Juanita Lepage MSW, RSW, BHP

Counselling & Energy Healing (289) 812-8089 Hamilton, Ontario

Psychotherapy and Counselling Articles

Articles related to psychotherapy and counselling.

Welcome to the 21st Century: 3 Must-Read Books About Women’s Sexuality

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Some of you will lean in closer after you read the title of this blog, and some of you will lean away. Guess what, both are normal reactions to talking, reading, or discussing anything related to female sexuality. Any woman knows that female sexuality is something that everyone has an opinion about. Morality of what is “appropriate” or good or bad often stop women from getting to know their sexuality in a deeper way. This is a detriment to ourselves and to our partners. If you can, for the remainder of this article (and maybe beyond), gather any self-judgments or opinions from your family, friends, and community and put them on a shelf as you learn a little more in one of these books.

I remember in Highschool during a biology dissection we had to go up to the teacher and label where the female genitalia was located on whatever poor creature we were dissecting. Only one woman in the room got it right, and it wasn’t me. The teacher marvelled out loud that so many women got it wrong. For many women, this story will probably not shock you in any sort of way, because we were never encouraged to become friends with our anatomy. If you grew up in a school that promoted abstinence (like mine), then this experience was probably even more likely. Can you think of any positive stories about female sexuality shared by family, educators or in the media growing up? I can’t think of a single one. That is highly concerning.

Sex and the City Cheatsheet

For fun I’ve put each of the Sex and the City characters with each book to give you sense of what you might be drawn to. I miss that show.

  • Come as You Are: Carrie, Miranda, Charlotte, & Samantha
  • Pussy: A Reclamation: Samantha
  • Three Women: Carrie (and Miranda combined) – I’ve thought about this haha!

Come As You Are – Emily Nagoski

If you want me to choose one book for you to read, start with this one. This should be required for any person coming into their sexuality.

“What it comes down to is that a lot of women trust their bodies less than they trust what they’ve been taught, culturally, about their bodies. But culture has taught you stuff that is both incorrect and just wrong.” Emily Nagoski (p. 164)

Emily is a sex-educator in the USA with a plethora of degrees and experience. This books is based on science and psychology. There is way too much in this book to give a summary that will do it justice, but here are a few nuggets. This book is not heteronormative and includes discussion about experiences for someone who is intersex. Her examples are inclusive of the LGTBQI community.

  • There is less range in the range (low to high) of sexual desire between men and women than there is within a gender.
  • We all have things that arouse us (our accelerator) and we all have things that turn us off (our brakes). We all have different combinations of both and often feel both the brakes and the accelerator at the same time.
  • Stress can be an accelerator for some individuals and a major brake for others. When we don’t know what our partner’s accelerator or brake is (or they don’t), or if we don’t know what our accelerator or brake is so that we can share it with our partner, problems happen between couples.
  • Emily spends a lot of time repeating that whatever your sexual temperament is, that you are NORMAL.
  • There are many written exercises and self-reflective questions that are provided to explore different problems. I saw that she also has a workbook.

Pussy: A Reclamation – Regena Thomashauer

This book is not going to be for everyone, first because you’ll probably have a reaction to the title that again will have you lean in to read more or lean away because of your judgment about the word pussy. The author too started her journey cringing at the word pussy and over decades Regena decided to reclaim this word. She fully embodies a woman who owns and takes pleasure in her sexuality. She was tired of the patriarchal world-view of sexuality in which someone who has “balls” is someone who has courage and someone who is a “pussy” is a wimp. She takes the word pussy and reclaims it in a powerful and provactive way. She is highly regarded by such feminists as Christine Northrup, Eve Ensler, Kris Carr, & Gabrielle Bernstein, and it’s easy to see why.

I felt nauseous after reading the first half of this book because her reclamation spoke to me as truth and how polar opposite it is to the current patriarchal worldview and my experience growing up. Like the book Come as You Are, this book encourages women to get to know their anatomy, explore their desire and own their sexuality. Regena gives many ideas for women to start relaiming their sexuality at the pace that is right for you.

