Justine Carino | Mental health counselor & anxiety treatment specialist
What is one piece of advice you’d share with expecting parents of their first child?
You can’t always believe what you think. We have over 6,000 thoughts per day and about 70% of our thoughts are negative. We were wired to think negative as a form of survival. If we can predict a negative outcome, we can take the necessary steps to protect ourselves and avoid danger and threats. This helped create our very successful “fight or flight response.” The problem is, our daily “threats” today are nothing like the saber tooth tiger we once had to face as cavewomen. Unfortunately, our brains have not yet done a “system” update to help us become less reactive. So, we are stuck worrying and losing sleep over things that may never actually even happen. Our brain is just used to jumping to very negative conclusions. So the next time you are ruminating over a worst-case scenario, ask yourself, “Is this thought helpful, and/or true?” Most of the time what we are thinking about is not helpful at all, and it’s most likely not even true- it’s probably a very negative assumption that we are becoming too attached to!
How can busy working moms manage feelings of burnout between work life and home life?
Burnout is usually a sign that you need to create new and updated boundaries in some area of your life. If someone is burnt out, they most likely ignore their own boundary lines somewhere and it’s usually with their time, energy or resources. If a person can create a boundary around the number of hours they spend working each week, how much they give of themselves to other people, and get more comfortable with saying “no”, then the rest that they feel from doing so helps them actually perform better at work, have better relationships, and become more present and engaged at home. People need space from work and other life roles in their lives to get in alignment with who they are and what they really want in order to live more intentionally and at peace. Just like parents need time away from their kids, people need vacations and days off from work. We need breathing room to reset and do things out of intention instead of out of pressure, guilt or habit.
Recommend a podcast and article in the child development space for families to read or listen to.
I LOVE The Parenting Map: Step-by-Step Solutions to Consciously Create the Ultimate Parent-Child Relationship by Dr. Shefali Tsabary. So much of what she says supports the work that I do to help improve the dynamics between teens and their parents. There is a parallel process between parents and their children that can create a circular reaction of anxiety and avoidance. This book helps you separate what is your own stuff to deal with and what actually belongs to your children to deal with. She guides you into looking into your own childhood and the way your parents parented you and how this influences how you parent your children today. We learn how to be parents from the generations before us and we need to become more consciously aware of unhelpful patterns and habits that were modeled to us, and choose to not repeat these patterns with our own children or project our own needs, wants and desires onto them.
What is your go-to parenting hack?
I am not sure if this is considered “parenting” but it really helps me parent effectively…using the reminders app on my iPhone! I feel like there are 1,000 things to remember all of the time and it’s impossible to stay on top of everything. I often tell Siri to remind me of things such as when picture day is so we can lay out the clothes, order the Halloween costumes, to put in the birthday party cake order. This is not a parenting technique, but it helps lower my stress so I can be a more effective and present mom.
BIO
Justine Carino is a licensed mental health counselor, anxiety treatment specialist and host of “Thoughts from the Couch” podcast. Justine currently maintains a group private practice in New York and helps individuals and families decrease symptoms of anxiety and depression, recover from anxiety disorders, improve their relationships and set better boundaries. Justine has over 10 years of experience and uses both cognitive behavioral therapy techniques and family systems techniques when working with her clients. She also has a signature program for stressed-out working moms called “The Path to Peace.” This support group offers a step-by-step stress relief system that helps reduce anxiety, set better boundaries and create a personal mental health routine for moms trying to do it all. Justine’s advice has been featured in various media outlets such as Cosmo, The Huffington Post, News 12 Westchester and The Self-Helpless Podcast.
Find Justine:
Instagram: @_thoughtsfromthecouch_
Website: carinocounseling.com