by Mayim Bialik
Some Inspirational Quotes
“Faith is taking the first step, even when you don’t see the whole staircase.”—Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.
“We tend to have more faith in what we imitate than in what we originate. We often feel that we cannot derive a sense of absolute certitude from anything which has its roots in us.”—Bruce Lee
“Human happiness and human satisfaction must ultimately come from within oneself. It is wrong to expect some final satisfaction to come from money or from a computer.”—Dalai Lama
“Train yourself to let go of everything you fear to lose.”—Yoda
Meditation for Inspiration
Here are some meditations you can do on your own once you are breathing slowly and deeply. Even doing these for 5 minutes can make a big difference in how your body reacts to stress on a daily basis.
Locate the breath. Concentrate on where you feel the breath as you breathe. Focus on the breath starting in your belly, and try to feel your belly expanding like a big balloon as it takes in air. Breathe in through your nose and feel how the air tickles the outside of your nostrils. Let the breath out through your mouth slowly and feel the air as it moves past your lips. Keep doing that, taking slow and deep breaths. The goal is to be still with the breath and not force it at all.
In and out. Try counting breaths and try to let that number be the only thing in your head. So breathe in and think, In one, and then when you breathe out, think, Out one, and then take a second deep breath and think, In two, and then exhale and think, Out two, and so on. How many breaths can you count to without losing concentration? If you get distracted, don’t sweat it. Just start again and try to get to a higher number.
How long can you breathe? Slow your breathing down and take long, deep breaths without feeling like you are holding anything in. Count how long it takes to take a full breath in and then count how long it takes to breathe it all out. Usually the exhale is longer than the inhale. Can you breathe in for 5 seconds and then out for 7? Can you slow your breath down even more so that you breathe in for 6 seconds and out for 8? You shouldn’t ever feel out of breath; the goal is to train your body to slow your breath down and to quiet your thoughts while you focus on the breath.
Walk! If you want to do a walking meditation, remember that you need to keep your eyes open! Go somewhere where you can take about 10 steps in a straight line. It should be a quiet place, like a hallway where people won’t be walking around, or in a yard or a park. Lift one leg and start to take a step very slowly, so slowly that you need to balance on the leg that’s supporting you while you move your foot as slowly as you can. It might feel funny at first, but the idea is to move with mindfulness and intention, and to be very deliberate. When your foot hits the ground, think about the heel hitting first, and then let your foot unfold onto the ground very slowly. Don’t rush into lifting the other foot right away. Feel how your body adjusts to having two feet on the ground rather than just one and then shift your body to the front foot so you can slowly begin to lift your back foot. As you lift it, think about what it feels like to be aware of the back heel coming up first, followed by the rest of the foot peeling off the ground. Lift slowly, once again balancing on the leg that’s supporting you. Return to the start and breathe and feel the stability of being on both feet again. Now it’s time to take your second step! It may also help to think of these words as you do this meditation: lift (for while you are slowly lifting your first foot), place (for when you place the foot down), shift (for when your body shifts to the front foot), lift (for when the back foot comes up) and place (for when it comes down again).
COPING WITH STRESS WITH THE HELP OF A COMMUNITY
Although seeking some solitude is normal and may be necessary for you, keep in mind that in very stressful times and when you are experiencing prolonged stress, it’s important to find ways to trust people by reaching out and not isolating yourself if you’re struggling. Stress and sadness thrive in darkness, and we have to bring them out of the darkness of our brains and hearts to shed light on them.
Relying on other people for help and support is not something that comes naturally to all of us, especially men in our culture. But keep in mind that for all of human history, people have lived in communities, because it allows them to know each other and help support each other. Community means there are people around you who know you and your family, and who can be there in a way that works for you. Maybe you’ve experienced this in your community if there was a natural disaster such as a fire or a flood or an earthquake or a tornado. Have you noticed how people come together to help each other? And not just firefighters and the police—community members are supposed to help each other, and they often do.
Don’t be afraid to share your feelings with others. If you don’t feel comfortable talking to someone in your family, find a school counselor or teacher you can trust. Sometimes the parents of a friend might feel like good people to talk to, and that’s a safe place to start as well.
Another way to cope with stress is by participating in events where people already congregate. Have your parents ever tried to make you go to a religious service when you’re going through a rough time? It can feel awkward, and it can make you feel vulnerable, and that can be uncomfortable, but it can also help a lot. The reason it’s encouraged is because it’s good for us to be around people so that we don’t have to go through tough stuff alone. By doing this, we start to learn more about what and who can be helpful to us.
