Click here to contact Joyce and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Many survivors of childhood abuse are very skilled at avoiding their feelings. You might ask why they would do this, but it actually makes a lot of sense. As a helpless child, when you are ‘trapped’ in an abusive household and were either subjected to daily or sporadic abuse, the feelings were overwhelmingly painful. You either knew that you would be constantly bombarded day-after-day with abuse and the resultant flooding of emotions, or that you would be ‘hit’ with the abuse eventually – when you least expected it, also resulting in a flooding of emotions. Eventually, children in these situations just wanted to escape the emotional pain. So they slowly began to avoid the painful emotions – both consciously and unconsciously.

Unfortunately, by the time you were an adult, this practice had became a habit. When you carry buried emotions from the past, you can end up struggling with depression and/or anxiety and have no idea why this might be. This can continue until you learn to deal with it. If this is a lifetime habit of yours, a licensed therapist can be invaluable in helping you to resolve those old painful memories and the resulting emotions. Sometimes people hold onto old feelings, because those feelings feel familiar; change is scary! To let go can feel terrifying and can sometimes cause individuals to hang onto their feelings, even though they feel miserable in doing so. While exploring these old feelings with a therapist skilled in survivor work, you can learn where the feelings originated from and why you can’t seem to let go of them. Sometimes it’s simply because you aren’t aware that there’s anything to let go of!

In the beginning, when you felt you were in danger of being abused by an adult or an older sibling, you might have felt your heart racing, your breathing might have became shallower, you probably began to sweat and/or get cold chills; a whole host of other sensations might have taken place in your body. On an emotional level, maybe you began crying, or perhaps you got angry. Maybe you cowered in fear, or begged with hope that you could persuade your abuser to leave you alone. But definitely, you experienced those physical sensations and reactions – your mind and body took notice and you took action to protect yourself. Perhaps you ran and hid. Perhaps you covered up a mess you had made so that your parent wouldn’t learn of it and punish you for the incident. Perhaps you learned to blame it on a sibling (and then suffered the resulting guilt when you saw your brother or sister being abused for something which you had actually done). Eventually though, when you learned as a child living in an abusive environment that you didn’t stand a chance of protecting yourself, you learned to shut off your feelings. You were trying to survive; perhaps figuratively and/or literally. Therefore, when a parent or other adult hurt you verbally, emotionally, physically, and/or sexually, you learned to disconnect from those overwhelming feelings since they were just too scary!

Although many are fearful as adults of getting in touch with their feelings, those feelings can actually help you to heal and to grow into a healthier adult. Feelings and emotions can play a positive role in your life, once you learn to understand them and what they are saying to you. You can learn to see your feelings and emotions as a friend, guiding you along in your life’s journey. You can now learn to trust your gut feelings and you can make much progress in doing so along with the help of a skilled therapist who understands the process. Although this is not necessarily a fast process, it is definitely worthwhile. Ironically, when you begin in therapy, you often want to continue disconnecting from these scary feelings, since this has served you well in your past. Unfortunately, in adulthood, this coping mechanism no longer works to your advantage and you must learn new ways of coping.

If you were hurt as an infant and/or toddler, you learned to be fearful and mistrustful of others. You may have gotten the message that you were unlovable or that you had to earn love from others. As adults, this can cause many problems in your adult relationships, whether with spouses, partners, co-workers, neighbors, etc. Even if you want to trust and not be fearful, those old habits are hard to get rid of, especially since they served you so well for so many years. When you were being abused as a child, you were being abandoned – whether literally or figuratively. Parents, who were not there (physically or emotionally) for their child, leave these children feeling fearful that they are unlovable, and as a result may be hurt and/or abandoned. The child gets the message that it’s unwise to count on others for getting their needs met, and to instead count only upon themselves. This message tends to live on well into one’s adult life, unless one gets proper help. This is why so many adult survivors have control issues. Ironically, adults who struggle with these issues often get into abusive adult relationships since this is what feels familiar to them. They do not consciously make this choice, but tend to be drawn into these types of relationships with others. Unless this person receives help from a therapist who understands these patterns, the pattern will often continue from relationship to relationship and the survivor will continue to suffer.

I encourage you to get help and not allow this pattern to continue in your life. There are many good therapists who can help you to overcome your obstacles, which were created from the past. You can learn more about me and the other licensed therapists in my group practice by visiting my profile and going to our website. There’s no need to continue suffering. Help is available, and you truly can experience a happier and healthier life, both emotionally and physically!

©Copyright 2010 by Joyce A. Thompson, MS, LMFT. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Joyce and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Evelyn and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

The reaction of your body to anger is very similar to the reaction of your body to fear. They are both reactions of the fight or flight part of the brain. This creates confusion for some people; you can be reacting in anger but interpret it as anxiety since your body is reacting with many of the same symptoms: sweating, trembling, tense muscles.

Anger is a powerful and difficult emotion for people who have not yet learned anger-management skills. Some people do not feel their angry feelings because they were taught that it wasn’t nice to get angry. Or perhaps they grew up afraid of someone’s anger or rage and decided to repress their own. Others get angry very easily and often. Sometimes feeling angry replaces other feelings such as fear or or sadness–more vulnerable emotions.

Marci is a 32 year old woman with two small children. She grew up in a home where her mother was dominated by an angry and volatile husband. Marci and her mother were often afraid of triggering his anger and learned how to be quiet and submissive. Her own anger scared her because it reminded her of her father’s temper. Now when she feels annoyed with one of her children she doesn’t experience annoyance; instead she experiences bodily symptoms that she interprets to be anxiety and fears that a panic attack may follow. Marci needed to learn to let herself feel her annoyance or anger and respond in a way that is appropriate to the situation. She did this by separating herself from her child for a short time, taking a few deep breaths, and asking herself what she was really feeling. It didn’t take long for her to realize it was anger and not anxiety or panic.

Mark is a 40 year old man whose relationships with his family and colleagues were often marked with tension. He would get irritable and short-tempered in situations where that response wasn’t warranted. Growing up as the eldest son in a family with three younger siblings, Mark was given lots of responsibilities around the house. His father died when he was 15 years old and his mother needed help in caring for his siblings and running the household. There wasn’t time for him to feel the grief of the loss of his father and the new burdens this created for him. He was now the “man of the family” and had to suppress his feelings and needs. As an adult the obligations of his life often felt like a burden to him and he was sullen and irritable a good part of the time. Mark was afraid to let himself feel what was going on inside him–the fear and grief created by his father’s death. In therapy, as he got in touch with these feelings, his anxiety would rise. For Mark the frequent anger was a defense against these deeply held emotions.

