down themselves.

The thing is, you may never hear this whole dialogue.  Teens keep things like this tucked inside and maybe share a little bit with a friend.  Teens want to keep their parents at a distance because they think they don’t get it. Even in the 80s DJ Jazzy Jeff and The Fresh Prince were singing about it, “Just take it from me, parents just don’t understand.”

Some parents love to pour out what happened to them to their children as living proof they get it. The thing is, while your story may be a carbon copy of what you teen is going through, it is your experience and not theirs so to them it can sound polar opposite.

I wouldn’t discourage all sharing, but just be selective.  Maybe ask if they want to hear it.  Otherwise you end up wasting your breath, your teen gets annoyed, and you find yourself agitated as well.

So what to do?  That is a good question isn’t it?  My answer is fourfold:

1. Show your unconditional love in any way you can. Share a meal together. Catch them on a Saturday when they wake up at 12PM and go out for a bagel; just before they hit up their phone and are gone for the day. Invite them to watch a movie with you. They may decline 9/10 times. But there will be a night when they need you. It might be just the right invite when not feeling so loved by their friends.

2. Listen. I always go back to this in a lot of things I write because it is what gets reported by teens so often. Teenagers want parents to listen and not jump in with the perfect solution.

3. Give them room to grow. Like you and me, we all needed to have our own experiences to grow and learn. Most of us really learn our lessons from our own doings. Teens crave these experiences and parents need to allow their teens the room to have them.

4. Get Their Mental Health Treated.  If your teen’s brain is functioning like the above paragraph and you know it, get them some professional help. Many kids benefit from a tune up of self-esteem from a professional. Teens can also learn life long tools to help them cope with anxiety and the negative chatter their mind’s create.  And lastly, teens are really soothed with reassurance by a teen expert in knowing they aren’t the only ones going through certain things.

AFFIRMATION
I allow my teen the room to grow and experience life.

Who I Used To Be

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Before I had children, I was an outdoorsy girl. Relentless trips to the mountains. Biking, hiking, snowshoeing, climbing, swimming, camping, yoga by river. Whatever it was, I loved the mountain air.

Times have changed and so has my ability to do the things I once loved to do. No taking off for Tahoe on a whim after a days work. Not without a boat load of luggage and some serious planning.

There was a time I struggled with not being able to do what I wanted to do anymore. But somewhere, in some time, it shifted. While I still long for the spontaneity and the freedom, it now comes in a different package.

Spontaneity creeps out when deciding to go to the coast for an hour or taking my sweet dog Noelle out on our local trails. Or when I go to bed on a Saturday night at 8PM after loading my belly full of just what I wanted.  I am spontaneous with little surprises that bring lots of joy to myself and my family, like a breakfast out or family movie night in.

And freedom.  I have the freedom to be as silly as I want to be.  I have the freedom to read, write, discover, and learn all the things I was too busy to learn because I was constantly on the move.  I have the freedom to be the kid I buried long ago in the attempt to be older, cooler, and more accepted.

So I’ll take it.  While it may not elicit the excitement I imagined others felt when looking at my adventurous life, its what i have now, today, in this moment.  And while it took me awhile to really fully embrace it, I have arrived.

AFFIRMATION

I embrace the life I live today.

Summer Activity for Girls in Petaluma

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I am very excited to announce the opening of The Gathering: A supportive girls’ book club fostering connection and community in Petaluma.  The group is for 6th-8th grade girls and 9th-12th grade girls kicking off Summer 2012.

Why a Book Club for Girls?  Growing up on the East Coast allowed for many hot summer days, laying on the beach, and reading stories with my girlfriends as a teen.  I remember the close connection I felt to my friends as we laughed, cried, and embraced a story together while eating food and our beach blankets in a circle as we were transported to another place and time in our minds.  This time of my life was such a gift and I hold these memories close to my heart.  I am hoping to create this feeling through the The Gathering.

What to Expect?  Come enjoy stories as we lie in the sun on comfy blankets in the grass, eat delicious snacks, and embark on an adventure reading books together and discussing the messages and thoughts around the stories we are being told. Build friendships and learn to voice your ideas in a safe and kind environment. Books, snacks, comfy blankets, and a good time are all included in the fee. No reading prior to the group expected and there is no homework. We will read and discuss books together as a group.

Where:

134 Howard Street

Petaluma, CA 94952

Facilitated By:

Sierra Dator, LCSW

When:

Summer 2012

Tuesdays, June 5, 2012-August 21, 2012 (6th grade + Junior High group)

Thursdays, June 7, 2012-August 23, 2012 (High School group)

Time:

10AM- 11:30AM

Cost: $30/session

Cash, Check, Credit Card accepted

*Please contact Sierra prior to attending the group at sierradator@gmail.com or 707-478-4351.