An Interview With Candice Georgiadis
Step 1 is finding what works for you. If you know you can only do 1 minute of mindfulness of your breath, do it. If you don’t know what works for you, try different types of mindfulness activities, such as mindfulness of sipping water, watching the wind blow the curtain, a visualization exercise found on the internet, or washing the dishes! That can look like focusing on the warmth of the water, the smell of the soap, or the movement of your hands. You can also practice with guided exercises found on apps such as HeadSpace or on YouTube.
As a part of my series about “How To Develop Mindfulness And Serenity During Stressful Or Uncertain Times”, I had the pleasure of interviewing Shelby Milhoan, LCPC.
Shelby Milhoan is a licensed clinical professional counselor providing psychotherapy in Towson, Maryland. She specializes in helping burnt out individuals stop prioritizing others’ needs above their own and become badasses in all areas of their lives. She also loves working with individuals who don’t fit into “traditional” roles within society. To find out more about her practice go to www.growithshelby.com
Thank you so much for doing this with us! Our readers would love to “get to know you” a bit better. Can you share with us the backstory about what brought you to your specific career path?
I grew up in the upper Ohio River Valley in a town of about 600 people. Growing up in a small, rural area had an impact on how I saw the world, though I knew from a young age that I thought and felt a bit differently than others. Around age 12 my parents finally divorced, and my father thought it would be a good idea for myself and my two younger siblings to see a therapist because he was worried about our behavior. I remember going into the first session, looking at the therapist, and saying “F*** you. I’m not talking to you” and she didn’t budge. She wasn’t shaken by this young teen yelling profanities in her office, and I was kind of taken aback. I was so used to seeing adults yelling and being horrible to each other, that I guess I expected her to react with anger. I didn’t talk during the first session, but I kept going back. I quickly realized that she was the very first person who I could trust with my emotional experiences and my thoughts. I knew within the first year of seeing her that I wanted to be that person for others, no matter how hard I had to work to be that person. I worked hard during high school to do everything I needed to do to get into college. That included extracurriculars on top of working at a restaurant. Even though I wanted to study psychology, it wasn’t easy for me to do that. In college, I first studied music and teaching. I was a vocalist, and I was told I needed to study something that would lead to a definite job in which I could make money, which was teaching. I gained some independence and clarity in college and allowed myself, with help from my therapist, to push for something I wanted. I stopped listening to those voices who thought they knew what was best for me and thought I was incapable. I switched tracks to psychology, and I loved it. I don’t think there was a psych class I didn’t like. My professors were great and so encouraging, and I really began to believe that I could go to graduate school. Though, like with my undergraduate degree, others didn’t think it was a good idea for me to attend graduate school. Can you believe that? People in your life telling you, “Do you have to go to graduate school? Isn’t that a waste money? Why can’t you just find a job and get married here in the valley?” “That’s unrealistic.” Once again, I decided to push back against those voices and what others wanted for me and set out to build my own life. I moved to Maryland, attended grad school while working, ended relationships with some and set boundaries with others who doubted me and caused me unnecessary pain, and graduated with a 3.9 GPA from Loyola University Maryland. I am one of only a few people in my family with a degree, let alone an advanced degree.
Can you share the most interesting story that happened to you since you started your career?
I think one of the most interesting stories that has happened to me since starting my career was the story of how I had to get a second job after I graduated from graduate school. I realized that even though I had this advanced degree and could get a job in my field that I could barely make ends meet on that salary alone, and I didn’t have any help. So, in addition to working at my full-time salary job, I worked part time as a cocktail waitress at a club. I was lucky to be in my 20’s at the time and had the energy to do it all. Looking back, I have no idea how I would work somedays until 3 am and then get up at 6 to work in the field. It was madness. I do believe that through those experiences I became a better therapist, especially to individuals who have been counted out or are burnt out from having to grind in our society.
What advice would you give to other leaders about how to create a fantastic work culture?
DO NOT assume that just because you or some others within your company can do certain tasks, projects, or work with certain people that others in your company can do the same. As a clinician in the mental health field working for a company or clinic, you will often come across jobs that require you meet a certain amount of “billable hours” per week. Therapists are in a unique role in which we must hold others’ emotions and traumas and provide a safe environment for insight and growth. Some clinicians can see 35 clients per week, and some can see 10 clients per week before their physical and mental health begin to decline. Add on top of this the paperwork, meetings, and the constant trainings we must attend, we can burn out quickly. To create a fantastic work culture, you must learn your employees’ strengths and find a way to utilize them within your company. Stop attempting to hold everyone to a certain standard that is unattainable for some without allowing space to recover (i.e., mental health days, maternity and paternity leave, paid time off and insurance). I guess in other words, treat your employees like human beings and not like robots that produce for your company.
Is there a particular book that made a significant impact on you? Can you share a story or explain why it resonated with you so much?
