Jessica McCrea, Psy.D.

Making Changes that Stick

    For years, I have been on a quest for the most efficient and effective way of helping clients move through whatever holds them back.  I finally landed on a technique called "Brainspotting".  This is a new and (I believe) vastly improved iteration of EMDR (see "What is EMDR" in my Resources to learn more).
    With this user-friendly method, I get to witness my clients quickly process and release distressing experiences and patterns.
    Another remarkable thing about Brainspotting is that it can help cultivate present-moment awareness and peace of mind.  I see one client after another come to a deep sense of knowing.  They start to move toward their life goals in a more purposeful way, becoming happier in so doing.
    At a time when many are withering from the constriction that comes with the fear of insecurity, discovering the capacity for profound expansive shift is especially valuable now.
    In fact, making such shifts is also a service to others.  As I mentioned in "Emotional Contagion at Work",  when you shine your light more brightly, when you start to express your true essence, you give others a contact high.  Plus, it can give you a marketing edge.  Wouldn't you prefer to do business with someone who has positive energy than another who doesn't?  It is also true that when you become better integrated and more present,  you naturally become better able to tune in to the experience of others.  Awareness enhances empathy. 
    It's all about developing that prefrontal cortex so that you can sustain a reflective stance, which means being able to think about your feelings and sensations as they occur.  When you develop your mind in this way, you are more likely to make lasting positive changes because you recognize the truth of your full range of experience, and come to hold that truth with compassion.   
  

    To your neural integration!

   -Jessica

On Resolutions

    I’m at the Laundromat as I write this, washing quilts and comforters to ready the bedroom for the New Year.  This task has been on the back burner, but, like most people, I’m energized by the promise of a clean slate.   Even so, there’s always something bittersweet for me each New Year.  As someone in the business of change, I am all too cognizant that, despite the best of intentions, most folks’ resolutions won’t in fact be realized, that their lives will remain half-lived.
    Unwittingly, we set ourselves up for this outcome.  We are deluded that simply writing down a wish once a year should be enough to sustain long-term shifts.  We believe that change requires self-determination alone. We do not recognize how critical connection is to our own development. In fact, we are neurologically wired to grow in relationship throughout our lives.
    Securing support is particularly vital when it comes to your resolutions because resolutions are by nature preferences.  They don’t seem to affect anyone else’s wellbeing other than your own.  For instance, many busy professionals with whom I work would like to exercise more regularly, but their jobs and caring for their families tend to feel more vital. So, it’s easy to slough off on these goals. Unless someone is holding you accountable, who’s to know?
    The best way to ensure that your resolutions remain a priority is to find someone, coach or colleague, who will hold in mind your highest unfolding—even when you can’t.  This is the most resolute action you can take in 2009.

To your highest unfolding!
-Jessica

The Wisdom of Uncertainty

    It’s hard not to feel uncertain these days.  Not knowing what’s going to happen with your finances.  Not knowing what the recession will really mean in your life, and how long it will last.  Not knowing what the next presidency will be like.  Not knowing how secure your job is.
    Aside from outright pain, the state of uncertainty is the most difficult state for a human being to bear. You’ve probably heard that within every crisis lies opportunity.  One hidden opportunity born by our collective state of uncertainty is the opportunity to learn to sit with that very experience.
    Let’s first acknowledge the inherent problem in our quest for a secure existence.  Alan Watts, the Buddhist philosopher, explains this in his prophetic “The Wisdom of Insecurity:  A Message for an Age of Anxiety” (written in 1951):

It must be obvious, from the start, that there is a contradiction in wanting to be perfectly secure in a universe whose very nature is momentariness and fluidity.  But the contradiction lies a little deeper than the mere conflict between the desire for security and the fact of change.  If I want to be secure, that is, protected from the flux of life, I am wanting to be separate from life.  Yet it is this very sense of separateness which makes me feel insecure.  To be secure means to isolate and fortify the “I”, but it is just that feeling of being an isolated “I” which makes me feel lonely and afraid.  In other words, the more security I Can get, the more I shall want.

