Most women might like to believe that men fight to win their affections. However, the aggression men display toward one another often has little or nothing to do with the woman in question. According to a recent study led by Sarah E. Ainsworth of the Department of Psychology at Florida State University, men are more inclined to engage in violence to exhibit social dominance. Research has theorized that the desire for procreation motivates men to use certain behaviors to attract women. Less is known about the factors that prompt men to behave aggressively when they are faced with competition for a woman. Violence is a serious problem within intimate relationships. In social settings, violence can occur not just between two partners, but between two adversaries. Understanding why men become aggressive toward one another when they are in pursuit of a woman could help researchers design interventions and prevention strategies that target the root of the aggression.

In her study, Ainsworth enlisted male and female participants and conducted an experiment in which the men competed against other men or other women in a mating objective, and were instructed to deliver aggressive noise blasts in order to win. Another experiment gave the men an opportunity to assert dominance and control over their male rivals through nonviolent means. Ainsworth found that the men displayed more aggression—louder noise blasts—to the male adversaries than the female adversaries. In fact, when pitted against a female, the men did not show any signs of aggression. Similarly, when the men were given a method of asserting dominance over their male rivals without aggression, they chose the nonaggressive approach.

Ainsworth believes these results are clinically significant. Although the men in this study varied in age, she believes these findings demonstrate one of the causes of violence, particularly in younger men more vulnerable to impulsive behavior. “In tying male violence to its more ultimate motivational roots, the current research provides a basis for understanding—and reducing—many seemingly irrational acts of violence,” Ainsworth said. Having insight into these causes can help with the formation of treatments for violent behavior and can help men develop the skills necessary to seek out alternate methods of achieving a sense of social dominance over rivals without the use of aggressive tactics.

Reference:
Ainsworth, Sarah E., and Jon K. Maner. Sex begets violence: Mating motives, social dominance, and physical aggression in men. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology 103.5 (2012): 819-29. Print.

Corrective learning is a process that occurs when existing conceptions and beliefs are replaced by more adaptive ones. For individuals with anxiety, panic, and phobias, exposure therapy is a common form of treatment that aims to produce corrective learning.

During exposure therapy, individuals are exposed to things they fear or that threaten them. Because these situations or things are usually avoided as a result of anxiety, the theory behind exposure therapy posits that being confronted with the feared item or event in a controlled environment will allow the individual to realize that his or her fears surrounding that item or event will not be realized. It is also believed that the level of fear or anxiety that is experienced during the exposure directly predicts the level of reduction in anxiety at treatment outcome. In other words, the more fearful or anxious someone is during a session, the more he or she will be able to overcome that fear in the long run.

This theory has been tested at length. However, Alicia E. Meuret of the Department of Psychology at Southern Methodist University in Texas wanted to examine this further. In a recent study, Meuret assessed the physiological and emotional responses of 34 participants with agoraphobia and panic as they underwent either a cognitive behavioral or breathing-based exposure therapy. She found that the participants all experienced increases in panic and anxiety during the sessions, as evidenced by physiological markers and emotional responses, but that these increases did not lead to better outcomes. In fact, the more panicked and fearful the individuals were, the worse their treatment outcomes. Additionally, in contrast to existing research, Meuret found that symptom reduction during treatment did not predict treatment outcome. In other words, even if the individuals experienced spikes in treatment severity during exposure and then were able to reduce their anxiety as the session continued, this drop did not lead to better overall outcome.

It has been suggested that allowing a client to experience symptom reduction during exposure provides a sense of self-control and mastery for the client and accomplishment for the therapist. And although this may indeed be true, the reduction of symptoms after exposure does not seem necessary for treatment success. In fact, the treatment outcomes were similar for those who left sessions with symptoms that were elevated as well as with symptoms that were diminished. Meuret believes that these results contradict the theory that fear reactivity is an indicator of treatment outcome, although her study was limited by sample size and the fact most of the participants were well-educated white females. “More research is needed to examine the underlying mechanism of corrective learning during exposure across therapy types,” she said.

Reference:

1. Meuret, Alicia E., Anke Seidel, Benjamin Rosenfield, Stefan G. Hofmann, and David Rosenfield. Does fear reactivity during exposure predict panic symptom reduction? Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology 80.5 (2012): 773-85. Print.

I’ve been thinking about grief, mourning, and loss a lot lately. It shows up as a theme in my work as a psychotherapist all the time. I’ve also been studying the literature on methods of providing grief counseling and grief therapy. What I realize is that my sub-specialty in this area is not limited to working with individuals who have experienced the death of a loved one. It is more far-reaching than that. Judith Viorst wrote a wonderful book, Necessary Losses: The Loves, Illusions, Dependencies, and Impossible Expectations That All of Us Have to Give Up in Order to Grow, in the mid-1980s in which she described the losses we experience along the life cycle. It’s a must-read for people who are unfamiliar with it.