Building a Life Worth Living by Marsha Linehan. Her memoir takes you through her life, from her struggle with her attempts at suicide at a young age to the vow she made to herself that she would help individuals in a similar situation to hers. She speaks about the struggles she faced into adulthood while creating the modality of therapy that is used to treat individuals who were at one time deemed “untreatable.” Overall, this memoir gives a lot of hope to those who are struggling with thoughts of death and constant invalidation from their environments.
This might be intuitive to you, but it will be instructive to spell this out. Can you share with our readers a few of the physical, mental, and emotional benefits of becoming mindful?
The state of being mindful is simply a state of focused attention on the now. Mindfulness is paying attention to the moment in a particular way, whether that be paying attention to a sensation that is welling up inside of you as you are speaking about a loved one or focusing your attention on a cat as it scurries by while you are on a walk. Being mindful and utilizing mindfulness isn’t about sitting on a cushion for 20 minutes listening to an audio on YouTube (though that is a form of mindfulness and can be helpful!) Mindfulness is about bringing awareness to what is happening in the now.
We can be mindful of the now as it’s happening inside of us or outside of us. Being mindful of what is happening inside of us may look like observing and focusing on your breath as it comes through your nose, travels down your throat into your chest and stomach, and as it travels back through your nose on an out breath. That is mindfulness of the physical sensations of the breath. We can be mindful of our emotion and thoughts as well, and that can be a bit trickier, especially for those who have a history of trauma or mental illness. For example, I may be walking through Target and notice my ex-boyfriend walking in the aisle adjacent to me. I can stop an observe that a feeling is coming up, label it as excitement or fear or dread or disgust, and that is technically mindfulness of our emotional state. Being mindful of our reality outside of us may look like me focusing on the sensation of my fingers hitting the keyboard as I am typing this. It may look like focusing on the smell of the coffee I just brewed or paying attention to and focusing on how my cat looks as she sleeps in my windowsill. These instances described may only last seconds to minutes, however, it is still considered being mindful of the present moment.
The physical, mental, and emotional benefits to becoming mindful are astounding, though the journey to becoming a mindful person and reaping those rewards can be difficult. To begin to see the benefits of mindfulness, you must practice daily. You can think of it as strengthening your ‘mindfulness muscle.’ Like with strength training or learning an instrument, practicing daily is the only way to reap the benefits. Now, this doesn’t mean you have to sit and meditate to the sound of the universe for an hour, but it does mean that you must set aside even just 3 minutes a day to focus on the smell of coffee or the feel of a blanket or the flame of a candle or your breath coming in and going out of your body. If you can do 1–3 minutes daily, that is still mindfulness. If your mind wanders during that time and you bring your mind back to focus on whatever you were focusing on, that is still mindfulness!
A consistent mindfulness practice has been shown to improve resting heart rate and blood pressure, decrease mood swings, increase focus, and even better relationships with others!
Ok. Here is the main question of our discussion. The past 5 years have been filled with upheaval and political uncertainty. Many people have become anxious from the dramatic jolts of the news cycle. From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to develop mindfulness during such uncertain times? Can you please share a story or example for each.
Step 1 is finding what works for you. If you know you can only do 1 minute of mindfulness of your breath, do it. If you don’t know what works for you, try different types of mindfulness activities, such as mindfulness of sipping water, watching the wind blow the curtain, a visualization exercise found on the internet, or washing the dishes! That can look like focusing on the warmth of the water, the smell of the soap, or the movement of your hands. You can also practice with guided exercises found on apps such as HeadSpace or on YouTube.
Step 2 is setting up a time to practice mindfulness. Like scheduling time to hit the gym or practice learning a language, putting time in your schedule to practice mindfulness can be important. That can mean saying to yourself that you are going to practice mindfulness for 3 minutes while driving to work while focusing on the sole activity of driving without music or talking, or you are going to practice 5 minutes of mindfulness right before you go to sleep at night while lying in bed.
Step 3 is actually doing the mindfulness we say we are going to do! This can be the most difficult part. Setting a reminder in your phone or a sticky note on your desk to help remind you to practice is a great idea.
Step 4 is doing it again. And again. And again. Make it a goal for yourself to do mindfulness for 1 minute for 4 days. When you have met that goal, try 2 minutes of mindfulness for 4 more days, then 3 minutes of mindfulness for 7 days, and so on. If you want to actually gain the benefits from practicing mindfulness, you will have to practice daily. It’s like eating well for your health. You can’t just eat those greens for 4 days and say, “Well, I’m healthy now!”
