I want to sing the praises of water as a useful therapy tool. More than useful: it’s an essential ingredient in any sane person’s sanity-preservation kit.

Years ago I knew someone who was prone to anxiety attacks. I had read while studying Dialectical Behavioral Therapy that holding your face in a bowl of ice-cold water for 30 seconds can be a quick and effective way to, well, literally chill out. I think DBT also taught me the ice-cube technique I used on my friend. I told him to just sit tight, I’ll be right back. I went to the fridge and filled a cereal bowl with ice cubes, came back, and said, “Here. Hold these in your hand.” He obeyed (he was too anxious to resist or push back with questions). Within one minute, his anxiety attack was over. He was looking at his freezing-cold hand, and the pain of that coldness had yanked him out of his anxiety. His brain had something else to focus on.

Is this the total solution to your anxiety problems? No. You’ll probably also have to talk about it, to work through it cognitively. But it’s a great example of how water (this time, in its frozen form) can manipulate our bodies in such a way that anxiety suddenly drops down to normal levels. This is because we experience emotions in our physical bodies. Emotions are physiological phenomena. The ice-cube technique works with anxiety, but also anger: if you’re enraged about something, go grab some ice cubes. You’ll start to calm down almost immediately, and you can then work effectively deal with what (or who) made you mad.

Hot water works too. I’m a big fan of hot baths as a way to relax, but also regroup, re-organize, and re-orient both my head and my heart so that I can look at a problem in a new way. Even simply washing your hands and face with hot water and soap can be an effective self-soothing skill that frees you to engage your problem with strength and renewed concentration.

We’re mostly made of water, and we live on a planet with 70% of its crust submerged under water. Water is everywhere. It only stands to reason that water can be a powerful tool that helps us relax, refocus, and approach our complex issues with a refreshed body and mind.

Bonus: ice cubes are way cheaper than meds…and no side effects!

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Often enough my couple clients will say, “We should do a date night, we know, but it’s hard with all that’s going on.” And I try to be nice when I respond, “Do a date night every week. And that’s an order.”

Think about all the things you do regularly whether you want to or not: pay the electric bill, service the car, go to work, drive your mom to the doctor, and on into infinity. These are things you do because, well, because you do them. They have to get done. But if you’re like a lot of people, your relationship is not required. Everything about it is voluntary, and, therefore, open to being blown off. And then you wind up in my office! Here’s a primer on date nights, a Date Night 101:

1. Pick one night, the same night every week. (Yeah, I can already hear you saying, “We can’t! His rotation changes by the week and I’m a bartender so I never know when I’m going to be scheduled, and it’s always at night!” Even if one regular night is impossible, there’s got to be some block of time each week—3am to 7am on Sundays??—that will work for you both.)

2. During that special time, nobody gets in your way. If you have kids, you pay for a sitter and get out of the house. Maybe it’s okay for you to share date night with friends, but wait a bit before doing that. Get into the rhythm as a couple first.

3. Repeat 52 times. Then evaluate. How’s it going? What’s different about your relationship, about you, about how you feel about each other? Anything need to change, or be adjusted? Some of my clients come to counseling and then go on their date night. I recommend this. It makes the whole thing even more intentional.

Whatever you plan, set it in stone. It’s the Law. That way, your relationship is not completely vulnerable to the tyranny of your schedules, whims, emotions, and issues. At least this one block of time each week is immune from all of that.

Note to singles: this works for those of us currently not in relationships. No matter what your relationship status is, if you set aside one block of time each week just for yourself, what do you imagine might change in your life? Have you ever really done this? (I know it’s hard for me!) I’d hazard a guess that your blood pressure would be lower, you’d feel healthier, and you’d feel a lot less frazzled and crazy. And you could kick it off with a nice individual therapy session!

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Okay. First just let me say, *sigh.*

One more. *sigh*

Okay, just one more. *SIGH*

Now can I try to put a positive spin on this?

It’s been a really rough winter in Seattle. And I know that sounds whiny, particularly if you’re one of my relatives from Minnesota. Seattle Whiner: “It barely made it above 40 for like, what, six months in a row?!” Minnesota Whiner: “Ha! 40 what? Degrees? You actually had degrees above zero??!”

But it has been rough. It’s been cold, and cloudy, and rainy. We have sun breaks (like today!), but they are short-lived. It’s May 11, and the rhododendrons are barely budding. I’m not an expert, but I think they’d be almost over—or at least in full flower—by now. (Minnesotans are once again snorting and rolling their eyes…) I can now say it’s been the hardest winter, weather-wise, since I moved here in 1997.