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I would venture to say that most of the work we as psychotherapists and spiritual counselors do is about coping with loss. We help our clients grieve about their losses, whether it’s loss of youth, money, job, socioeconomic status, or friends. They need to be helped to grieve the loss of hopes and dreams. They even grieve the loss of fantasies and illusions, although much of this happens unconsciously. In this case, our job as psychotherapists and counselors is to help them recognize that they are in mourning and provide tools to cope. The idea is that grief takes up a lot of psychic space in our beings, and it is only by coming to terms with our losses that we create room for the new.

The focus of this article is how many people typically grieve. The ways—which are not healthy—include:

• deny
• become anxious or depressed, or a combination of both
• engage in risk-taking behavior such as drinking excessively and driving, compulsive spending, and sexually acting out
• become an abuser, a victim, or a combination of the two
• over-eat or under-eat, and other “overs” and “unders”
• become controlling
• hoard

These are just a few of the many ways people attempt to fill the space loss creates in their psyches and spirits. With methods such as these, the loss is not completely grieved or grieved at all. The feelings may even become worse, leading to a cycle of self-harming behavior.

So what predisposes someone to engage in the self-harming and ultimately unsatisfying behavior described above? There can be many factors, including low self-esteem, a history of untreated anxiety and depression, an inability to express feelings—especially difficult ones such as anger—and the lack of a support system. There are also more complex reasons involving one’s family of origin, including trauma in early childhood and the absence of a secure connection with early caregivers.

This sense of emptiness and lack of safety makes loss intolerable rather than simply painful, and it is this inability to tolerate it that leads to the behavior described above.

In addition to these internal factors, society in general and specific cultures in particular make grieving difficult. Part of this stems from our lack of recognition of the universality of loss, i.e., as something that permeates all aspects of life and isn’t just about death. In addition, we have become a culture of short-term fixes—the “just-get-over-it-and-move-on” philosophy. This puts pressure on individuals to minimize their sense of loss.

Finally, there is the over-arching reason grief is given short shrift. It makes many, if not most, people uncomfortable because it touches unhealed grief in themselves.

Next month, I will discuss some effective and healing ways to cope with grief and loss.

When parents view their child’s “problematic” behavior, attitudes, or troubles as a reflection of them, it can be a terrible blow to the ego. For parents with positive self-feelings, anger, hurt, and disappointment can occur when they don’t see themselves reflected in their children. (“My child should be just like me.”) For parents who do not feel very good about themselves, seeing a child as being “just like me” can feel devastating. Parents who lack self-esteem often feel like their child’s problems are their fault. Their inability to differentiate themselves from their children can also result in guilt and painful feelings of responsibility that are often overstated and inaccurate. Many parents who struggle with the idea that their child is a reflection of them (for better and worse) have not separated from their children. These parents tend to feel some responsibility for their child’s situation. Most often they believe that, either in their early behavior with their children or in their biological contribution (or both), they have profoundly affected their child’s life and character.

“Peter” came to his therapy session in a rage about “Adam,” his 25-year-old son. He had just come from his son’s apartment and was disgusted about the dirt and disarray he encountered: “What is the matter with that kid? He’s such a slob. There is stuff everywhere. It feels so chaotic! I have the same feeling when I think about how he gets drunk with his friends on the weekend. He’s a mess!”

When I asked Peter what made him so angry about this, he began to express remorse about being so enraged. Choking up, he said, “I guess I’m really hurt. I feel like Adam is being disrespectful to me. He knows I hate his messes and his drinking behavior. I feel like he’s on a terrible path of disorganization and disaster. I keep asking myself, ‘How did he turn out this way?’ ”

I asked Peter what he thought about why Adam was like this. “I don’t really know,” Peter said. “But I honestly believe it’s my fault. You know I was a terrible workaholic during Adam’s first 10 years. I neglected him when he was growing up. Then I think, if I was a workaholic, will he be an alcoholic? I know I made him this way. I’m a mess of a father.” Peter was tortured by his painful feelings and disappointment that his son hadn’t turned into the ideal adult that Peter wished he could be.

Over time, as we explored Peter’s feelings, it became apparent that he put all the responsibility for the person Adam was at age 25 on himself. He found it very difficult to see Adam as a separate individual with his own reasons for behaving the way he did. Slowly, Peter was able to consider that his influence hadn’t only been negative and that he wasn’t the only influence on Adam’s development. Adam’s mother was nurturing; Adam had many friends growing up. Peter could even recall some teachers who were influential in Adam’s life. He acknowledged, for example, that a high school teacher had encouraged Adam to stay with his music, and Peter admitted that Adam was a successful musician.

