#WFH New Year 2021 & Mental Health w/ Dr. Karen Makoff

                                   

Dr. Karen Makoff

LISTEN HERE to PODCAST w/ Dr. KAREN MAKOFF

Jupiter and Saturn Convergence
or "The Christmas Star"

The Christmas Tree before decorating

Advent Calendar this year...

Pandemic Christmas Ornaments

walking and driving around the neighborhood
Rudolph the Red Nosed Reindeer
to scale, not my yard...

Good Night 2020!!! 
Getting photos for my Holiday Greeting Card
that is still not designed yet....

Soooo.... It happened, the year 2020 ended and here we are... 2021

and still #WFH  

                                                      

                                          

And so as we look back at these months and the holidays we realize that 

we do like to be around people.  

and though we may be communicating more via text, emails, Zoom and a lot of Facebook groups

we have found that what we actually miss is IRL 

IN REAL LIFE being in a real room, with real people, experiencing real space, 

but of course the holidays that we remember best are the ones that typically didn't go as planned 

or were holidays that were not the same or the usual tradition that we had been following.

Several years ago, on Saturday Dec. 20, 2014, my two sons and their dad drove me up to LAX and I departed on a Norwegian Air jet bound for Spain via Denmark.  

And people said to me, "what????  you are going to leave your boys and husband for Christmas???"

and i said, "YES!!!"

"so that I can spend Christmas with our daughter in Europe"

Over Madrid, Spain at dawn

Alicante, Dec. 22nd, 2014

Louisiana Museum on Dec. 26th, 2014

my daughter at Kronborg (Hamlet's) Castle,
Dec 26th, 2014

 

It was different than what we usually did

AND  it was a Christmas that I would truly remember, unlike most of the Christmases and Thanksgivings for that matter, that I will not be able to differentiate between 1998 and 2008 and 2018, which became a blur and it is like: whose house did we have it at? and who was there? and what family argument occurred? 

Christmas 2000

                                                  

Which is why I found it rather humorous that people who for years were complaining about how they didn't want to "go home for the holidays to have to deal with their families" found it so difficult to be away from them, but you know.... "you really can't go home again..."

Which for the first time, I found myself in a similar predicament with this holiday as far as arguments with close family and i am pretty sure that next year will be my "Runaway Christmas" if this year's was any indication of things to come, lol!!!  Though I love them all so!!!

So anyways, what I am saying is 

Breaking Tradition is fine, Breaking Tradition is good.  

And it isn't always about it being better, but it is about exploring another part of yourself.  

Before you all think that this past #WFH Christmas was great for me, it wasn't, it was one of the worst ones ever, I am not going to bother to go through all of it so that I yet again offend those near and dear to me.  

The only pic I took on Xmas Day 2020

Holidays can be hard and they can be stressful and coming back to the reality of work can be hard and can be stressful, especially when there is no guarantee of what will happen in the next few months, because I know that some of us who are younger feel like this has been a delay in their career, and those of us who are older, feel like this:

Can we go back to the future 2020 again?

We are in stressful times and it is not that stress is not good, it is how we deal with it.  We will always have stress in our life, we are humans, we are feeling, thinking beings...

WE ARE ARCHITECTS....

Which brings us to the topic of the next #WFH post...

Mental Health and how we can deal with the #WFH going on almost ten months of it now

So, as we begin the year anew, and we are all wondering 

"how am I going to get through another few months of this????"  

I thought that I would ask my good friend Dr. Karen Makoff, who has her PhD in Psychology but most importantly she also has a graduate degree in Architecture and a degree in Fine Art and a minor in Russian Literature, to guide us through how we can manage stress.  So, how did I meet Karen?  No, I did not ask my therapist to be interviewed (though having a friend who is a therapist is really helpful) I first met Karen through another architect, Ann Sussman, who started a play group for #Archimoms when we all had our first child around June and July of 1994.  So, one of the great things, among many, about Karen is that she can speak to mental health and the psychology of spaces from the point of view of a trained architect. 

Dr. Karen Makoff is a psychologist with a private practice in Los Angeles. She has a specialty in child and adolescent psychotherapy. She has a PhD in clinical child psychology and did a fellowship in clinical child and adolescent psychotherapy. She also has a Masters in Architecture from SCI-ARC, and a master’s in Russian Language, and a BA in Russian and Soviet Studies. Currently she works as a psychologist remotely from home.

Karen Makoff, PhD

Interview w/ Dr. Karen Makoff, click here

I asked her, "how do i deal with things when i am at the end of my rope?'

Karen replied, "I think it’s important to recognize what it feels like when you are starting to get to the end of your rope so that you can stop and change directions. When we are in a heightened emotional state, the rational part of the brain shuts down and a purely emotional reaction is all you have. So if you can recognize that you’re getting emotional you’ll need to stop and take some breaths or step away until you can think again" 

                                                

                                                

                                                

All drawings and paintings by Dr. Karen Makoff

Karen's Three Classic Buildings:

Johnson Museum of Art, photo: Cornell 

Johnson Museum of Art by Pei, Cobb Freed and Partners

Salk Institute, photo: Salk Institute

          

Philips Exeter Library, photo: Reddit

So, for the first week in the New Year, I worked on projects, including my own, trying ot pick a paint color for the addition after the siding got put on. 

I spoke with the Executive Director of our AIA San Diego Chapter about the upcoming CRAN events...

And I participated in a Happy Hour for the Young Architects Winter Session that included: 

Marli Williams, EPIC facilitator who is a great facilitator and this is one of the exercises that we had 3-5 minutes to draw our Vision of New Years Eve 2022 and here it is:

Draw Your Vision of NYE 2022
Draw you in the middle
3 qualities you need to cultivate in yourself
3 qualities you want to achieve/manifest/create in yourself
3 people you want to meet/types of people  

Sooo... There's me in the middle, i didn't have my readers on so excuse the clown mouth, lol!!!  in my turtleneck and bootleg jeans and boots, I am in the center of my creativity model (I will post about that in a blog later, lol!!!)

3 Qualities: Strength, Positivity & Letting Go, 

3 things that I want to achieve/manifest/create: Website, Podcast, Housing Prototype/Development 

3 People that I want to meet/types of people: Someone to tell me it's OK, Mom type figure, Benefactors

OK People,  Let's get to work on 2021!!!