To put it still more plainly:  the desire for security and the feeling for insecurity are the same thing.  To hold you breath is to lose your breath.

    So, how do we learn to live with uncertainty?  One conscious breath at a time. Intuitively, many people are now recognizing this truth.  Mindfulness-based stress-reduction classes have become even more sought-after lately.  My clients are now more open to learning practices from me to help them become more aware of their thoughts, emotions, physical sensations and actions in the present moment and without judgment.  It’s awesome to behold how instantly regulating these simple exercises are for them.
    Such practices have been scientifically proven to help people modulate fear and respond more flexibly.  It seems that mindfulness helps to grow the middle prefrontal fibers in the cortex that can dampen the fear response.  The middle prefrontal areas also become more integrated with the side areas of the cortex through mindfulness, enabling us to pause before acting.  When we can respond rather than simply react, we become more adaptive to a changing world.  We are less likely to be emotionally activated. In practicing daily, even for a few minutes, over time, we develop a sense of competence in remaining curious, present and alive no matter what’s in our bank account or investment portfolio.  That is true fulfillment.
    As the philosopher Philip Wheelwright said, to remember to be in the present is “to be, and candidly know ourselves to be, on the crest of a breaking wave.”

    Happy surfing!

-Jessica

On Learning to Meditate

    When I was 17, I learned how to practice a form of meditation called Transcendental Meditation.  Instinctively, I knew this would help me to feel more calm and centered.  Over the years, I’ve explored various modalities of meditation, sometimes more regularly than others.  But over this past year, I reached out to a couple of seasoned teachers and dedicated myself to a daily practice.  
    Coincidentally, in the last year there’s been a surge of interest in mindfulness in the field of psychology.  Psychology’s interest in meditation makes sense.  It is an incredibly effective means to self-regulation, which is currently thought to be the equivalent of mental health.  Daniel Siegel in The Mindful Brain discusses the compelling benefits of mindfulness practice, including neural integration, improved immune function and “…the capacity to regulate emotion, to combat emotional dysfunction, to improve patterns of thinking, and to reduce negative mindsets.”  It follows that we function better in our relationships when we participate in mindful awareness practices. Some evidence has emerged to support this.  When we become more attuned to ourselves, we can better attune to others.  
    Another benefit of meditation is that it is an antidote to the sensory overload and mental exhaustion accompanying multi-tasking.  Not only can it help us to feel more present and less dissociated or frazzled, but it can actually expand our sense of the moment itself.
    Despite all of these promises, we as a culture seem to be blocked when it comes to that sitting thing.  A common refrain I hear from my clients is, “I know meditating is good for me.  But I can’t seem to do it.  Every time I try, my mind just gets too busy.  Besides, I don’t have the time.”  We suffer from the collective cognitive distortion that unless we can sit free of intrusive thoughts for minutes on end, we just don’t have what it takes to try in the first place. It’s as if, we’re either born Buddhas, or we should just “fogedaboudid.”
    The truth is that we all have the capacity to become more mindful—and it doesn’t have to take any big chunk out of our day, either.  The practice is not just about cultivating undisturbed focused attention—it’s about intentionally bringing one’s mind back, and bringing it back again, to whatever the object of attention is, be it breath, mantra, body, or imagery.  
    As a coach, I’ve learned that change happens when we commit to consistent bite-sized action-steps. Like any new skill, meditation, which is in truth the cultivation of the mind, can be explored bit by bit.  This was my inspiration for creating my "One-minute Vacation Meditations”. 
    You can click on any one of these meditations, listed in the right-hand margin of this page, any time during your workday, whenever you need a refresher.  My voice will guide you through.  
    So, next time you’re thinking of reaching for that sugary snack, or checking your email yet again, try out one of these mini meditations instead.  See which ones work the best for you.  And, as one of my meditation teachers advised, “Stop when it’s still feeling good. That way you’ll want to try it again the next day.”   

    You can build a practice, one moment at a time.

    To your enhanced awareness!