Three Women – Lisa Taddeo

This non-fiction book is one of those rare books that gives you a glimpse into the lives of female sexuality of three different American women. All are heteronormative relationships. One is the experience of a woman who was seduced by a highschool teacher when she was a teenager and all the different emotions she felt during and after she brought him to court and he was found to be not guilty. Another is the experience of a conservative woman in a relationship with a man who does not want to be with her sexually. She reconnects with a married man who she dated in highschool. The third is a woman who is in an open-relationship and enjoys sex on a daily basis. She is empowered in some ways, but in many ways it is a big challenge for her to own her actions and be with the judgment she experiences from herself and others.

It is saddening, but not surprising that none of the women are sexually empowered in this book. All of the women have the context of living in a patriarchal society and experience the invalidation that occurs to women by both the men and women in their lives.

It would’ve been great to have a one of the women be in a relationship that wasn’t heteronormative or if the author could’ve written about a female who was empowered in her sexuality like Regena Thomashauer (author of Pussy: A Reclamation). Maybe Lisa Taddeo could write a sequal?

Summary

All of these books gave me food for thought about my own sexuality, validation for my experience living in a patriarchal culture, and gratefulness for those times when I feel like I’ve embodied my sexuality. Three Women is a great overview of what it is often like to be a woman in a patriarchal culture. Come As You Are will encourage you to change that world-view with concrete suggestions and 21st century information about female sexuality. Pussy: A Reclamation is the frontier of what is possible for a woman to experience when she reclaims her sexuality and power. Have you read any of these books? Or what book will you start with?

How To Dance With Anger

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Anger. This emotion is so often disregarded. We disregard another person’s anger or we disregard our own anger. We can try to do anything to avoid another person’s anger or avoid our own anger. We can try to convince ourselves that the time we yelled or treated someone horribly, that we had good reason.

This article will give you one path to truly let go of your anger. I’ll be giving you 3 steps, and sorry, you can’t skip the first 2 and jump to number three, even though you might be tempted. Emotions need to be felt before they are met with reason. As someone once said,

“No one in the history of being told to calm down, has ever calmed down”.

The Pendulum of Anger

Anger can make us really uncomfortable. We are told, “Get over it”, “Let it go”, “What’s the point in being angry? It doesn’t change anything”.

OR

We can be told that our horrible actions were justified because another person “had it coming”.

What Do We Do With Anger?

The remedy to anger is to:

1) Acknowledge your anger

2) Feel your anger in a way that suits your personality, and

3) Reflect on what about the situation made you angry.

Step 1: Acknowledge Your Anger

This is the unfiltered part of what is making you angry, even if it’s “irrational”. “I hate the way that person looked at me.” “That person is being an asshole.” And all the softer or louder interpretations of those words.

The goal is not to say these words to person who triggered you. It’s to either say these words out loud (e.g. in the bathroom, while walking, or in your head, whichever approach suits the situation you’re in.

Step 2: Feel Your Anger In a Way that Suits Your Personality

Sometimes a loud person thinks they need to show their anger more quietly and a quiet person thinks they need to express their anger loudly. If you want to try either of those on, go ahead, but there is not one best way to express your anger.

That being said, it is always your responsibility not to take your anger out on another person.

So where can you express your anger in a respectful way?

There are an infinite number of ways to express anger, the adventure is finding out what is most suited to your personality. It can be saying it your head while you feel the anger. It can be going for a run and screaming in the forest. It can be shouting in your car with the music on. It can be daring to put it onto paper and ripping it up. It can be taking out the energy of that anger into a sport you play.

What feels right to you? Experiment with different options.

Step 3: Reflect on What About the Situation Made You Angry

We can’t move on until we have owned and felt our often long-repressed anger. We need to get curious about where our anger comes from. Are we projecting child-hood frustrations and problems onto the people around us? Are we minimizing our feelings because we’ve been taught that our feelings aren’t important?

