mental health

The Gap Between Being & Becoming

/ Audry Van Houweling / Leave a comment

What are you hoping to become? Smarter, richer, wiser, healthier, more attractive? Mainstream society thrives on selling urgency—the urgency to be better, more appealing, more acceptable. This pressure can manifest as restlessness, workaholism, perfectionism, and an unforgiving inner critic. 

Today, social platforms reinforce this cycle, embedding the expectation that we should continually “uplevel.” The finish line for success always moves further, leaving us chasing perceptions of success. Modern-day acceptance often comes in the form of curated posts and filtered stories, where followers become currency. Life can start to feel like a performance. The pressure to maintain likability and stand out breeds desperation that generally erodes gratitude, presence, and stillness. Too often, we postpone happiness until we “become.” The larger the perceived gap between being and becoming, the greater our unhappiness tends to be. 

The Balancing Act 

Does this mean we shouldn’t have goals? Of course not. Striving gives us purpose and resilience. But should our worth and happiness depend on outcomes? Probably not. While we may seek improved versions of ourselves or our circumstances, it is gratitude for the present that fuels energy for the future. 

Who Are You Becoming For? 

When caught in the race for accomplishments, we need to ask: are we pursuing goals from an authentic place aligned with our values, or from external expectations? Are we driven by fear of disappointment or by courage and strength? Do our ambitions reflect unhealed longings for approval and validation? Is our relentlessness, which can appear outwardly successful, truly a trauma response? 

An Era of Decision Fatigue 

Part of the angst of becoming is that there are so many options of what to become especially partnered with the rampant comparison culture and existential unease. Decicion-making can feel paralyzing. As I work with many young adults, questions loom large: Should I go to college? Move out? Work? Travel? Have kids? With so many possibilities, the weight of “choosing right” can overwhelm. When faced with indecision, our tendency is to stay put in the familiar, sometimes at the expense of growth or healthy risks. At a therapeutic level, the work is less about making the “right” decision and more about building confidence in making a decision. 

Most of Life Is Ordinary 

In our dopamine-driven society, we’re fed the illusion that life should always be stimulating, inspiring, and easy to advance. In reality, much of life unfolds in ordinary routines—the anchors of daily functioning. Days may feel bland, repetitive, even grueling. Accomplishment is often felt in moments sandwiched between the grind of maintaining foundations and committing to a process that can take years if not decades and a whole lot of patience. Profound change is often made possible by repeated small moments of routine and discipline. The key is to enjoy the “in the meantime,” to embrace the process, and to realize that we are “becoming” in the ordinary rhythms of life just as much as the exclamation points of life. 

Nothing Is Permanent 

Finally, remember that what you hope to become today may shift tomorrow. Change is the law of nature. Each day we wake up a slightly different animal. Our vision of who we want to become evolves with time. What we seek to become will change over the course of time and as we are in the interim waiting for our efforts to take shape, the impermanence of life reminds us that as we are being, we are also always becoming.  

Cheers to your journey. 

With gratitude,

Audry Van Houweling, Owner, She Soars Psychiatry, LLC

Sisters & Silverton, Oregon

http://www.shesoarspsych.com

The Art of Compartmentalizing

/ Audry Van Houweling / Leave a comment

It never fails to intrigue me how amid struggle & uncertainty, the human mind adapts. Our world is facing numerous challenges and to be fair, has always faced numerous challenges. Nevertheless, given the immediacy of media at our fingertips and our ever-more connected global landscape, secondary trauma is hard to avoid and overlaps on top of personal traumas. For many of us, our nervous systems are primed and on guard—ready for when the so-called “other shoe drops”.

Compartmentalizing emotion is one of the primary means humans cope and maintain functionality when facing trepidation and uncertainty. It is evolutionary to minimize the gravity of emotion when the priority is survival. Emotional processing can be counterproductive and near impossible in the absence of safety. And yet, unchecked, compartmentalization can also lead to detachment, cognitive dissonance, and apathy…all things plaguing our world today.

In my day job, it is a practice listening to stories of trauma and loss, maintaining an empathetic presence, and also a therapeutic shield. Generally, this has a way of working, but there are those days when the balance of compartmentalization seems too much or too little. Days when emotions feel too heavy and days when emotions feel too distant.

Compartmentalization is a spectrum. While often essential to survival, compartmentalization can also help facilitate productivity, focus regulation, & selflessness. My concern is on the edges of this spectrum when compartmentalization is too much or too little. How do we find better balance in staying emotionally connected but not emotionally saturated, empathetic without becoming overwhelmed, engaged without becoming consumed?