Over thousands of years, religions have created a lot of rituals that can help in times of stress. So even if organized religion isn’t something you think you want to be a part of, there are aspects that we can apply to our lives even outside of a formal religious setting, which can support our mental well-being.
Here are some of the benefits people have found from being a part of a religious community that comes together in stressful times.
Help. Have you ever been away at camp and felt homesick? Or have you ever been upset about something at school? Chances are, you got a taste for what community can do for you when you needed it in those situations. Community helps you feel not alone. Having people around can distract you in healthy ways and help you understand your feelings in a larger context than if you tried to figure it all out on your own. In communities that are close, when someone in the family dies or when a new baby is born, people show up right away with food and help arrange for taking care of the small kids so that the adults can talk and work out details without worrying about making food and caring for children. It really helps to have people around when stressful things happen, and communities make that possible. (Of course there are nonreligious communities and activities that can make this kind of connection happen as well, but the structure of religious organizations causes people to congregate regularly and get to know each other on a more regular basis.)
Focus. Sometimes when we are stressed, it feels like the stressful thing is all we can think about. Gathering together in a peaceful setting such as a church or synagogue or mosque or temple forces us to shake up our thoughts and try something new in our brains. It forces us to focus on something other than the stressful situation. This kind of focus helps the brain start to get on board with shifting the stressful dynamics that are happening. The sadness or frustration or despair or anger we may be feeling can be disrupted—even for a short time—and this starts a pattern in your brain of working things out.
Prayer. Prayer is a form of talking things out. Even if you don’t believe in God, you can benefit from having quiet time to talk out—even in your head—what’s going on. Prayer can look like a lot of different things, and it can often feel like a lot of thanking God for stuff. This might not seem like a logical thing to participate in if something horrible is going on, but the process of prayer allows us to find places in our brains and hearts where we can be grateful for things that are okay even
when there are so many things that may not feel okay. Shifting our thinking from “everything stinks” to “certain things stink, but certain things don’t” is a really good start toward helping your brain get you out of a stress funk.
Meditation. Many religious traditions incorporate meditation into their practice, especially the Eastern religions. If you think of prayer as talking, meditation is just listening. There are many ways to meditate, but the basic idea is to stop what you’re doing and find a quiet space to be with your thoughts and to breathe slowly and deeply—kind of cool, right? And what’s even cooler is that scientific research has shown that meditating improves immune system functioning and is linked to less anxiety and depression, so meditating is really a win-win choice for healthy coping! (See the box on page 157.)
GETTING HELP COPING WITH STRESS
What about other ways to help with stress? When stress makes it difficult for you to do schoolwork or causes problems in relationships with your family and friends, it can be helpful to talk to your parent or a school counselor. You may also find that talking to a professional outside of your school, who is trained to help you with your problems, is helpful, too. One of the most revolutionary thinkers the world has ever seen was an Austrian man named Sigmund Freud, who studied neurology about 150 years ago. Freud was the first person in history to describe how talking about problems out loud can lessen the weight and stress associated with them. Along with another doctor named Josef Breuer, Freud was the first to demonstrate and communicate how, when people form a relationship with someone who talks to them about their feelings and their struggles, they transfer some of their pain to that person, who can then help them work through it. This was the start of psychoanalysis, and it’s the basis for what we now call psychotherapy or talk therapy, which can be helpful for men and women and boys and girls alike.
Sometimes when we are under stress, we have a lot of problems with sleep, or we may have thoughts in our heads that won’t go away. For some people, this kind of stress may lead them to do certain things (actions, thoughts, breaths) repeatedly to help cope, and this can escalate and become disruptive to their lives. While psychotherapy is also helpful for this, another kind of therapy that can be used for this kind of stress is called cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT). CBT is designed as a more short-term, goal-oriented kind of therapy, where you have worksheets and “homework” to do and review with a therapist. CBT helps you understand your motivations for thinking the ways you think, while helping you find more productive ways to work through stress.
The scientific basis for talk therapy and CBT are the same: by behaving and thinking differently, we can change the chemistry of the brain so that we can make stress easier to deal with. There is no “magic” to therapy; the key is to be consistent with seeing a therapist and to ask questions when you don’t agree with something or when you hear something that doesn’t feel right to you. Most importantly, therapy can only work if you feel comfortable talking with the therapist. If you don’t feel like you can share things with one therapist, ask to try another until you find one you can talk to openly and honestly.
A lot of therapy is not covered by insurance, and it can be expensive, but there are more and more free services popping up all over the country to allow people to talk through their problems. Sometimes it can be scary to talk about feelings, but it really can help, and even a school counselor is a good place to start, since many are trained in basic therapy techniques.