Do you have the tendency to blame when you feel anger?

OR

Do you have the tendency to take responsibility for other people’s feelings, thoughts, and behaviours?

Both of these tendencies are LEARNED from somewhere. If we can realize the source of our reactions, this gives us insight when another similar situation occurs and the chance to respond differently. Maybe you’ve under-reacted to situations where you could have set boundaries. Maybe you’ve over-reacted to situations that were a little too close to home.

Compassion, Not Perfection

Anger is a misunderstood emotion in our society, so it can take time to change a habit that has often been engrained for years if not decades. So if you catch yourself in another situation and you respond the same you’ve always responded, pause and show yourself some compassion. “Of course I reacted that way, that’s really not too surprising because I’ve responded that way for decades! Next time I’ll try again”.

After giving yourself compassion, reflect on what you need to do.

Do you need to apologize if you have treated a person poorly? Notice if you want to blame your angry behaviour on someone else.

OR

Notice if you want to blame someone else’s angry behaviour on yourself. Do you need to make an intentional choice NOT to apologize? Consider ways to set a boundary with that person.

As always, when you stuck or overwhelmed by a situation or an emotion, it’s good to seek support from someone who is compassionate, honest, and encouraging.
What have you found to be the best way to help you with your anger?

Seagull expressing her emotions

Resources

  • If you want a few more curious questions to help you with Step #3 (What about the situation made me angry) OR you’re a parent and want to explore how to support your child’s anger, here’s a previous blog I wrote Anger What Is It Good For? A quick tip is to notice your tendency to problem-solve, and try validating. “I can guess why you would be angry about that” AND give them 3 reasons why you think they might be angry. The goal is not to be accurate or even agree with why they might be angry. The goal is to connect with that person and show them you care about them. Acknowledged anger diffuses it.
  • The book The Dance of Anger by Harriet Lerner is an excellent read for anyone exploring their own response to anger. It is written with the lens of supporting women, but it’s really a book for anyone.

Overwhelmed? 3 Strategies To Filter Out the Noise

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With summer coming to a close, the energy of fall will be upon us shortly. Fall is an excellent time to reflect on all the things we kept or added to our plate in 2019 and choose which items to keep, add, or let go.

One of the best books I’ve read in 2019 is Greg McKeown’s Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. It’s a business book and not a therapy book, but the tools for getting essential in business are the same anywhere else in your life. Today I’m going to share a few tools to help you determine how to filter out the excess in your life or counter any FOMO (fear of missing out) that you’re experiencing.

Using Our Values As Our Guides

Step # 1: Choosing Your Top 3 Priorities

When life gets overwhelming, it’s important to sit down and ask yourself, “What are my top 3 values in my life right now?” Even better if you can rate each item #1, #2, & #3. If you’re tempted to pick more, don’t! Then the exercise defeats the purpose.

Some Options: Family, Romantic Relationship, Work/Career, Health, Spirituality, Animals, Environment, School/Education, Philanthropy, Friends, Sports, Travel, Investing, Adventure, Having Fun, Self-Growth

There’s a million more you could you choose from, and each of the above items could be narrowed to be more specific – “My child who’s struggling in school, my dog, spending time with my 2 best friends, playing basketball, planning a trip to Greece, my mental health or my physical health, and so on.

After some reflection I chose #1 Family, #2 Work/Career, and #3 Health. I decided to have Family include my relationship with my kids and with my husband and then extended family. What did you choose?

Step #2: Using Your Top 3 Priorities To Shape Your Lens

Now create a list of things you’re wondering about whether to keep doing or to start doing and ask yourself, “Does this item fit into my top 3 Priorities?” If it doesn’t, cross if off of your list. If you don’t want to cross it off, take a moment to reflect if you need to choose a different top priority so that you can keep it, or whether there’s another reason you don’t want to let go of it.