Find Opportunities to Emote

Many of us easily provide space for others to emote while we limit our own emotional expression. If these limitations are too rigid, we can become a bit emotionally constipated. As follows, we need to acknowledge emotion, digest it, metabolize its messaging, and let it pass. When we disregard our own emotion it becomes far easier to disregard emotion in others. Stoicism can become cold or bitter. Emotions are not always convenient, but they are messages that can facilitate important action. Find ways to acknowledge & release. Put it on the schedule.  For me, emotional catharsis is best found on the back of my horse under the mountains, with music, and running through woods.

Connecting to meaning

It is not my place to tell anybody what is meaningful, but it is important that I tell them that the search for meaning is worth it if not imperative to emotional resilience. Finding meaning allows us to better integrate suffering as something that can coexist with peace. This ability to straddle paradox, buffers against denial and detachment. Suffering, as awful as it can be, can also be a catalyst to finding meaning and deepening connection. It is also completely expected that many of us will have our share of existential moments when meaning feels elusive and when we question the point of it all, but these moments can also be opportunities to more carefully evaluate personal values and beliefs.

Shake it up a bit

When we operate in compartmentalization mode for too long, life can start to feel a bit robotic. Routines, perceived control, and predictability feel paramount while spontaneity and lightness take a backseat. It is important that we give ourselves opportunities to be awed and to intermittently shake ourselves out of detachment. I prefer to go to wild places where comfort is not guaranteed and where my senses must be enlivened. Also, spending time with my niece and nephews in their toddlerhood seems to do the trick.

Find Your Battlefield

Find something worth fighting for. Yes, some fights might ask for a fist or a trigger, but some of the best fights are not out of violence or vengeance, but the stubborn insistence to shepherd the values of dignity and respect for ourselves, our neighbors, our community, our country, & our planet. Fight with acts of kindness, fight with facts, fight with humility, fight with service, fight with advocacy, and fight with wellness that preserves our stamina. A good fight is a good antidote against detachment.

We all deserve intermittent breaks of emotional respite. Those breaks are also too often a privilege. We can mindfully compartmentalize without mindless detachment. We can strategically postpone emotion and also intentionally acknowledge emotion. We can restrain and we can act. Cheers to staying engaged, resting well, & staying connected.

Thank you for listening.

With gratitude,

Audry Van Houweling, Owner,

She Soars Psychiatry, LLC

Sisters & Silverton, Oregon

Reflections on Heritage & Immigration

/ Audry Van Houweling / 1 Comment

My grandmother was 15 when the Nazis invaded Poland. Able-bodied and raised Catholic, her life was spared, but she was nonetheless apprehended, abruptly stripped from family ties, and sent to a forced labor camp where she later escaped and joined the Jewish Underground Resistance. She was later recaptured and imprisoned in Germany where she lived out the final years of her adolescence and the remainder of the War.

At the cusp of adulthood, an orphan, and newly married to a handsome American Air Force captain stationed in Germany, my grandmother joined the wave of thousands upon thousands of post-war refugees setting foot on Ellis Island and laying eyes on Lady Liberty in 1949. I often wonder how my grandmother persisted through all of it. As I encounter my own trials that seem so trivial in comparison, I remind myself of the resolve that was passed on so clearly to my mother, and by luck and maybe a few genetic favors, to myself.

My grandmother was an immigrant. She landed in America by a mix of luck and sheer tenacity. She settled with my grandfather in Long Island, New York slowly gaining fluency in the English language. She raised my mother and uncle. All the way to her death bed, she was a mix of shocking resilience with a presence that could demand the attention of any room while also being inevitably haunted by her past leading to ways of coping that were both admirable and destructive.

The immigrant story is often complex. And yet, it speaks to one of the most basic and primal urges in evolution and humanity. We are build to move, and movement is part of our survival. Migration and nomadism are entrenched in our generational DNA and our heartbeat for the future. We are built to explore and if it were not fo the innate desires for greater safety, resources, and opportunity, the whole notion of progress is turned upside down. It is the story of indigenous peoples native to this country chasing the path of the buffalo, the virgin setters fleeing religious persecution across the Atlantic, the pioneers carving uncharted paths across the Rockies homesteading the American West, and the story of my home state of Oregon—the terminus for Lewis and Clark, and the promised land so many traveled so far to reach. Upwards of thirty percent of pioneers on the Oregon Trail were non-English speaking and most were low income.

