 Do you believe you're capable of managing your food allergies or allergic conditions well? How about managing an allergic reaction? How does your child feel about managing their allergies? These questions relate to your mindset, or whether you believe the qualities you possess make you capable of handling situations. People can have a fixed or growth mindset, terms coined by psychologist Carol Dweck, PhD. Think of these as the type of glasses you're wearing - the lenses with which you see things. When wearing fixed mindset glasses, you're more likely to believe that you're not able to deal with whatever you're being faced with. If you feel incapable, then you must BE incapable. With growth mindset glasses on, you're better able to envision yourself getting through roadblocks that are standing in your way in various situations. You believe that you can develop skills and learn how to deal with challenges rather than assuming that feeling incapable means that you ARE incapable of dealing with them. Many don't typically even stop to consider their automatic beliefs and how their mindset impacts feelings and actions. But it's important to do so. And it's also important to note that our mindset may change depending on situations we're in or experiences we've previously had. You may feel confident navigating some parts of life with allergies, while feeling incapable of managing the aspects that you're most fearful of. But by subscribing to a growth mindset, you're allowing yourself the ability to learn how to grow confidence, manage anxiety, and essentially handle even the hardest of situations when living with allergies. Here are 3 tips to help you develop a growth mindset:
Here's a general mindset video for teens/adults, a brief video for kids explaining mindset, and a great mindset video for parents/caregivers.  The image above serves as an example to help you explore yours or your child's food allergy-related mindset. Use it as a starting point in creating your own Mindset Matters list. [To help practice this concept, you can find the "Food Allergy Mindset Matters" worksheet in the Worksheets section]. This activity will require you to truly be honest with yourself; but by doing so, you'll be better able to build a bridge to get you from where you are now to where you want to be. It's useful for tweens, teens, and adults, and can even be adapted to use with older elementary kids (with a parent's help). It can be used for personal benefit, distributed at food allergy support group meetings, or even used during therapy sessions to process with your own therapist! Extra Weekly Challenge: Pick one allergy-related thought to try and reframe into a growth mindset-focused thought. If you're a parent, help your child use growth-mindset language - "I'm not comfortable with this, YET!" or "I'm still learning by practicing with my epi!" Want more content related to mindset? To read more about growth mindset, explore psychologist Carol Dweck's books. want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
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A common question asked in allergy support groups relates to how to move from fearing food allergies to confidently managing them. The honest answer is: It's a learning process. So let's explore that process. Once you've adjusted to life with a food allergy, you'll likely find yourself in the allergy comfort zone. It's a place filled with routine, a sense of comfort, and most likely, limited risk-taking - all of which helps keep your anxiety manageable. Since we feel safe in our comfort zone, it can feel incredibly hard to motivate yourself to leave it. So then, why would you want to leave a place that feels so comfortable just to welcomes more fear? To learn, grow, and develop food allergy confidence! Sure, it's possible to stay in the allergy comfort zone forever and there's no judgement if that's the choice you make. But what happens when we stick within these rigid walls of comfort is that we limit our ability to engage in a number of meaningful life experiences because we experience fear and discomfort even just thinking about them, never mind trying them. Therefore, let's look at the zones we move through in order to develop allergy confidence, and why its beneficial to be willing to step outside of your allergy comfort zone!  THE FEAR ZONE Yes, the fear zone is just outside of the walls of the allergy comfort zone, but reminding yourself that it's just part of the process of developing confidence is useful. Many experience increased anxiety, a lack of self-confidence, and even physical panic sensations while in the fear zone. This is understandable! When we are faced with the unknown, increased risk, and something new, it's common for anxiety and fear to increase. However, we don't have to stay in the fear zone, and we don't have to run right back to our allergy comfort zone either (as much as we may want to). By reminding yourself that fear and anxiety are normal parts of this process, it can help you feel more empowered to keep moving forward to the next zone! THE LEARNING ZONE The learning zone is where we do AND learn! It's where we develop new skills that help us move closer to feeling food allergy confidence. Yes, this means we actually have to practice these new skills - which can make us feel very uncomfortable. But by practicing new skills, you are allowing yourself to experience situations that are useful for developing new insights that will truly make a difference in your mindset about allergy management. This is crucial, because confidence is developed by building competence - or building your ability to do things effectively, such as navigating an anxiety-provoking situation. Just because we're in the learning zone doesn't mean we don't still feel fear - these stages aren't as linear as the image shows. Again, anytime we're facing the unknown, unpredictability, uncertainty, newness, and transition, it's common for increased anxiety, and if there's perceived risk associated, an increase in fear as well. But these feelings of discomfort don't always signify danger - sometimes they signify growth! THE GROWTH ZONE This is the zone we can't wait to get to! The growth zone is where we develop more confidence in our ability to navigate the feared experiences we've wanted to learn how to handle better. As a result, this often leads to decreased anxiety and fear, and essentially brings us to a new and expanded version of our allergy comfort zone! Tips to Help You Move Through The Zones: The following can help you stay committed to moving forward (rather than moving back to the allergy comfort zone) and towards growth and confidence in managing your allergies:
Final Thoughts: When we're brave enough to leave our comfort zone, and push through the fear zone into the learning zone, we allow ourselves to develop the skills that help make things feel less scary. Skills that help us assess allergy risks, logically think through scenarios, and ultimately increase our belief in ourselves. All of this then helps us develop a more empowered attitude about living with food allergies! Want more tips to help you when you're outside of your allergy comfort zone? Check out this FAC content: want more empowering allergy life tips like this emailed directly to you? subscribe to receive "food allergy counselor corner" emails!And don't forget about ALL of the FAC resources there to support you!