-Jessica

The Neuroscience of Coaching

I just read Louis Cozolino’s clearly-written text, “The Neuroscience of Human Relationships”.  I was struck by this comment:

"Humans serve as external neural networks, provide us with new ideas, and activate feelings within us that we may be unable to access or have forgotten to remember.  When loving others link their brain with ours, the result is a vital integration."

We are indeed neurologically wired to grow – throughout our lives - in the context of a secure and supportive relationship.  In a way, this is the essence of coaching.

Of course, I have yet to encounter a client who signs up for coaching because they would like to become more neurologically integrated.  Even so, along the journey toward becoming more effective and less stressed-out at work, I often witness my clients develop better balance, in body, mind, and spirit, and better capacities for self-reflection.  They feel more and more alive.

So, what exactly happens in our brains as we become more integrated?  One answer lies in the OFC, the orbitofrontal cortex.  This part of the brain is involved in emotion regulation.  As Daniel Siegel, MD, describes in “The Developing Mind”:

"The self-organization of the mind in many ways is determined by the self-regulation of emotional states.  How we experience the world, relate to others, and find meaning in life are dependent upon how we have come to regulate our emotions." 

Clearly, emotional regulation plays a role in our capacity for fulfillment at work.  

Interestingly, the OFC is malleable throughout the lifespan.  It is dependent upon our experiences in our key relationships.  By cultivating more secure relationships with others with whom we resonate, we can enhance our capacity for emotional regulation.  

The good news for me is that, in participating in my clients’ processes of vital integration, I get to experience more of that vitality myself.  As I reflect together with my clients, thinking about their feelings and emotionally resonating with their thoughts, I hone my own capacity for regulation.  From a brain perspective, coaching is an enlivening two-way street.

To your enlivenment!

Emotional Contagion at Work

Within every encounter you have at work lies the opportunity to transmit positive emotion.  For example, I was struck by an interaction I had with a cheerful cashier at the grocery store the other day.  It was rush hour in there, but she took time to look me in the eye.  She complemented me on the scarf I was wearing, then turned to my daughter and said something nice about her dress. Despite the gloomy weather that day, my daughter and I left feeling aglow.

According to Daniel Goleman in “Social Intelligence”, emotions are indeed contagious. Goleman says that the part of our brain’s limbic system called the “amygdala” reads:

"…the emotional aspect of whatever we perceive—elation in someone’s tone of voice, a hint of anger around the eyes, a posture of glum defeat—and then processes that information subliminally, beneath the reach of conscious awareness.  This reflexive, unconscious awareness signals that emotion by priming the same feeling (or a reaction to it, such as fear on seeing anger) in us—a key mechanism for “catching” a feeling from someone else.

The fact that we can trigger any emotion at all in someone else—or they in us—testifies to the powerful mechanism by which one person’s feelings spread to another.  Such contagions are the central transactions in the emotional economy, the give-and-take of feeling that accompanies every human encounter we have, no matter what the ostensible business at hand may be."

When we think about success at work, we often think about our business activities.  But perhaps even more important than what we do is how we interact with others while we do it.   

This is not just about putting on a happy face.  It’s about learning to look for opportunities, even in the most mundane interactions, for authentic connection.  It’s amazing what taking an extra millisecond to sustain that eye contact, asking someone how their day is going (and really mean it), voicing your appreciation for their efforts, or even using a little light-hearted humor, can do for that person’s spirit. 

It’ll boost your spirit, as well.  Numerous studies have found that workers across a variety of occupations, from hospital cleaners to engineers, who made the effort to create meaningful relationships with others on the job, felt happier.  They knew that relationship-building, more than power and prestige, was key to finding meaning at work.

Of course, it’s easier to be uplifting when you feel uplifted yourself.  In this way, sustaining activities off-the-job that you truly enjoy can actually benefit your work-life.  So, go ahead.  Make a habit of that salsa dance class, or tend to that vegetable garden, or dedicate Tuesday nights to that craft you’ve been dreaming about.  It might give someone you work with a contact high.