“I guess I haven’t focused enough on Adam’s successes, just on the ways I see him as a failure and blame myself,” Peter said. “Sometimes I still think that maybe Adam is punishing me when he messes up in ways he knows I hate. I guess I really have to admit that it isn’t all about me. Adam is a different person from me. It’s just hard to be OK with that. But I do want to get there. I know that would be best for our relationship.”

Peter is slowly beginning to separate from Adam and experience Adam’s successes and failures as more about Adam than him. He is also beginning to take Adam’s character and behavior less personally. Giving up the idea that “it was all my fault” makes space for Peter to see Adam as a separate individual.

“Rose,” another client, began to talk about her 10-year-old daughter, “Jessica,” in our therapy sessions.  Rose was obsessed with worry that Jessica, who had learning disabilities, would never have a successful life. She said with some sadness: “Her brain is damaged. How will she ever be OK?”

“What do you mean, ‘Her brain is damaged’?” I asked.

“You know that we had her tested and she has so much trouble focusing and organizing her thoughts,” she responded.

“Yes, I know she has some learning disabilities, but seeing her as ‘a person with a damaged brain’ seems a rather extreme way of defining your daughter,” I said.

“I sort of know what you’re saying is true,” she said. “But you know I had learning disabilities as a kid. No one identified them; no one did anything about it. I still struggle at work and in my life in general with being focused and organized. I get so depressed and anxious when I forget things or don’t get stuff done like I promise my husband or my boss. I know my brain is messed up, and Jessica is just like me. Why would I think her fate is going to be any different?”

Rose had a very strong belief that biology was determining her future as well as her daughter’s. She was reluctant to consider that her daughter’s life could take a different path from hers. She had a difficult time thinking about Jessica as a separate person with her own unique characteristics. I reminded her that she and her husband had been addressing Jessica’s learning problems and getting help for her. I also pointed out that this was very different from her own experience growing up. I emphasized that there are many influences other than biology that influence a person’s development. I also asked Rose to tell me anything she could think of about Jessica’s accomplishments. We both listened to the list Rose came up with: “Great piano player, really good artist, hula-hoop champion, kind person, good swimmer, and I guess other stuff, too.” Rose reluctantly acknowledged, “Yes, I suppose her brain works OK in some ways.”

Rose and I spent a lot of time talking not only about Jessica, but also about Rose’s negative sense of self. It was harder for her to take seriously that she has her own accomplishments. It was even more difficult to consider that Jessica was like her in some ways and not others. (Rose is a terrible artist and swimmer!) Our work has centered on Rose’s struggle to experience herself in positive ways and on seeing Jessica as a separate, differentiated individual. We have also been talking about how painful it is to see your child have areas of deficit, and even worse when you feel you are the cause. Helping Rose to talk about her impaired sense of self and its development has allowed her to make distinctions between her own experience and Jessica’s. I have tried to help Rose consider that while there could be some biology at work in regard to Jessica’s learning disabilities, so much more than being “just like me” is involved in what makes Jessica who she is.

We are familiar with parents feeling great pride in how they played a role in their children’s successes. But when parents boast incessantly about their children’s accomplishments to the extent it doesn’t feel like typical parental pleasure, we typically consider them to be narcissistic. For Peter and Rose, their great dismay in what they perceived as their children’s deficits, problems, and failures was also narcissistic.

The term narcissism comes from the Greek myth of Narcissus, in which Narcissus falls in love with his own reflection in a pool. The notion of reflection is pertinent to the experiences of Peter and Rose. Rather than experiencing narcissistic pleasure, these distraught parents experienced a narcissistic wound. They couldn’t tolerate the pain of looking into the pool (i.e., at their child who also represents the parent) and seeing something that is not “beautiful” reflected back. When they looked at their children, they saw a reflection of themselves. It was intolerable that the reflection they saw was “a mess” or had a “damaged brain.” It was not “beautiful.”

These parents are responding narcissistically, and they have not differentiated themselves from their children. One has to wonder how parents, who view their children as reflections of themselves, may have influenced their child’s separation/individuation process. As parents become more aware that their beliefs that their children are or are supposed to be “just like them” are assumptions, they will be in a better position to examine those beliefs. As a result, parents will experience less pain, and their children will be helped to develop into separate, unique individuals.