Step #3: Experiment for 1 week

Each day notice when you have multiple choices at once and then pause. Choose the item that fits your top priority. I had a day where I was supposed to go out and see a group of women I enjoy spending time with, however one of my sons had a really rough day and needed some extra attention. In that moment I reflected on my priorities and decided that my son in that moment was my priority. This decision paid off as through spending time together we were able to connect, communicate and problem-solve.

At other times I may have chosen differently if my mental health tank was getting close to empty and nourishing my own mental health was more important. Then I may have chosen to see friends so that later I could come home and be a better mom after meeting my own needs. In that moment I may have moved health to #1 and family to #2.

Each day for one week spend time to reflect at the end of the day whether you spent your time during your day devoted to your top 3 values and times that you didn’t. Where you can make a change?

Tool #2: Simple Ways to Manage FOMO

This is a tool right from Greg McKeown’s book Essentialism (p. 111).

What is the Opportunity being offered you right now?

What are your 3 minimum criteria for this option to be considered?

What are your 3 extreme or ideal criteria for this option to be approved?

In order for you to say yes to this opportunity, it needs to meet all 3 of your minimum critieria and at least 2 of your extreme critiera. With this in mind, create your criteria.

Here is mine I created for Training opportunities related to my work. (Note: First I narrowed my focus on work by creating my top priority for my job as a therapist – Providing High-Quality Psychotherapy to my clients. I created other priorities too, but will keep them out for simplicity)

Minimum:

  1. Does it target one of my top 2 priorities for work?
  2. Does the leader of this training an expert in this field?
  3. Does the training incorporate engaging and interactive learning?

Maximum

  1. Is it within my budget?
  2. Do I have gut “yes!!” reaction to this opportunity
  3. Are there clear guidelines, expectations, and accountability built into this course?

I’m the kind of person who sometimes says yes to a course because it’s really cheap and has a small time commitment. Often this leaves me disappointed in the course because I didn’t do any further research. I’m also the kind of person who likes to go with my gut reaction to make decisions. This information is important, but it can’t be my only critieria because once I start the training I’m annoyed at myself if the training is boring or there’s no accountability built in or it’s uninspiring.

What are few opportunities that you’ve joined or considered getting involved in? This exercise can also be used for opportunities you’re wondering whether to stay involved with or keep in your life.

Tool # 3 For The People Pleaser – Setting Boundaries

When people make their problem our problem, we aren’t helping them; we’re enabling them (McKeown, 2014 p. 168).

I don’t know about you, but I’m definitely a people pleaser for some things in my life. Many of us learn this early in life and continue this pattern and later realize that boy, we’re awfully tired and don’t seem to have time for anything fun.

Boundaries are essential in helping us determine where to put our energy into our life. Do you ever get the feeling that someone, while innocently asking you a question, really hasn’t put any energy into their own research? Do you have that one parent who always asks you to watch their kids but never watches yours? Do you have that person who asks you to take the extra shift because you don’t have kids so you must have more time? Do have that friend or colleague who stops mid-conversation to answer a text?

Did any of your top values include you and your well-being? If they didn’t, get curious about this and consider adding something related to you. If you always value others before yourself, then this a recipe for burnout.

Notice in your personal or work life where your boundaries are being crossed. Then ask yourself – is the request that person is making fit one of your top 3 priorities?

Self-reflection: What are my boundaries in my work relationships, romantic relationships, with family or friends? In what situations do I always put others first? Psychotherapy can help if you get stuck with this question.

If you can’t articulate {your boundaries} to yourself and others, it may be unrealistic to expect other people to respect them or even figure them out (McKeown, 2014, p. 169-170).

Conclusion

Connecting with our values, knowing our minimum & maximum critieria to say yes to opportunities and knowing and setting our boundaries are 3 ways that can offer clarity and help the overwhelm diminish in our lives. I noticed the anxiety I sometimes feel when I look at a busy week, start to disappear when I take time to shape my week in a way that fits my values and respects my boundaries.