Step 5 is getting back on the horse when you fall off. All of us fall into and then out of practicing mindfulness from time to time. Maybe you went on a vacation, or your schedule has been packed and adding that 5 minutes of mindfulness to your schedule went out the window. That is okay! It is easier to get back into mindfulness if you don’t judge yourself (or reframe that judgement) and jump back in. Maybe you will have to begin at practicing mindfulness for only 2 minutes a day. 1 minute is more than 0 minutes. Remember that mindfulness is really just paying attention to the moment in a particular way, so if you can do this daily, you are cultivating a mindfulness practice.
From your experience or research, what are five steps that each of us can take to effectively offer support to those around us who are feeling anxious? Can you explain?
Step 1 is clarification. Perhaps a friend or family member may look anxious to you, though they are experiencing something different. Check-in with that person. Ask, “Hey, you seem anxious, is that right?” When we misread cues and go off our own assumptions, it can be invalidating to that person.
Step 2 is acknowledging and validating. If your assumption is correct, ask this person, “Is this something you want to speak about right now?” Sometimes we dive into trying to comfort the person or problem solve. They may need time and space to process themselves before receiving help and support and that is okay!
Step 3 is asking if they want someone to listen or someone to help problem solve. As stated above, we can go into problem-solving mode which can make a person even more overwhelmed. We are simply just asking what they need right now.
Step 4 is listening and validating. Active listening includes body language like eye contact, facing toward the person you are speaking with, not being involved in other things in the moment (phone, TV, reading), and nodding and having an open, neutral stance. Validation, specifically of the emotion, sounds something like this: “Wow, that sounds tough.” Or “This sounds like something that is painful and confusing.” Try not to turn what they are experiencing into a moment in which you speak about yourself (“Well when I was anxious, I felt terrible, and this is what I did, and I felt better).
Step 5 is helping with problem solving and skills (if wanted) as well as regulating your own emotion. Have you ever been in a situation in which a friend or spouse or child is so upset that it makes you upset too? This is what we are talking about managing. When you act on your own emotions that come up as a result of this person’s emotional distress, it does not help. Take a step back if needed, utilize breathing yourself, and remind yourself that you are safe where you are, and your focus is helping this person. That is mindfulness. If this person asks for problem solving or help, try breathing with the person (breath in for 3, breath out for 6), grab this person an ice pack from the freezer to put on their neck or face, or even hug (ask first). A 7 second hug can actually regulate the nervous system.
What are the best resources you would suggest for someone to learn how to be more mindful and serene in their everyday life?
Mindful.org has some great mindfulness exercises that individuals can enjoy. Headspace, Calm, and Insight Timer are all good apps that you can download to listen to mindfulness audio or videos. You can also go to dialecticalbehavioralthearpy.com to learn the ins and outs of mindfulness through a DBT lens. In addition to your own work, you can look for mindfulness centers or mindfulness groups near you that can assist in your mindfulness journey. Some great mindfulness books include Mindfulness for Beginners by Jon Kabat-Zinn and The Miracle of Mindfulness by Thich Nhat Hanh.
Can you please give us your favorite “Life Lesson Quote”? Do you have a story about how that was relevant in your life?
“It is what it is” It can sound cliché to some, though everything that happens in a moment is everything that happens in a moment. We can look back on our life and place blame on others for why things turned out the way they did for us, and that is valid. I have been there, and I know at one point or another we all have. Though if we want to move forward and not get stuck in our past, replaying what has happened to us again and again, we must acknowledge that it is what it is; that it has happened in the past and now in the present we can make small changes in the moment to change our trajectory. It isn’t easy, especially for individuals with trauma and other mental illness, and it is possible.
You are a person of great influence. If you could start a movement that would bring the most amount of good to the most amount of people, what would that be? You never know what your idea can trigger. 🙂
I would start a movement to make healthcare and housing affordable for everyone in the US. Healthcare, food, water, and shelter are all BASIC necessities for human life to survive and thrive. We constantly hear stories about how people are being charged hundreds of dollars for medical care even though they have insurance, or how it costs over 10 dollars for a pound of chicken, or how people can’t even drink the water out of their own facets because it is contaminated, and they have to buy bottles! We live in the “greatest country in the world” and we can’t even afford to house homeless children and veterans. I would start with healthcare, challenging the bureaucracy in the billon dollar pharma and healthcare industries, because that is my industry. I think it takes a village to challenge the standards, so I couldn’t do it alone. I do have hope for millennials and gen Z coming into office. We are sick and tired of seeing and being a part of the struggle, and you can only push millions of people so far.
What is the best way our readers can follow you online?
You can follow me on LinkedIn at www.linkedin.com/in/growwithshelby and my website at www.growwithshelby.com Blogging and social media coming soon, so please stay tuned!
Thank you for these fantastic insights. We wish you only continued success in your great work!
Shelby Milhoan On How To Develop Mindfulness During Stressful Or Uncertain Times was originally published in Authority Magazine on Medium, where people are continuing the conversation by highlighting and responding to this story.