If you identify with either of these dynamics it would be helpful to learn what is now called “emotional intelligence”. Whether you are often anxious or angry, first calm yourself in a manner that works for you and then ask yourself what may be going on deeper inside of yourself.

©Copyright 2010 by Evelyn Goodman, Psy.D, LMFT. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Evelyn and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Emotional intelligence, or EI, is quickly becoming a more pronounced topic in the field of mental health as more professionals tune in to the benefits this personality trait can have for their clients. But EI may also be essential for professionals themselves, suggests a researcher from the University of Stavanger in Norway. The researcher has advised that as rates of depression, anxiety, and other mental health concerns climb among the population, greater attention to client emotions among general practice physicians and other health care workers may both help to identify and seek treatment for relevant issues.

Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

For the past 64 years I have been asking, “What is soul? What is spirit?” During my middle adult years I began to realize that, because I have spent my life working empathetically with people, I had become a kind of “Soul gardener” and a “Soul collector.” Most of my memories are of people, their faces, emotional stories and expressions. As I looked up the words “spirit” and “soul” I discovered that they are used interchangeably, and that the word “emotion” is an essential, fundamental part of the definition of both words. In this article I explore the characteristic of emotion in spirit or soul. I believe it is vital. Because I feel uncomfortable with an intellectually created dichotomy between the words, “feelings” and “emotions”, I use those words interchangeably.

From the time it was founded as a science, the field of psychology has been evolving. The idea that we can help people improve their emotional health through the use and changing of thoughts and behaviors has been a well documented and highly approved approach since the 1960s. The relative efficacy of cognitive behavioral therapy has been established. Throughout these years I have been asking, “What about emotions? “ Fortunately, I have not been alone.

Another question that many have asked is; “Which comes first, thoughts or emotions?” Researchers have concluded that sometimes emotions come first and sometimes thoughts come first. Readers can test this for themselves by thinking a negative or positive thought, while paying attention to the emotion they have in response. Feelings that occur in response to perceived danger are designed to help us survive and, most often, come before thoughts. Emotions often activate thoughts about the nature of the self and others.

In the field of affective neuroscience, researchers have studied emotions in animals and infants to better understand their purpose. It has been reported that even rats laugh. Readers who have pets, will be able to think of many times their pet seems to be expressing an emotion. Our personal projections will affect our interpretations of our pet’s emotions.

Human infants are born with the emotional systems of their brains relatively well developed, to ensure their survival. When an infant is born into a reasonably safe situation, with relatively healthy parents, she will be able to attach to one parent, (hopefully both) and begin a healthy process of growing physically and mentally. Those emotional systems of the brain are the place from which she can develop physically and intellectually. A baby uses her emotional system to communicate her needs with her caretakers.

The baby has the physical feeling of hunger and uses the emotional expression of crying to express her need. If the baby happens to be with a caretaker at the moment she begins to feel aware of her physical need, and if the caretaker is attuned to the baby, the caretaker might be able to recognize the baby’s facial expression before the baby cries. Our automatic facial expression of emotion communicates a great deal. That is one reason we enjoy great acting; a good actor is proficient at using the many small muscles of his face to express the emotion he has learned to feel as part of his acting ability. The best musicians feel the music as they sing or play their instrument and we can watch them feeling their feelings, as we watch the emotional expression on their faces.

Emotions/feelings are always with us. One purpose they have is to give us information; “this feels good, that feel bad.” “If I do more of this, I’ll feel better. If I do less of that, I’ll feel better.” Mankind’s attempts to renounce emotions have come from a lack of understanding of their purpose, as well as, a lack of knowledge about how to handle emotions. Because emotions in relationships can become frightening and overwhelming, many have tried to control others by telling them they have “too many” emotions or by suggesting a person who is expressing her emotions is “too emotional.” Some feel and express disgust toward another person’s expression of emotion. Unfortunately, that results in the person who is expressing her emotions feeling hurt, disvalidated, judged, criticized and shamed. Often, a person who is having these emotions will then become more emotional or try to stop having emotions altogether. Either way, the result is that the relationship between those two people has been damaged. The emotional part of one person’s spirit has been hurt.

When one person (A) tries to tell another (B) how to feel or that they are feeling too much, they (A) are attempting to exert an unrealistic amount of control over the other person (B). Attempts to control are often exerted because the first person (A) is having strong feelings in response to the other (B) person’s feeling and they (A) feel out of control, confused or afraid. If the first person (A) could learn how to cope with their feelings, it will be easier for them (A) to stay with the other person (B) as he or she communicates and copes with his or her (B) feelings. Because all human interactions involve working out conflicts of interest, everyone needs the right and freedom to feel and express her feelings. Our feelings give us the information we need to understand our needs.

Recently psychologists have become recognized the problems that have occurred from the socialization of men. As Ronald F. Lavant writes in his article, “Toward the Reconstruction of Masculinity,” (quoted in “A New Psychology of Men” edited by Ronald F. Levant and William S. Pollack 1995), “Based on clinical observations, I believe that a mild form of alexithymia is very widespread among adult men and that it results from the male emotional socialization ordeal, which requires boys to restrict the expression of their vulnerable and caring emotions and to be emotionally stoic” (239). Alexithymia is having difficulty knowing and describing one’s emotions. During the 60s and 70s feminist movement, many women made the mistake, of trying to be more like men, and less emotional. We now have the opportunity to correct that mistake.

Emotions are the energy, information, spirit and soul through which we know life. If our spirit is controlled by others who need to direct our feelings, we may lose our spirit. Emotions help us communicate our needs to others. If we turn away from others, or turn off responsive feelings we have for another, we lose relationship.

As Susan M. Johnson, EdD., has been developing and teaching her Emotionally Focused Therapy over the past thirty years, she has given us an excellent understanding of the value of emotions. She gave her theory the title “Emotionally Focused Therapy” in order to “stress emotion as a key agent of change in a field that was focused mostly on cognition and behavior.” The title also reflects “the humanistic experiential perspective of the originators of EFT and their recognition of the role of emotion in the creation of meaning.” Another reason for the title is to “reflect a view of emotion as an adaptive rapid response system that has a unique power to ‘move’ people into new ways of seeing and acting.” These quotes are from “Becoming an Emotionally Focused Couple Therapist; The Workbook” (8), by Susan M. Johnson, 2005. Ms. Johnson points out that, “The word emotion comes from the Latin word emovere, meaning to move. Emotion ‘moves us’ physically and mentally.” (260) in “The Healing Power of Emotion; Affective Neuroscience, Development, and Clinical Practice” edited by Diana Fosha, Daniel J. Siegel, Marion Solomon, 2009. So, emotions are designed to move us, create meaning and they are adaptive and healthy.