And then there’s today. To illustrate what happened to me today, I give you my Facebook post from this morning’s coffee time (click on the image if it appears too small):

But I want to do more on sunny mornings like this than just sing a great song and appreciate the break. (Though that’s a good thing to do. I recommend it.) I want to figure out what all this weather has done to me, or with me, over the past few months. I want to do some meaning-making, people!

And here’s what I’ve come up with: Seattle’s crappy weather has gotten me in touch with the restlessness and uncertainty I’m feeling in several areas of my life. It’s gotten me thinking about, oh, everything: what I’m eating, how (and whether) I’m exercising, what’s going on with my money, how my marriage is going, how my practice is doing, what my friendships and other relationships are bringing up for me, what I envision for 2012 and beyond…and so on. (Maybe it sounds a little self-focused, but did I mention the weather’s been cruddy in Seattle?!)

In short, the weather has made it almost impossible for me to be complacent. In a typical year, the sun pops out plenty of times, especially after the grueling month of February. And so I sing a bar of “Sesame Street” and go about my day. But this year, when I’m not joining my fellow Seattleites in sun dances, I’m forced to confront the fact that life isn’t always a song about muppets. Sometimes you have to take stock, look at things critically, ask the crucial “wonderment” questions of your life. Questions like… I wonder what kind of retirement funds I want tucked away by 2015. I wonder whether my daily work is really lighting my fire, and if so, whether I’m celebrating that enough…and if not, why that might be. I wonder…

But for now, I’m taking in the blue sky, so these questions can wait for the next gray and gloomy weather front.

It should be along in a few minutes.

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A few years ago I was working with a client who struggled with anxiety. (This is putting it mildly.) The client came into my office one day and was in the midst of an anxiety attack—and a fairly severe one at that. The client was barely able to walk, so intense were the anxiety symptoms. Fortunately for me, I was studying dialectical behavior therapy at the time, so I had just learned a set of basic self-soothing techniques. My office was just around the corner from the kitchenette, and the client was seated on my couch, so I told the client I needed to step out and would be right back.

I came back from the kitchenette with a small bucket of ice cubes. “Here,” I said to the client. “Just hold onto a few of these.” The client took three ice cubes from the bucket and began to hold them. Almost magically, the anxiety symptoms began to diminish. The client looked at me, eye to eye, and smiled. Ice was the answer.

Why? Because we experience our emotions in our bodies. That means we can regulate our emotions by making a change in our bodies, particularly a change of temperature. A writer I know will take a shower or bath when she feels stuck, and she emerges from the water with a new insight. I don’t use ice to calm myself down, but only because I prefer washing my hands and face with very hot water and soap. Another method: fill a shallow bowl with ice water and hold your face in the water for up to 30 seconds. Our bodies can’t stay anxious if they’re being asked to focus on a powerful physiological experience. Holding ice can be painful (as can the hot water), and sometimes it’s the pain that breaks the “spell” of anxiety. Other times it’s just the slight shock of coming into contact with warm or cool water.

So the next time you’re feeling stressed—and particularly if you’re having an intense experience of anxiety—try using ice or cold water to literally chill out!

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Are you thinking about getting some counseling? Good idea! And if so, I suggest you stop wondering whether you need it, and definitely stop asking the question, “Are things bad enough that I need to go to counseling?”

I work alongside a couple of massage therapists in my little office complex, and sometimes I envy them. I envy how their field is understood by most people: anyone can say, “Oh, I had a massage today, and then I got a haircut, and the sun’s out, so…a great day!” But rarely will you hear someone say, “I set up a counseling appointment to work on my emotional-regulation problems, and to finally face the fact that I’m not being very mature in my relationship.” No, most people won’t say that, even though it would be a remarkably mature thing to say!

So that’s why most people look at counseling as a last-ditch effort to pull their little airplane out of its fiery plunge, or see it as something you do if—unless you get some counseling—your life or relationship is about to collapse.

I started seeing a therapist myself in May 2006, which is one of the reasons why I had enough confidence to leave a great job here and start my own private practice. I knew that I needed someone to help me get a better handle on myself, my goals, and some of the ordinary neurotic software that was still running in my very normal human mind. I wasn’t about to lose my partner, or my job. I wasn’t becoming self-destructive, and certainly wasn’t within a thousand miles of feeling suicidal. But I knew I needed a hand. I still see her, and these days we work on who I am, what kind of relationship I want to keep cultivating with my partner, how my beliefs and attitudes affect how I run my business, and so on. There’s always something to explore.