This content was originally shared via The Food Allergy Counselor Corner weekly email series. If you'd like more allergy life, mindset, and stress/anxiety management tips such as this, be sure to sign up to get them sent right to your inbox! And the new Allergy Counseling Zone emails will be starting in August, which are especially helpful for therapy providers and behavioral healthcare clinicians. Do any of these statements resonate with you? Or maybe they remind you of similar thoughts you've had before: "This wasn't how I expected parenting to be!" "I miss how life was before this diagnosis!" "If I could just stop being sad about these allergies, I would be fine!" The statements above signal that someone may be experiencing grief, or an intense emotional experience triggered by loss. While we typically associate grief with the loss of a loved one, the reality is that grief can show up after experiencing a variety of types of losses, including when the reality isn't what we expected or hoped for. When it comes to life with food allergies and/or allergic conditions, these are common losses that can give way to feelings of grief:
Sometimes the grief we feel after receiving an allergy diagnosis can feel like we're trapped in quicksand - the more we try to break free and leave it behind, the deeper we sink. And that grief can intensify and take hold again if we experience an allergic reaction or flare ups of our allergic conditions. We're then left to wonder how (and if) we can get our grief to go away, and if we'll ever be able to break free from the grief cycle. Here's where I'm going to introduce an alternative approach for navigating grief besides the familiar Kubler-Ross Five Stages of Grief.  Image source: WhatsYourGrief.com The "Growing Around Grief" model, developed Dr. Lois Tonkin is based on acceptance and growth. It challenges the common thought that grief needs to shrink with time and go away in order for us to move forward. Instead, the Growing Around Grief model tells us that:
Instead, we can honor this very normal response to a life-impacting change, hold it kindly, giving it the space it needs, and remind ourselves that we can learn to have a full, meaningful life even with grief still present. And how do we get ourselves there? We start by just putting one foot in front of the other each day. Literally - one step at a time - that's movement! Here's another illustration of this model. You can see that as time moves on, the grief size stays the same, but the space around it (the flower pot, which represents life) grows.  Image source: Cruse.org.uk Applied to allergy life, it might look like this:  Image credit: The Food Allergy Counselor, Inc. What if you DON'T experience grief after receiving a food allergy or allergic disease diagnosis? That's okay, too! The allergy diagnosis isn't a one-size-fits all experience, nor is the entire allergy journey. Some may not initially feel grief, and instead, feel relieved to have a diagnosis that explains what they've been dealing with. Others may feel grief hit them like a ton of bricks at the time of diagnosis. Some may experience grief at other points in life, such as when there are additional life changes. And there are some who navigate this journey without grief! When it comes to emotions, being open to and respecting all of your feelings is helpful. There's no right or wrong way to move through the emotions we may feel when dealing with allergies, so don't put rules or timelines on yours either! The key takeaways on the topic of allergy-related grief:
Remember, support is out there if you need it! Don't forget to check out the Food Allergy Counselor Directory, the Exploring Food Allergy Families podcast, the Food Allergy Behavioral Health Resource section, and the allergy-specific therapeutic worksheets. And if you're an allergy-informed therapy provider, then visit the Provider page! Don't be shy - reach out and say hi! I look forward to hearing your thoughts on this post and other FAC content.  |
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