The bright, open, bouncing spirit of the emotions of joy, love, humor and happiness; understandably we wish we could enjoy those feelings as often as possible. Would it not be wonderful to be a “happy” person? And that is not a realistic goal. We cannot “be” an emotion and we need the full spectrum of emotions to live as well as possible! The deep, slow soul of feelings of sadness that come from our pain and losses. They motivate us to try to live in a manner that prevents us from having to experience them very often. Sometimes we believe our grief will drown us. Because we know how we feel, when we are hurt, we can know when another feels hurt. We can “feel” another person. The sharp, biting, nagging feeling of fear or anxiety. What is that emotion trying to motivate us to do? If we can contain it well enough to listen to it, what will we learn from it? Is there someone we need to communicate with or something we need to do? And the loud, often ripping explosion of anger! With anger comes a rush of adrenalin, which raises our level of dopamine. Anger can help us achieve a great deal, when we can contain and use that energy. If it is ignored or shut down, anger can become destructive. And at times the destructive force of anger can clear our psychic foundations to make room for another psychic structure. Anger is not inherently “bad.” It is an emotion, which, like all emotions, when it is heard, attended to, and used well, can help us make valuable changes in our lives. The spirit and energy of anger can be destructive, constructive and both.

I recently found a quote from a woman whose name is Brenda Schofield. She said, “When you can’t control the wind, adjust your sails!” Well put. When I am having a tornado of emotions, no one else can help me control them. They can adjust their sails and be with me. Sometimes, all it takes is a look of concern, a kind word or gesture. Then, I know I am not alone. And I can give this emotional connection to others. That is how we share our spirit and souls with each another. I am rich; I am grateful to have been able to develop an amazing collection of souls. And I write this in deep gratitude to those of you who have been so remarkably open in sharing your emotions, energy, spirits, and souls with me.

©Copyright 2009 by Anne Ream ATR-BC, LPC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Eileen swallows her feelings and gets tired out.
Eileen spent her forty-fifth birthday with her elderly mother who complained about the food being cold and bland. Eileen bit her tongue and tried to make something more appetizing. Her sister called to wish her a happy birthday, then made excuses as to why she couldn’t take care of their mother next weekend. Eileen was outraged that she was expected to be the dutiful child while her siblings got away with it. She ground her teeth, stuffed the indignation and continued with her chores. She was tired and didn’t want to create family tensions.

At the birthday dinner that evening Eileen heard Jasper and the kids fight. She was upset that the family bickering never took a rest. She was hurt that no one considered her feelings. She felt lonely, sad and unimportant at that moment. Fighting back tears, Eileen took a sip of water and swallowed her feelings. She stepped in and made the peace. Drained of energy and enthusiasm Eileen pretended to enjoy herself when the cake and candles arrived.

Eileen’s stuffed emotions erased her energy.
Eileen was tired and achy the next day. She wished she could just put her body down and walk away from it. She didn’t want to shop and make dinner. She didn’t want to pick up the kids from school. She didn’t want to do the laundry or take the dog for a walk. If only she could stay in bed and watch television, and never have to worry about anyone or anything else. But the dog was barking and Jasper was shouting out telling her to get estimates for the car repair.

Eileen is exhausted but her family think she is pretending.
Waking up feeling wiped out was familiar. This had been going on for a few months. Her doctor gave her tonics, supplements and vitamins but nothing helped. Her blood work came back normal and no hormonal imbalance was detected after a thorough panel of tests. Playing golf didn’t relax her like it used to. Little afternoon naps made her feel even more tired when she awoke. Even her recent vacation did nothing to restore her energy and vitality. She came back feeling like she just wanted to lie down and stay down. Her family mocked her tiredness feeling like she was putting it on.

A diagnosis of Chronic Fatigue Syndrome Shames Eileen.
The diagnosis of chronic fatigue syndrome stunned Eileen and her husband. How could she have this condition for which there was no physical cause? It just didn’t make sense that her body was suffering real exhaustion and lack of energy when every organ and system was working efficiently. Eileen felt accused of malingering. She felt ashamed to speak about her constant fatigue without having a medical reason for it. Unable to handle the implication that she was a bit ‘screwed up’ and weak, Eileen refused to join a support group. She decided to struggle on and push past the exhaustion.

Eileen is so tired she forgets things and puts her family in danger.
Eileen began forgetting things. She was making mistakes and getting easily distracted. She began to cry quietly in the car when she missed her turns, forgot to pick up her son from basketball practice and left the stove on all day when she ran out of the house in a hurry. The harder she tried to remember what jobs to do, when and in what order, the more fatigued she got. It was becoming very tough to concentrate fully on keeping everything running smoothly. Her bones ached and her muscles just didn’t want to move. She was worried about letting her family down. But she never said anything about her fears, her worries and her alarm about her errors and memory problems.

Eileen buckled under the weight of her raw unacknowledged emotions.
As a young child Eileen never dealt with her father moving out. She didn’t want to upset her mother, so she kept quiet about her sadness and anger. Eileen took care of her younger sister when her mother was working. She never spoke about her frustration and resentment that she had to be a mother substitute. Eileen held in her strong feelings of jealousy when her sister was let off doing chores because she was “the baby.” As a young adult Eileen never told anyone about the pain she felt when her first love rejected her for someone else. She kept her feelings of anger and humiliation inside, after being harassed at work. She never spoke of her disappointment when friends left her out of their group activities. She never told a soul about the guilt she felt when she declined to attend her father’s funeral.

Eileen held all her feeling in, never allowing herself a chance to process and understand her experiences. She just pushed each one down into her body and let it carry the weight. She took pride in being a soldier who fought on no matter what the circumstances.