And often enough I feel like I’ve just had a massage when I leave her office. Take it from me: you aren’t “psycho” if you’re seeking counseling. If you’re taking this step, you’re probably one of the most mature and courageous people you know.

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I risk hypocrisy by posting this, but I want to talk about the importance of rest and relaxation. I’ll admit up front that I’m a son of hardworking Midwestern parents, and I’ve taken their life lessons to heart. This means that I don’t really start relaxing on a vacation until perhaps the third or fourth day, and even then it’s hard to really let go of all the different concerns and issues that preoccupy me in my profession. But I keep working on this, and one way I do it is by meditating on the activities (or lack thereof) of other mammals.

Think about it: You don’t have to be a dog or cat companion to know that once the other (non-human) mammals on this planet have fed themselves, relieved their sexual needs, provided reasonable security, and found shelter, they just … lie around. If I surprise my dogs by coming home in the middle of the day, I find them snoozing. What is it about humans that we can’t just let it go on a regular basis?

I suggest that we post pictures around us that remind us of the restful wisdom of other mammals. This is one of the reasons I like to take pictures of my dogs at rest. It reminds me to get over myself and plan for weekly times of R&R. Ideally, we would all unplug at least one full day per week. If you’re feeling stressed and exhausted, stop for a moment and recognize that the non-human mammals around you, well, they think it’s odd that you’re not napping!

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Like a lot of people I know, I don’t keep a regular journal. I used to pretend I was the journaling type—after all, I’m a therapist. Aren’t we supposed to be the kind of people who keep long and profound journals?? So I’d buy a journal in the new year, find it collecting dust months later, and feel frustrated. Now I’ve just accepted it: I don’t keep a journal. But I do do product-cloud journaling from time to time.

Product clouds look like this. They’re simply a list of things or products, organized in the rough shape of a cloud. The font size of each object in the cloud depends on the popularity or importance of the object. A product cloud of 2008 presidential candidates, for example, would have ‘Obama’ and ‘McCain’ in large font sizes (Obama would be somewhat larger than McCain), and ‘Kucinich’ much smaller. ‘Clinton’ would be nearly as large as McCain. You get the idea. And for a non-journaling person like me, this is a great way to get things off my mind and onto paper.

Normally, if I can just get all the things on my mind disgorged onto a notepad, I can think, feel, and act with clarity. I don’t need to reflect at length on my life, or my career, or my relationships. I just need to clear out all the little things going on in my head. Here’s an example of a cloud I wrote this morning (click on the image for a larger view):

You can see, then, that laundry just needs to happen tonight, and that I’ll be doing something about my checkbook and paperwork today, even if I don’t make it to the grocery store. After doing this cloud, I felt a lot more organized, and the “sluggish Monday feeling” was almost gone. (Almost. It’s still a little early in the day.)

Oh, and here’s one more rule about this journaling technique: you are free to do it whenever you like. You don’t have to do it daily, or at all. If the spirit moves you, give it a try. I say this because a lot of my clients are like I used to be: they think they’re “supposed to” do these kinds of self-help things, and the “supposed-to” obligation short-circuits the whole thing, making it just another task, another product in the cloud. Give it a try if you like, or…don’t! Either way, I wish you a non-sluggish Monday.

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Long ago—nearly half my lifetime ago!—I had two cats. I was working as an administrative assistant at the time, in Minneapolis, and every other week or so, I would take time over lunch to go to the high-end pet store around the corner from my office. I’d purchase expensive organic cat food, and then head back up the street for my own lunch. And where did I often go for lunch? McDonald’s.

Huh???

I remember noticing this at the time and laughing at myself: why was I feeding my cats better than I fed myself? Why was their health more important than my own? And now that I have dogs, I am noticing some of the same patterns, even if the choices I make are slightly different. If I have that third glass of wine and feel less-than-stellar the next morning, I notice that my dogs feel just fine and are enjoying the morning walk. If I overeat, or overwork, or let myself get caught up in the daily stress of being a human, I’ll come home and see that my dogs had been napping contentedly all day.

To some degree, of course, this is inevitable: it’s the humans in my house who have to earn the money, pay the bills, do the laundry (I haven’t figured out how to train the dogs on that one, alas), and so on. But I have a lot of control over my life…a lot more than I sometimes assume. Sometimes that third glass of wine was a good choice, and worth the morning-after feeling. But other times I need to be conscious of my need for a good night’s sleep, something that my dogs enjoy every night of the year.

This self-care test is simple, and it suggests immediate solutions. If your dog is living better than you, there are steps you can take today to improve your daily routines. (And if you don’t have a dog, don’t you think you should get one?)

Hoku and Stella, living their happy lives.

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