Besides therapy, you’ve probably heard about medications that people can take to help them deal with stress. These are usually prescribed by a psychiatrist, which is a doctor who specializes in people’s emotions and the medications that affect them, but some pediatricians prescribe them, too. While these medications can indeed encourage your brain to send out more happy hormones and help decrease the sad ones, they often have strong side effects and they are not always made for growing bodies. Medication is often used when other ways to cope with stress don’t work, or when someone’s reactions to stress are affecting their ability to handle school, relationships and the way they function every day. It’s important to know that medication doesn’t have to be a forever thing. Sometimes people use medications to get through a particular situation, but with time, things get better and they find other ways to cope that make the medications not necessary. Only you and your parents and a doctor can decide what’s best for your family, and often, when medication is prescribed, talk therapy can also be really helpful. In addition, it is very important to talk to your doctor or your parents when you have very unusually strong symptoms or if you have any questions about taking medication.
Wrapping Up
In case you think I’m just making all of this coping stuff up, I’m going to share something super personal with you. You may know me from TV, or your parents may have bought you this book because they know me from TV, but I’m a real person who has lived through a lot, and a lot of it has been stressful. My family didn’t have a ton of money when I was a kid, and life wasn’t easy for me. In addition to shedding many tears over crushes I had that were unrequited and the death of my childhood cats when I was in middle school, which many of us experience, I was very small for my age and I developed late, so I was teased often. I cried a lot and felt left out of many things my whole life, and I still feel that way as an adult sometimes. My family had a bunch of secrets, and I felt scared a lot.
I got divorced several years ago and moved houses within the same year, which hits on two of the “most stressful things” listed at the start of this chapter. The same year, I was in a car accident that led to several major surgeries. The following year, my dad got sick and died, I went through a major, devastating breakup, and my 13-year-old cat had to be put down. That’s another bunch of big stressors, right?
The things that I’ve talked about in this chapter that you can do to cope with stress are things I’ve done myself, and they are things I still do in order to maintain my emotional and mental health. They also affect my physical health, since stress impacts the body as well.
Here’s what I do:
I take walks a few times a week.
I try to get time in nature, even if it just means hugging a tree whenever I can.
I go to synagogue and pray that I will have patience with people and things that annoy me. I also pray that I’ll have a better perspective on life when I need it.
I practice deep breathing and try to meditate a few times a week, sitting in my bed and listening to the sounds around me, even if all I can hear is cars and my own messy thoughts.
I force myself to be in social community settings at least once a week so that I don’t isolate myself from people.
I make lists of things to be grateful for every day, even if it’s just a few things like being grateful for having clean water to drink and my cat who needs me.
I play the piano and sing sad songs when I need to be reminded that I’m not alone; there are musicians whose lyrics indicate that they have also experienced sadness, too. Listening to music with lyrics I can relate to helps me work through hard feelings.
I go to therapy every week and talk about my feelings, even when it’s hard and I don’t want to.
And don’t forget my folder of pictures of cute monkeys and cats . . .
All of the things I do to cope may not feel like they are working right away, but with time and patience, they do help. All of the things we do on a daily basis to reduce our stress and help us cope contribute to our overall well-being and mental and physical health in the long run. From one stressed-out person to another, I hope you will trust me and find ways to cope that bring you joy and peace.
SIX
• HOW BOYS MATTER •
We have been exploring a lot of the nuts and bolts of Boying Up so far: how your body grows, how you learn, how you navigate dating and socializing, how you cope
with hard stuff . . . It seems like we’ve kind of covered it all. But there is another very important part of Boying Up, which involves thinking about how decisions you make play into the Big Picture of your life. I suppose the question we all wonder about sometimes is: do we matter in this world? I hope you agree that we do! The decisions you make and the things you say and do can impact other people in very powerful ways. Part of the process of Boying Up and becoming a young man who is compassionate, kind and confident involves finding ways to make impacting others in a positive way a significant part of your life.
The Future
One of the ways we start to understand our potential impact and influence is to think—even for just a little bit—about the future. And don’t worry: I’m not talking about planning out the rest of your life right now. Even if we tried to, we couldn’t know what was going to happen anyway! When I say we should think about the future, what I mean is this: it’s not too early to start thinking about what you might want your life to look like when you are done Boying Up and have become a grown-up boy.
Why is it important to think about this kind of stuff now? Because the choices you make now actually affect what your future will look like. And no, I’m not saying that the flavor of ice cream you choose tonight will determine where you live or that that time you told your parents you turned off your phone but you really stayed up playing your favorite video game until 2 AM is going to come back and haunt you for the rest of your life. And I’m for sure not saying that skipping class last Thursday is going to negatively impact your chances of being able to own a car someday.