Eileen finally deals with her emotions when her fatigue leads to serious mistakes.
So much raw emotion eventually cracked the structure housing it. The weight of Eileen’s unacknowledged emotions made her chronically fatigued. It was so huge she buckled. The suppressed feelings overflowed into other areas, affecting her memory, clarity of thinking and ability to make sound judgements. Basically Eileen collapsed under the burden of undigested emotions. When Eileen couldn’t function as she needed to and when she was scared that her memory problems could endanger herself and others, she came to therapy. She learned that feelings are normal and useful. She began to connect to all those experiences that had broken her heart. Her energy levels returned. As she found strength in expressing herself so her body regained it’s strength and vigor. Eileen is learning to talk about her feelings as she experiences them with her family and friends. There is a feeling of lightness in her muscles and bones. She plays a round of golf every morning and is volunteering at her local pre-school.

©Copyright 2009 by Jeanette Raymond, Ph.D. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Jeanette and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Being able to recognize emotional activity within others is one of the most important aspects of social interaction, and difficulties with such tasks can have a negative impact on the lives of many people, spawning interest in creating ways to help trigger recognition. Recently, a team from the York Neuroimaging Centre at the University of York used the MagnetoEncephaloGraphic, or MEG, equipment retained by the school to study electrical activity in the brains of participants. Results showed that participants were most engaged when exposed to both audio and imagery of emotions as opposed to either stimulus alone. With greater investigation, this information may help create better programs for those who have difficulty perceiving or identifying emotions in others.

There is plenty of anecdotal evidence to suggest that in general, women are better able to identify emotions than men. But until recently, it has been difficult to secure objective, meaningful findings upon which furhter research can be based. The need for such evidence has been addressed recently with the completion of a study performed at Université de Montréal. The study tested women and men for their powers of identification of fear and disgust, two important emotions in terms of psychological evolution. Using live and recorded actors, the study was able to incorporate facial movements, an aspect of emotion identification that has been absent in previous efforts. The research may help develop tools to help men improve their ability to perceive others.

Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

A few weeks ago, I spent the morning with a group of financial planners in Atlanta. It was a delicious experience . . . from the moments before my talk began, when several of the members introduced themselves and thanked me for coming to their meeting . . . through the talk, and two heart-touching demonstrations of my work with the root of people’s relationships with money . . . to the harvesting, during which many participants acknowledged they realized they knew they needed to do their own work for themselves and they knew they needed to do their own work if they were going to help their clients.*

I was moved again and again as these open, willing, courageous men and women allowed me to touch them with the truth . . . that nothing we do with our money in the here and now will create a sustaining and sustainable relationship with money . . . until we do the inner work on our relationship with money. No matter how well we budget our money; no matter how much money we save; no matter how wisely we spend; no matter how well we plan. That the only thing that will create a sustainable relationship with money is doing our own inner healing work with the root of our relationship with money . . . which inevitably leads to some other aspect of our life experience and our psyche that is calling out for healing and growth.

As part of my talk, I helped them understand . . .

Often . . . usually . . . only a small portion of our most intense feelings are here and now. The larger share of those intense, deep, raw feelings are from long ago in our childhoods. Many here and now situations will trigger the feelings from long ago that we haven’t yet healed and resolved. Some of those situations are more minor situations, like a disappointment in a relationship with someone close to us. Perhaps a friend doesn’t have time to talk with us about a difficult interaction at work. Some of those situations are major situations like 9/11, the recession, or the possibility of a pandemic flu.

When major situations like these occur, they bring up here and now feelings . . . particularly feelings of fear. But they also trigger our feelings, our fears and our terrors from early on in our lives, the ones we’ve buried and have spent great effort trying to keep buried. At every occasion when a past feeling is evoked, if we utilize that opportunity to follow the feeling for the purpose of healing, it changes us within and changes the world around us at the same time. At every occasion when a past feeling is evoked by communal events, saying ‘yes’ to that chance to heal helps change us inside and it also helps change our world, too. . . and if many of us are choosing healing all in the same period of time, related to the same event or events . . . imagine the change that can be created. The sustainable change!

When you feel something more intense than today’s situation warrants . . . It’s a signal that something from your past has been triggered. Draw a boundary between what you feel and any action you’re tempted to take. For example, if you are furious at someone for not listening to you, don’t rage at that person. Remove yourself temporarily from the situation, if you can . . . and commit firmly to allow yourself the time later to not only express these feelings in a safe, conscious, and non-destructive way for the purposes of healing…but also to explore the roots of these feelings.

Do not stop here, however. To truly heal these feelings, you must “make good” on the promise to yourself to both express and explore these feelings in a safe way. If you stop at simply removing yourself from the situation and telling yourself you will deal with it later, and if you don’t move forward to do the inner work to heal, you are simply burying the wound further by trying to “manage” or “control” it. Instead, stick to your commitment to follow the rage (or any other feeling) inside you to its original source and do the work with those feelings in a safe, conscious, purposeful way . . . on your own if you already know how and have built the capacity, or with a good, safe therapist.

Every choice you make to not hurt someone today -
Yourself or others -
For what you experienced long ago in your childhood -
Makes your world safer . . .
Makes your world and our world safer . . .
Today and in the future.

Think of this in relation to what’s occurring in our world today . . .
Imagine what must have happened in people’s lives long ago that results in their destroying property, others’ savings, and lives.
Imagine if they began making the choice to not hurt someone today for what they experienced long ago in their childhoods.

Imagine using your power to create safety -
purposefully, consciously, and with utter self responsibility.
Imagine being invested in making the change to safety
Breath by breath, step by step, yes by yes.
Imagine the safety that can be created from the inside out . . . on the inside and the outside.

*In therapy it is known that a therapist can’t take a client past where the therapist has gone in his/her healing. That is not just true of therapy. It’s also true of other life paths, for example, financial planning.

©Copyright 2009 by Judith Barr, MA, LMHC. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Judith and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

“Opposites attract” is an old quotation that has validity. People are often attracted to a partner whose emotional style differs from their own.

What is an emotional style? Personality can describe emotional style. Introverted or extroverted is one good example. Highly expressive of emotions or highly reserved is another example. Our emotional style is the result of our genetic inheritance and how our parents attached to us when we were infants. Given enough time and appropriate help we can change our emotional style if we choose.

Having an individual emotional style is fine unless a person begins to have difficulty with relationships. Relationships are vital for a fulfilling and healthy life. When an individual has difficulty developing healthy relationships, she could consider what might be going on within themselves that results in this difficulty.