“Nearly all Americans have ancestors who braved the oceans – liberty-loving risk takers in search of an ideal – the largest voluntary migrations in recorded history… Immigration is not just a link to America’s past; it’s also a bridge to America’s future.” -George H.W. Bush

As we reflect on immigration today- a topic laced with controversy and politics, it is wasy to stand on the platform of us (the lucky citizens) versus them (the not so lucky non-citizens). We can over-generalize fears of immigrants bringing crime and economic strain. We an slip into dehumanizing rhetoric or attitudes of pity. We can forget the fragility of our own circumstances and take for granted the ancestral grit and resolve that allowed us such comforts in the first place. Like it or not, our nation was build on the backs of immigrants- some here by choice, some here by force.

Accountability and grace can coexist. I so fervently want an end to drug and human trafficking. I support a stronger border. I do worry about the limits of our national resources. I want people removed who have brought crime and violence. I also don’t want families ripped apart. I want my friends and patients to feel comfortable going to church and the grocery store. I don’t want to strip the economy of skilled workers, and I do believe that the process to become “legal” is often daunting, cost prohibitive, and needs reforming. A human that happens to be an immigrant is not a monolith. Can we enforce black and white policies on something so very nuanced?

Our capacity for compassion is one of the greatest indicators of health on both a personal and societal level. When this capacity crumbles, we can revert to apathy, anger, or be quick to find a scapegoat for our discontent. My hope is that we can remember the value of decency for our fellow humans seeking something better, reject dehumanization, advocate for fair and humane policies, and take stock of the adversity and immigrant stories so deeply intertwined within our own heritage and greater nation.

Thank you for listening.

With gratitude,

Audry Van Houweling, Owner & Founder, She Soars Psychiatry, LLC

Sisters & Silverton, Oregon

www.shesoarspsych.com

The Aftermath.

/ Audry Van Houweling / Leave a comment

It is Sunday November 10, 2024. It has been a long week. I provide care for patients on all sides of the political fence and some who are hoping to avoid the fence altogether. Inevitably, mental health and policy are intimately connected. Patient opinions are frequently shared and I, trying my best to remain neutral, listen. We are all entitled to our own definition of safety and progress. From what I gather, votes on all sides were cast mostly positions of frustration and fear—not hate. For some, this week’s results brought relief and celebration, while for others there has been panic, anger, and powerlessness. It has been a week of trying to encourage against uncertainty and to refocus on what we know to be true versus operating on assumption. This can be easier said than done with the onslaught of misinformation and profit-fueled propaganda. Nonetheless, democracy, as messy as it can be, has spoken once again.  

Tomorrow, November 11th is Veteran’s Day. I am reflecting on the blood, sweat, and tears engrained in our nation’s soil as we fought and fought again (and still we fight) striving to uphold the Constitutional pursuit of liberty. The morality pertaining to where liberty begins and where it ends is continually evolving. It’s edges have been shaped and reshaped, expanded and contracted as the curtain fell on slavery, as women fought their way to the ballot box, as segregation was dismantled, and as marriage no longer had to be defined by man and woman. What used to be considered criminal, is now protected. We can disagree on where these edges ought to be, but this debate and choir of opinions is a special brand of liberty in itself. It is in mystery and curiosity, not certainty nor absolutes where liberty thrives best.  

My hope is that we can prioritize the pursuit of liberty above any political figurehead. My other hope is that we do not reduce each other (or ourselves) down to a political label, but challenge ourselves to remember nuance and complexity. It may seem we have to dig deep for common threads, but often these connections are just under the surface. The media and curated algorithms have told us stories of deep polarization and contempt for one another fueling a level of distance and distrust counterproductive to any progress. Yes, oppositional and hateful behavior exists and some of us will drink the Kool-Aid served by the pundits, but from my window there is still an abundance of decency and goodwill demonstrated daily by folks on all sides of the political spectrum. Maybe we can surprise ourselves and prove wrong toxic narratives. 

This does not mean we cannot be angry, or sad, or fearful. Is there a time to fight? Yes. I have come to believe that some of the most successful battle campaigns are those without weapons or words of spite, but the continual and stubborn insistence to prioritize dignity and respect for one person at a time. That said, as those who have served this country can attest to, our Constitutional mandate to safeguard Lady Liberty, can also come with the greatest sacrifice.  

When we are in our defensive space, we tend to fight, flight, or freeze. We have tunnel vision. We get primal—territorial. Post-election, many of us might find ourselves in this place. Nobody has a crystal ball to predict what is coming down the pipeline, but it can help to ask ourselves what we know for sure. Do our feelings lie in an assumption? What is our evidence? Is it possible to transcend popular narratives of fear and division? No doubt we should remain watchful and no doubt, idolatry should never surpass our Constitution. Our right to voice dissent ought to be forever upheld. In the meantime, let’s do our best to stop making opinions based on our social media feed. Let’s engage with our fellow citizens & neighbors…face to face. Let’s appreciate sentiment and nuance. Let’s share our stories. Let’s be brave and stand up for individual liberties. Let’s take care of ourselves. Nobody said democracy was easy business, but it is in our right to disagree and express differences that we are strongest. Worry most when the fight stops.  