If you’re interested in learning more, Greg McKeown has many more strategies in his book Essentialism. Good luck!

References

McKeown, G. (2014). Essentialism: The Disciplined Pursuit of Less. New York: Penguin Random House LLC.

How To Give The Gift Of Presence

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During the open house of my new office location, I was inspired to offer a presence experiment. A friend gave me the idea as inspired by the performance artist Marina Abramović . Marina sat for 7 hours a day for 100 days at the Museum of Modern Art in 2010. She sat silently in a wooden chair with an open invitation for people to sit across from her as she gazed at them.

The Presence Experiment

Thinking that calling it the “Psychotherapist is Present” might be a little too intimidating, I called it the Presence Experiment. I invited people to come in to my space and sit across from me for 5 minutes. People were invited to come in by themselves or with others and were told that I’d silently gaze at them for 5 minutes and they were welcome to return my gaze or not. The timer was put on and we began.

In all honesty, while being excited about doing this experiment, I was also really nervous. I both hoped and didn’t hope for people to participate. In the end I sat with around 25 people and when I went home, my husband commented about how present I was with him.

The Response

I was lucky to have my landlord Tracy and her husband as my first participants. Afterwards we all commented that we felt calmer and more present. Whereas I am more of an introvert and would wait for people to come and find me, Tracy is an extrovert and started to send people my way to try it out. So the part of me that wanted to hide during the event didn’t get a chance.

I sat with all kinds of different people of different ages, races, and genders. Most people sat as a group and some people sat on their own. Some people returned my gaze, some experimented with holding my gaze and some closed their eyes. Some people giggled, and others felt annoyed if I spent more time gazing at one person over an another. As a whole the response was very positive.

Sometimes 5 minutes could feel like 30 minutes and sometimes it felt like 3 minutes. Afterwards I felt more grounded, connected and present with others and myself.

Try This At Home

Variation #1: Gazing at eachother

For variation # 1, I encourage you try it exactly as I listed out in this article with a friend or family member.

  • Put the timer on for 5 minutes
  • Sit across from eachother gazing into eachothers eyes. Try to keep your energy within yourself without an intent to influence the other or gaze into the depths of their soul. The goal is to simply be with one another without an agenda.
  • Notice how you feel afterwards

Variation #2: Presence during an activity

For variation #2, I encourage you to simply be present with a child, pet, a plant, a loved one, or yourself for 5 minutes.

  • With a child let them take the lead and give them neutral responses, “I see you like this game, what’s this you’re making?” and try to resist any impulse to lead or give them feedback . Try to avoid “you shouldn’t say that, don’t do that, why don’t we do x, y, z, what an amazing drawing you’ve made!”. Imagine you are an anthropoligist with them for 5 minutes and they are showing you their world.
  • With a pet, spend time just petting your cat, walking your dog, gazing at your fish or how ever else you like to spend time with your pets.
  • With a plant or tree spend your time connect either by leaning against the tree or gazing at it for 5 minutes.
  • With another adult, do something similar as to the instructions as when you’re with a child. Have a 5 minute conversation with them and try to resist any impulse to lead or give them feedback. Do an activity for 5 minutes together of anything that doesn’t involve screens.
  • With yourself it can feel more like mindfulness – notice your thoughts and emotions as you do an activity of your choice. Try not to change your thoughts or emotions, just notice as a witness.
  • Notice the impact of this experience on your relationship with the person you did this with. Notice how you and the other person feel too.

Conclusion

Psychotherapy involves presence, sometimes with silence and sometimes without silence. Presence as a concept can be felt and experienced by anyone, wherever and however they choose to feel it. If you notice that you struggle with being present, you’re not alone. I doubt that 5 years ago I could’ve intentionally sat with a person in silence for 5 minutes, it felt like too much. So start with the variation that feels best for you. Let me know how it goes!