At times, the problem can be the result of two people having very different emotional styles. However, since opposites do attract, it’s important for each partner to ask themselves, “I felt attracted to this person because they were so expressive (or reserved), now I feel disgusted by it, why?” The resulting answer may be to blame the other person and abdicate personal responsibility. Unfortunately blame is often what happens; one partner is perceived as, “the problem,” and that person is selected to go to therapy.

When one person gets help, they often outgrow the partner who decided they were the problem. That can be the beginning of the end of the relationship. If only one person gets help and grows, while the other remains the same, the relationship becomes unbalanced. The growing partner may feel increasingly frustrated by the stagnant partner and leave the relationship.

When both people get help, the relationship has a much better chance of surviving. When both get help, the person who is highly expressive can learn how to become more reserved, while the highly reserved person can learn how to be more expressive. Both people can work toward balancing their emotional style within themselves so they can relate to their partner using a balanced emotional style.

If one person finds that they are having continuing difficulty with relationships, they need to take a more careful look at themselves. This person needs to ask questions such as, “Why do I keep getting involved in these dysfunctional relationships?” This individual needs to take a close look at their own issues and work on them.

Differences in emotional style can be appealing, we are often attracted to someone who is quite different from us. The ability to respect and honor those differences, rather than criticizing them, is vital if the relationship is to survive and grow deeper and stronger. Every personality characteristic has its strengths and weaknesses. Respect for and appreciation of the positive aspect of a personality characteristic is vital. Being judgmental of or expressing disgust for the negative feature of that personality characteristic may result in the individual feeling hurt, confused and insecure in the relationship. Empathy and sensitivity are vital for the life of a decent relationship.

When a relationship is in its beginning stages, it is tempting to idealize the person we feel attracted to. Unfortunately, this can be highly misleading for everyone involved. No one is perfect, every one has many flaws.

When we are attracted to someone because they have a personality characteristic that is opposite ours, it is helpful to recognize that we do have that characteristic within ourselves. We may not have found it yet, we may not have learned how to use it yet, but it is there.

A persons emotional growth is their responsibility. If one partner suggests that the other partner is “the problem” and must get help, their part of the problem is missing. A relationship problem rests on two sets of shoulders, in two minds and hearts. If a relationship is going to grow beyond a problem, each partner must work on themselves. Each partner must remember the positive aspects of their partner’s emotional style and find that within themselves. If the partner with a reserved emotional style can find the expressive aspect of themselves, they can use it to help themselves become more balanced. The partner with the expressive style can find the reserved part of themselves to become more balanced.

Opposites attract then repel one another. It is working through the more difficult times of the relationship that helps us grow.

©Copyright 2009 by Anne Ream ATR-BC, LPC All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

For many years, I felt uncomfortable when someone started talking about another person’s “attitude.” It always seemed as if the speaker was simply angry and wanted to make the other person change, often using their own negative attitude. When the angry party exploded with “I don’t like your attitude,” it was as if they fully expected the other person to magically manifest a better one. This did not make sense to me. As a result, I’ve done a lot of thinking about what an attitude really is.

In the course of cognitive behavioral studies I’ve learned that when it comes to the concept of an “attitude,” there are a number of factors involved. The first is a situation, the second is a collection of thoughts a person has about that situation, the third is a collection of feelings surrounding the situation, and the fourth is comprised of behaviors that result from these thoughts and feelings. Based on these factors, I asked the question “what part of the equation is an attitude?”. It’s not the situation, nor is it a thought or a feeling, so it must have something to do with behavior. Indeed, an attitude is a set of small behaviors. An attitude is comprised of facial expressions, tone of voice, and body language, all of which express an individual’s thoughts and feelings.

The problem is that no one can simply tell someone else to change their attitude and expect it to happen. Either the situation has to be changed or the people involved need to change their thoughts and feelings, which are the source of behaviors. Sometimes we can change the situation and negative attitudes will disappear. But usually, we have to change our thoughts and feelings. And each individual must do this for their own self — no one can accomplish it for another person. Of course, changing our thoughts and feelings is a lot easier said than done. Feelings seem to simply exist and they give us important information. Feelings rise up inside according to what is going on around and within us. There is no such thing as a “wrong” or “bad” feeling; everyone has a right to their own emotions.

However, our thoughts influence our feelings, and can be modified to create happier, healthier behaviors. If somebody is approaching me with an angry look on their face and I think, “Wow, they are angry at me,” I will probably feel afraid, processing the important information and creating anxiety or aggression as a result. If, on the other hand, my thoughts lead to such points as, “I wonder what they are angry about,” I will probably feel less afraid and more curious. Therefore my behaviors and attitude will be different than those originating from an anxious or aggressive thought process. How I think affects my feelings and my behaviors.

All of that seems straightforward and simple. Situations usually are much more complex and involve long relationships, such as those between partners or parents and their children. The most important thing for everyone to be aware of is that the only person we have direct control over is our own self. The main attitude to work on is our own. Although we can influence another person’s attitude, we cannot really change it. Changing an attitude is the right and responsibility of the owner. This is an individual’s power.

©Copyright 2008 by Anne Ream ATR-BC, LPC All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Anne and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Barbi and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Before I received training in marriage and family therapy, I was extremely blaming and critical of my husband. I truly believed everything that I felt was all his fault.

Through my schooling, I learned that I needed to take a look at what was being triggered in me when he did certain things. So if he went golfing and surfing for a few hours on the weekend, all I could see was how he was depriving me of attention and his time, and not how enjoyable and nourishing these activities were for him. And I certainly didn’t see that maybe I needed to get some outside activities of my own!

And since I was completely CERTAIN that he shouldn’t be depriving me of his time and attention like that, I felt very justified in saying such things as, “You never want to spend time with me,” or “You care about your hobbies more than me,” or “You are a huge jerk!” I had no idea that this sort of blaming and attacking only triggered him to feel like a bad husband and made him shut down. So when he got quiet or defensive or needed to get away from me, that just confirmed what I already thought I knew, which was that he just didn’t really care about me.

I finally realized that I needed to look at myself and why I immediately jumped to the conclusion that he didn’t care just because he had some hobbies that didn’t include me. I was finally able to see that what was being triggered in me was a deep down, unconscious fear that I was unlovable. On a conscious level, I did not know that this was a fear that I had. If anyone asked me, I would have insisted that I felt just fine about my lovability, thank you very much. It’s hard to know what is lurking below the surface of our consciousness.

