So Dr. Carrie, does your stuff actually work? A field test…

At some point in my long drive from Colorado to Montana last month, I found myself yelling. Out loud, to no one in particular (I was driving our car solo, Edgar was in the moving truck). I was upset with how stressed and off-kilter I felt. My poor sweet dog was sitting in his bed, looking at me like I’d lost my mind. And I had, indeed, lost it just a little bit.

When everyone leading up to my move would comment that “moving is stressful” or offer advice about how to “navigate the transition” or generally warn me that moving states, as adults, after 32 years of stability would be destabilizing, I would reply with some cheerful optimism that “we’ve got this!” or “I’m so excited, this feels like a great fit!”

Well, I’m here to say that I was both right and very, very wrong.

Montana is great and I’m glad we’re here.

Moving, however, is VERY stressful and I underestimated both how reliably and how comprehensively I get dysregulated when my environment is dysregulated.

I had 2 tasks: In that moment in the car, I needed to get a grip. Then, moving forward I had to work with my dysregulated self to get through the stress.

Remember how I’m always talking about how we can’t MAKE a feeling go away? Instead, we need to notice it, label it and identify where it is residing in our bodies. Next, we need to work WITH this feeling instead of stuffing it or getting upset with ourselves that we’re doing poorly, and to stop attaching catastrophic thinking to whatever is upsetting us.

What I sometimes fail to mention (that I had to re-learn for myself in this move) is that this is an ongoing process, not a quick destination.

So, in the car, I started talking to myself and ran through my own program of noticing (“Wow, I’m reallllly losing it right now”), labeling (“I’m sad and anxious”), locating the emotion in my body (shoulders tense, jaw tight, stomach bouncy), and then gently redirecting my thoughts towards my next best move (“settle in and turn on some music, you’ve still got 9 hours left to drive”). Then, I got to repeat this pattern, adding in things like breathwork (breathe in for a count of 3, breathe out for a count of 3, repeat until calmer), about a zillion times over the past several weeks.

It works, you just have to keep at it.

I’m happy to report that the house is coming together, we have a lovely, welcoming community here and overall the transition is actually going well. I look forward to keeping you updated on the adventure of it all.

Here is my new contact info:

New Work line: (406) 513-8671 (This will replace my 303-355-6682 number which will get disconnected at the end of the year). My cell remains the same.

New Email: [email protected]

The Sensible Psychologist brand takeover here we come!