Happy Veteran’s Day and thank you to all who have served this complex, hard-fought, and beautiful country.  

“Democracy is the form of government in which the free are rulers.” -Aristotle

In solidarity,

Audry Van Houweling, Owner & Founder, She Soars Psychiatry, LLC

Sisters & Silverton, Oregon

Practitioner. Writer. Adventurer.

Making Peace with Our Multitudes

/ Audry Van Houweling / Leave a comment

One of my first patients was a pastor. He was esteemed and well-respected—a pillar in the community. I was a newbie in the small town where his roots ran deep. He was a man of conviction and compassion. He spoke with authority. And he was also sometimes hopeless…and desperate. At twenty-six years old, I sat at my desk sporting my newly printed diploma. I was trying my best to hide my imposter syndrome. Still shaky in my confidence, I kept questioning how a man who has guided so many, seek out any sort of guidance from me? He was a master at portraying steadiness and reassurance for his patrons. He held tight to concepts of duty and responsibility. In a small town, he felt there was little room for any misstep or deviation. Despite being surrounded by people who revered him, he shared with me that he often felt alone…and scared. While I stumbled through coping skills and strategies, I learned that my best intervention was to simply hold space for his complexity and provide a brief respite from the rigidity of his self-imposed and societally reinforced standards. 

Over the years in my practice, I have come to have a deep appreciation for the multitudes we all contain. The pastor and so many others in their courage to be vulnerable, unknowingly also gave me permission to better accept my own depth and sometimes messy complexity. Feelings and thoughts that may seem contradictory can all exist simultaneously. Grief and gratitude, courage and fear, joy and pain, hope and despair. The ability to hold multiple realities and straddle paradox might be one of the greatest measures of resilience.  

Life can be a bit performative. Like a play, we all take on different roles. The character descriptions will likely differ depending on if we are at work, home, social settings, or alone. This is completely human and to an extent, shows cognitive flexibility and healthy adaptation. Some roles we have mastered. We know the lines front and back. We have become intimately familiar with certain characters. Others, we would prefer to remain out of the spotlight or silenced altogether. The cast of characters can be diverse. Some may be protective, some ambitious, some ashamed, some stubborn, some silly, and some hopeful. At times, we might allow other people or societal expectations to take the director’s seat and choose the cast despite our unspoken resistance. If we have faced trauma or dysfunction, we might favor a cast who seemingly offers protection by seeking control while we might sideline child-like characters who crave lightness and adventure. When faced with a decision, multiple characters may want a seat at the table–at times contradicting one another generating inner conflict. We might have a character begging to take center stage, but fears of judgment or shame keep the muzzle tight. 

Different parts of ourselves as outlined in
Internal Family Systems Therapy

As with most entrepreneurs, I have a strong identification with my professional cast of characters. Defined by productivity, steadiness, responsibility, and a fair amount of rebellion to the mainstream, this industrious cast has a tendency to crowd the stage and can be hesitant to share the spotlight. I call on these characters in times of life’s turbulence and yet, they have been known to create some undue stress themselves. They are supposed to take a bow around 6pm Monday-Friday and enjoy a mini sabbatical through the weekend. Lighthearted characters have had to bargain with them at times, finally convincing them that rest, and playfulness are also necessary ingredients for success. Characters offering grace have also had to remind them that success is, in itself, a construct up for interpretation.  

Sometimes we find ourselves acting in a play we never signed up for. When tragedy strikes, we often default to self-preservation. The protective cast of characters takes center stage. For some of us, this cast of protectors might convince us that the best way to self-preserve is to sideline emotion. We might launch into attempts of control and order, retreat to our work, numb or detach, or dive into martyrdom taking care of everyone else but ourselves. While these characters have likely served important roles in our past, the safety they seek in the present can be a guise for self-sabotage. 

Ultimately, we must remember that none of us are made to be one-dimensional. By remembering that we are by nature, multi-dimensional, we can grant ourselves and those around us more grace. We can remember that everyone has struggles and shadows. We can appreciate nuance and acknowledge complexity. We can know that sometimes those most skilled at portraying a brave face can sometimes be facing the greatest battles. Hold space for your own multitudes and in doing so, hold space for the multitudes of others. 

Thank you for listening.

With gratitude,

Audry Van Houweling, PMHNP-BC

Owner & Founder, She Soars Psychiatry, LLC www.shesoarspsych.com

Sisters & Silverton, Oregon