Every time he inadvertently triggered that fear in me, my anxiety went up, and I literally went into flight or fight mode. I saw his hobbies as a huge threat to our relationship, and hence to my ultimate survival, so my options were to fight it out or get the heck out of there. I chose to fight which led me to attack him and let him know in all sorts of ways exactly how he was failing me as a partner. This sent him into fight or flight also, but he usually chose to flee. And as I mentioned before, as he became distant, I took this as further confirmation that he didn’t love me, instead of looking at how my attack was affecting him.

Once I learned that I needed to take responsibility for how I was being triggered, I realized that it was also my job to get a hold of myself and let him in on my experience. I found it EXTREMELY difficult to confide that I felt unlovable and that his extracurricular activities seemed to confirm that I was not cared about. So I started off slowly. I told him I learned in school that when I was angry and critical, even though he experienced me as scary and could only see my rage, I was probably actually feeling hurt. Not wanting to be vulnerable, I found it much more protective to get angry than to expose hurt. But since this was damaging my relationship, I decided that I had to be brave, and trust my husband to help me with my fears, and try to confide what was happening for me, instead of blaming. He was much better able to handle a sad wife, than a scary, threatening one!

I asked him to help me confide in him. We made a deal that when I began to get angry, he would ask me if I had been hurt in some way. When he remembered to do this, I saw that he was open to listening, which made me feel cared about. This helped me with my responsibility to let him know how I had been triggered or to tell him about any other resentments I might be holding onto that I hadn’t yet confided.

With some practice, I became able to confide in him my insecurities and hurts, and he helped me deal with them by validating my fears and letting me know that I was loved and cared about. We have become so good at this that we can usually skip the step of my anger, and go right into confiding.

Today, there is absolutely no blame or criticism in our relationship. He rarely triggers me, even though he is still a golf and surfing fanatic. And I rarely scare him anymore with my angry rants. I really believed, as I think many women do, that he really didn’t care. Because my husband seemed so stoic at times, and because he tended to shut down when attacked in a blaming and critical way, he seemed really unaffected by everything. I didn’t realize how demoralized he was becoming by my criticism and how scary my anger was to him.

On his end, he chose not to confide in me about how my behavior was affecting him. He took the avoiding route. He pretended that everything was fine on his end when it wasn’t. So I assumed he was happy with the relationship, and had no complaints. Instead, he was too scared of me to let me in on his own struggles! He essentially turned me into a stranger and his needs were unknown to me. Therefore, they weren’t getting met and he was building up some resentment and I had no idea. I thought I was perfect in the relationship!

I have made it my personal mission to help couples have more confiding conversations and less blaming and avoiding ones. I know from personal experience that it’s difficult to look at ourselves and our stuff and to accept that it’s our job to take responsibility for our feelings. It’s easier to lash out with anger and blame or to shut down. But if we don’t figure out how to do this, we will destroy our relationships. The resentment builds until you feel like you don’t even like each other anymore. Rarely do people understand that it’s not that they are with the wrong person or that they just woke up one day and realized they don’t like each other all of a sudden. More often, it’s that they have let so much resentment build up that have become so contemptful of each other that having a loving, secure relationship is virtually impossible.

The best thing we can do is to not let resentment build. As adults, we need to take responsibility for our thoughts, feelings, experience, needs, and fears and let our partners in on them by confiding them as they come up (not a week, or month or years later). If we try to blame our partner for them, we turn him/her into our enemy and make it less emotionally safe in the relationship. If we try to avoid them, we become strangers to each other and have no intimacy. The sense of being unknown by the person who is supposed to love you the most is very demoralizing. This will most certainly build resentment and create a gap in your relationship.

When we don’t know what we are doing in relationships–and let’s face it–most of us don’t, we set ourselves up to be rewounded by our childhood stuff, instead of being healed, which ideally relationships can do. When we don’t know that we are becoming angry or scared because our partner is brushing up against a raw spot from a past experience, we really believe they are to blame for our hurt feelings or our rage. We need to understand that we all have raw spots, we all have childhood wounds and triggers, and if we don’t give our relationship the opportunity to help these wounds heal, we will set ourselves up to continually feel just like we did when we were 5, or 10, or 16, or 25 when we didn’t get everything that we needed in relationships. When that happens, we will feel as powerless as we did back then. We need to take our power back, and confide our authentic thoughts and feelings, especially the really painful ones.

So remember, it really IS difficult for most of us to say, “Hey, I feel hurt and lonely and unsure of how much I am loved in this relationship.” That is confiding. Your partner will likely be open to talking to you about this and helping you deal with it. You will turn your partner into your ally and gain intimacy.

It’s easier to say, “You don’t care about me, you only care about yourself and your hobbies” (or friends, work etc). That is blaming and mindreading and jumping to conclusions. It’s likely your partner may feel attacked and become defensive. Then you will not be heard or validated and you really will feel unloved and uncared about.

It’s even easier to say, “You are a real jerk!” (or worse). This is a full on attack of your partner’s character and completely off the topic of their behavior (spending lots of time on hobbies). In this case, your partner will most certainly feel attacked and will either fight back or shut down (again, this is basic fight or flight). An alternative is to strike a deal like my husband and I did, where he understands that you somehow got triggered and are feeling unloved or not important to him, and he can help soothe you.

So don’t take the easy way out. Make your relationship more important than your resentment. Make your relationship more important than your fear of being exposed. Take a risk, but ask your partner for their help. If you let your partner know that when you get angry, you might actually be really sad underneath that, and he/she doesn’t know how to make it safe for you to risk exposing your deepest insecurities, you may want to see a marriage and family therapist who can help you both with this. It is difficult to do at first, but with some practice, your relationship will become the safe haven that it is meant to be and not a place of rewounding.

©Copyright 2008 by Barbi Pecenco, MA. All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Barbi and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

Click here to contact Debra and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

From birth onward we begin the enduring act of maturing and experientially processing interaction. At birth our emotions are open and vulnerable but most importantly we are present and living in the moment. A baby instinctively cries without delay when sensing hunger, dampness from a dirty bottom, or generalized pain and discomfort.

As we mature our emotions are woven into our personal filters that evolve from our internal and external exchanges that take place in our lives. This offers much in the way of an explanation as to how our filters develop and how our internal emotions are harnessed in an effort to welcome life or yoked to keep them at arms length. Early on, if we learn trust and consistency our fragile, developing egos are comforted and eased by knowing that our needs will be met. The silent message delivered is safety and trust. In the absence of such nurturance we may learn to distrust or expect disappointment. Hence our core emotion of fear becomes ever present and accounted for by expected let-downs or anticipated wrongs to be brought against us….

Our identified core feelings consist of: joy, pain, fear, loneliness, anger, guilt, and shame.
It is ironic to think that the most basic of emotional elements are at the heart of what many of us choose to disregard and suppress in an attempt to “be happy.” And yet, not one of us
could say that we are emotionally alive without the presence of such.

Years ago, as I began my own therapeutic and spiritual journey, I realized that the only emotion to which I could relate was anger. In fact, back then, had the therapist not brought the other emotions into the human equation, I would not have known they existed.

It is often stated that our lives are defined not so much by days, weeks, or years, but by the collective consciousness of our memories. Those memories are further defined by our filters which grew out of our emotions. How we emotionally developed over time defines who we were and who we became up until this moment. Whether we have been holding back the possibilities of our lives or beckoning them closer stems from how we learned to view life. Did we learn that the world was unsafe and therefore a place to be feared? Or did we learn that the uncertainty offered up in the world created an opportunity from which we could experience growth and excitement?

Our personal filters keep out what we are not willing or able to experience. Our filters may shield out the unsafe and uncomfortable but, is it more a question of our really being unsafe or that we’re afraid to find out? Are we really uncomfortable or are we scared to go beyond the known? And, if it is our previously learned experiences that taught us fear, why not allow ourselves to relearn how to experience joy and embrace life instead of keeping it at arms length hidden behind a wall of fear?

Remember these filters began developing before our conscious awareness could catch up and what we came to learn helped define who we were not who we still want to become. Ask yourself. Am I numb to my feelings and open to the gifts of my emotions or am I comfortable in my life as is without the potential for change and growth?

If we allow ourselves to feel our emotions then new experiences can become the harnessed potential to perceive and live life differently. Paying conscious attention to our feelings can be hard for people who have learned in childhood that their needs won’t be met, that their feelings don’t count, or worse yet, that they will be betrayed or ignored. Memories of past experiences can intrude into our current life and before we are even aware, we’ve tuned out any feelings so as to avoid new, potential pain—and in turn growth.

Our past responses to our emotions may have served as adaptive tools with which we survived intolerant situations but those adaptive measures now hold us ransom within ourselves. And, when we choose to become mindful of our emotions then we expand the horizons of potentiality and present ourselves the gifts of our emotional experience.

Years ago I remember a conversation I had with an airline pilot. Having flown on a regular basis for business purposes I wanted to talk with a pilot to calm my fears regarding flying. Having eyed an unsuspecting pilot, I approached him and commented that I had many “bad flights” due to turbulence and I inquired as to what I could do about it. At that moment he said that he seldom had a “bad flight” if ever at all. To that I questioned just how that could be given that he flies more often than I, and therefore, statistically speaking, would be subject to more “bad flights”. With a smile he replied that all flights, for him, are good. The fact that there exists rough air currents and turbulence was, to him, of little to no consequence. He was clearly not afraid to ride the air currents, embrace life and turn eagerly toward the unknown. I began to think that I too, could learn to confront and embrace my fears and enjoy a different kind of ride. With those words of wisdom he sauntered off. Mmm.

Today when I speak with clients about their feelings, they often describe them as being “bad”. I ask them—are their feelings bad or just unpleasant? It is then that I remind them of the gifts we receive when we are willing to experience our feelings and not shut them out.

From our joy we experience hope; from our pain we receive the gift of growth; our fear delivers the gift of wisdom; when we experience loneliness we learn to reach in and reach out; our anger delivers strength; when we are willing to embrace our guilt we learn values; and from our shame we learn humility.

In the words of Vernon Howard, “We must become acquainted with our emotional household: we must see our feelings as they actually are, not as we assume they are. This breaks their hypnotic and damaging hold on us.”

©Copyright 2007 Debra L. Kaplan, MA, LAC, LISAC
All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry. Click here to contact Debra and/or see her GoodTherapy.org Profile

With every emotional and/or physical painful experience in life, you have the opportunity to write and store knowledge about pain. You add new volumes every year. Moments of unhappiness, confusion, failure, depression, and the act of making the same mistakes over and over, all present the opportunity for you to write and store productive knowledge about pain. The problem is that most people, who continuously struggle in relationships and life, create volumes of false and misleading information about emotional pain.

Documenting knowledge about pain began from the moment you were forced out into this world from your mother’s womb and felt that sharp slap across your bottom. With this slap, you were introduced to a harsh reality of our world: it is full of painful experiences.

If you’re like most people, the word pain is viewed in negative light. It has several friends that hang around with it: hurt, ache, suffering, and agony to name a few. The origin for pains “reputation” comes from our early learning experiences with physical pain…

Remember running around barefoot? Did you ever step on a nail? In a fraction of a millisecond, the physical experience of stepping on the nail was converted into neural energy that was transmitted through your body to its final destination: your brain. Then what happened? You yelled out in distress. You jumped up and down on one foot screaming, “Ouch!” “Ayeee!” “Aaah!”. Your brain told you that you needed to immediately stop what you were doing and look at your foot. You looked at your foot and saw that there was a puncture wound that was bleeding. You ran home screaming just as fast as you could. The moment you returned home, your mom whipped out the peroxide and bandaged up your foot. Then off to the doctor you went to get that dreadful tetanus shot. Within days, the wound healed and you went on living your life. The message quickly learned: stepping on a nail hurts—pain sucks. Do everything you can to avoid stepping on a nail. Shoes are good. Pain is bad. Pain is my enemy.

Turning to the world of emotional pain, for a lot of people the learning curve for this type of pain is far slower. They step on the same “emotional” nails over and over again. They get involved, get hurt, run from pain, get involved, get hurt, run from pain . . . Instead of going to the doctor to get a shot, they come into my office asking, “What in the heck is going on with my life?”

Pain, whether physical or emotional is trying to tell you something. And that something is “YOU’VE MADE A BAD CHOICE. STOP DOING THAT!”

We experience emotional pain for the same reason that we experience physical pain: so that we can learn, grow, and become wiser individuals, which will allow us to avoid continually suffering negative consequences.

Hence, in reality, Pain is an ally and a teacher. If you want to have relationship success, you had better start listening to it. To help you rid yourself of false knowledge and pen new and productive knowledge regarding pain, I want you to think of an emotionally painful breakup from your past, one where your reaction to the situation didn’t ease the pain but caused you even more pain. How did you react to the resulting emotional pain? Did you go running for a bottle of Scotch? Did you get angry and destroy things? Did you swear to get even with the person who broke your heart? Did you blame the other person entirely for the failure of the relationship? All of these actions are attempts to run away from pain. The belief that Pain is bad and needs to be avoided help to create the thought that these actions would help to free you from the unwanted emotional pain.

Did trying to inflict pain on the person who you believed hurt you make matters better or worse? Did getting drunk make the pain go away forever or did you numb all your feelings, good and bad, for only a short while? While you were thrashed, did you make good choices? Most importantly, did you learn anything from your painful experience? In fact, let’s be honest, most people learn very little from these types of reactions. And if you’re like many people intent on avoiding pain, you probably went out and tried to create another relationship without having learned anything new about how to create a lasting relationship. The consequence of “replace the loss” is that the next relationship fails to go the distance. How many times have you repeated this painful and useless cycle in your life?

If this all sounds familiar, I suggest taking a break from looking forward and take some time to look back. Stop seeing your emotional pain as the enemy and embrace it as an ally and teacher. Start listening to your emotional pain and try to figure out what it has been trying to teach you. Once you do, you’ll be well on your way to creating peace and tranquility in your life.

©Copyright 2007 Rod Louden, M.A., MFT
All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.

Millions of singles across the world are looking to create relationship bliss. It takes time. It requires energy. It mandates desire. A lot of people have all that. What they don’t have is a valid and reliable Roadmap to Relationship Success. Whether they’re accessing Yahoo Maps or their personal database—if the information used to create a Roadmap is faulty, they’ll end up lost. If you’re single and feeling lost, here are five easy steps that you can take toward creating your dream relationship…

Step One: Define your belief system

Ask yourself this question—what information have I built my belief system upon? If you don’t have a precise answer, it’s likely that your database is full of faulty information. Thus, the first step toward relationship bliss is to determine what were the sources of information that went into creating your roadmap. For example, if you’re a man and believe that if you rescue a woman, or if you’re a woman who believes that you need to play the role of damsel in distress, then you have based some part of your belief system on a fairy tale. Bad thing to do! Great relationships are created when two strong people work hard to create a loving and beautiful relationship. Rescuers and damsels in distress often suffer from low self-esteem. So, as you define your belief system, which includes morals and values, be on the lookout for useless knowledge that needs to be deleted and replaced with personal truths that will propel you toward creating relationship harmony and success. Create this new information from reality and personal experience, not from fairy tales, movies, and soap operas.

Step Two: Stop doing what you’ve been doing

Look back at your relationship history. Do you constantly repeat dating rituals and patterns? If jumping into bed by the third date is common practice, has this worked for you? If the answer is “No,” then why do you keep thinking that this will lead to relationship success? I’m a fan of Seinfeld. One of my favorite episodes is when George decides that since everything that he does leads to unhappiness, he will do the opposite of his natural instinct. And, it works! This, of course, is an exaggeration of what I am recommending. But try being “George” for a day—break out of your fruitless habits and try something new. If going to bars to meet people hasn’t worked, then go to a bookstore. If getting physically involved quickly hasn’t worked, then wait. Break a link in your chain of unfulfilling habits. What do you have to lose?

Step Three: Stop running from emotional pain

At a young age, we learn that pain is bad. Documenting knowledge about pain began from the moment you were forced out into this world from your mother’s womb and felt that sharp slap across your bottom. With this slap, you were introduced to a harsh reality of our world: it is full of painful experiences. With every emotional and/or physical painful experience in life, you have the opportunity to write and store knowledge about pain. You add new volumes every year. Moments of unhappiness, confusion, failure, depression, and the act of making the same mistakes over and over, all present the opportunity for you to write and store productive knowledge about pain. The problem is that most people, who continuously struggle in relationships and life, create volumes of identical information about emotional pain. They never take the time to write new lessons about pain. Instead they run off to the next relationship, crawl into a bottle, or numb themselves with drugs. Take time to learn from your emotional pain, don’t run from it—it’s telling you that you’re belief system needs to be updated and you need to make different choices. Think of your emotional pain as an ally and teacher who wants to help you create a happiness. Pain isn’t bad, it’s a necessary experience on the road of personal growth. The great news is that the further along the road you get, the chance of experiencing relationship pain diminishes.

Step Four: Don’t ignore warning signs

If you have suffered a lot of painful relationship moments, it’s likely that you ignored warning signs that danger was looming. We all want to believe that we have developed good assessment skills and that, for the most part, most human beings are loving and caring. Thus, when we see or experience a relationship moment that doesn’t quite feel right, a lot of us are inclined to brush it off or give the person the benefit of the doubt. Not a good thing to do! If a warning sign appears, don’t ignore it. Rather, play close attention and deal with it. Why spend months or even years trying to create a lasting relationship with someone who is not right for you. Do you really think that you can change them? Do you really think the behavior that led to “red alert” is an isolated incident? Don’t kid yourself. Move on and find someone who doesn’t cause you anxiety and pain.

Step Five: Love yourself first

A lot of people look to others to make them feel like a whole person. You’ve likely heard the expression, “My other half.” I use the expression, “My other whole.” If you’re looking for another person to fulfill you, good luck. Try fulfilling yourself first. Once you feel that you are an empowered individual—that will not accept any inappropriate behavior from a significant other, you are well on your way to relationship bliss. A person who loves him or herself, values him or herself and won’t tolerate anyone treating him/her poorly. Learn to be alone and happy with yourself. Then go out and look for a partner. You’ll likely find that your standards will be far higher and, with that, you’ll attract a whole “new and improved” population of prospective mates.

By incorporating these basic philosophies into your life, you’ll greatly increase the probability of finding your “soul mate.” Once you have created your new roadmap to relationship success, follow it closely. You can’t change others, you can only change yourself. Have fun making these changes and never give up. Remember, it’s the struggle that sets the stage for greatness.

©Copyright 2007 Rod Louden, LMFT
All Rights Reserved. Permission to publish granted to GoodTherapy.org. The following article was solely written and edited by the author named above. The views and opinions expressed are not necessarily shared by GoodTherapy.org. Questions or concerns about the following article can be directed to the author or posted as a comment to this blog entry.