A client recently described how thrilling it was to take her daughter to see the Broadway musical Annie.  She recalled that her mother took her to see it when she was a child, and it had been an indelibly wonderful experience. Now she had the pleasure of providing the same thrill for her daughter. I thought how special it was for my client to share this with her daughter and how lucky my client was that her daughter had the same feelings about the experience. It also reminded me that so many parents who want to provide what they believe to be all the right things for their children are not always met with such good feelings.

I recalled another client whose desire to recreate his delight for his son was dashed when he took him to the rodeo and was met with the response, “This is stupid.” In spite of their most nurturing and positive intentions, parents may find that their wishes and rules for their children are met with rejection. This can create painful feelings, including insult, hurt, anger, and disappointment. “Drew,” a 42-year-old client, was in a prolonged struggle with his 8-year-old daughter about piano lessons she adamantly refused to take. He told me, “When I was a kid, I refused to continue piano lessons after a few months. My parents never insisted I continue. I’m not going to let that happen to my daughter. She isn’t old enough to know what she wants or what the consequences of her actions will be.”

As Drew and I explored his feelings, it became clear that he not only felt disappointed, he felt rejected by his daughter. “It feels like she is telling me, ‘Get out of here, you don’t know what’s good for me,’ ” he said. I responded: “I can see how upset you are about this, but I wonder what it is that makes you feel so personally rejected. Is it possible that your daughter is different from you?” Drew’s first response was, “She’s my daughter and she is like me. I just know this is very important for her to do. When I was a child, I didn’t know I was making a terrible mistake. My parents should have known and pushed me to continue.”

It took a lot of talking for Drew to become aware of his many disappointments about the ways his parents had been involved in his life when he was a child. He began to consider that he might not need to protect his daughter from this disappointment. He recognized that his daughter might, like him, regret not learning the piano, but forcing her to take lessons could easily turn her away from the piano. He realized that her experience and development was and will be different from his and she is a different person with her own thoughts and feelings. After all, she has different parents than he did. The more Drew could understand his daughter’s need to differentiate from him, the easier it was not to feel so rejected and hurt.

When parents assert their desires for their children, it is not unusual for them to be met with expressions of different or opposing wants and needs. Pushing back against what parents want is a necessary part of a child’s development. For a healthy sense of self to grow, children need to differentiate from their parents and become unique, separate, individual selves. This doesn’t mean children are totally different from or always in opposition to their parents. It does mean children need to develop minds of their own. Having one’s own mind is about being able to think about your needs and wants without being overly influenced by others. Ideally, the wishes of others are considered, but ultimately one makes his or her own life choices. Obviously, the degree of autonomy for a 4-year-old differs from that of a 13-year-old and again for a 20-year-old. When children are not given the space to differentiate from their parents and don’t develop a self that is confident and strong, they will not have developed the autonomy to make life choices and get what they want as they enter full adulthood.

At age 53, “Anne” was struggling with her teenage son, “Noah.” She came to therapy expressing feelings of anger and insult from their encounters. She explained that he fought her at every turn about anything she asked of him: cleaning his room, doing household chores, getting his college applications completed.  “I don’t believe how he treats me,” she said. “He says things like, ‘Leave me alone and mind your own business.’ Is that any way to speak to your mother? I feel so hurt and insulted. Doesn’t he know I only want what’s best for him?” In great distress, Anne added, “He has become a terrible person. He is so mean and inconsiderate. He seems like a completely different person than the son I felt loved me a year ago.”

As we talked, Anne described how when she was growing up she never went against her parents. When we explored her past and present relationships, Anne began to wonder if her early experiences being compliant are related to her difficulty asserting herself as an adult. She described how difficult it is for her to disagree with her husband and how she doesn’t always feel so good about herself. She realized that it wasn’t just with her son that she felt so badly treated. “I guess I don’t feel very powerful,” she said. “I have a lot of trouble believing that what I think and feel is OK. I always followed the rules with my parents. Maybe I didn’t develop what Noah needs to do—be someone who feels OK asserting himself when there is opposition.” Many parents with teenagers experience difficult feelings in their parent-teenager relationships. For Anne, the feelings of insult and rejection were intolerable. Even worse for her was the terrible shame she felt about her negative feelings toward her son: “I’m the terrible person. Mothers shouldn’t feel this way.”

How to handle this kind of situation with teenagers is controversial. Furthermore, how any parent hears what a child says is open to interpretation and may be related to how the parent differentiated from his or her own parents. While Anne felt insulted and hurt, another parent in these circumstances might shrug and think, “When will these awful teenage years pass?” On one end of the continuum of parental response, parents might believe that a child of any age should never be permitted to say anything that is hurtful, disrespectful, or angry to a parent. At the other end of the response continuum, parents might accept any expression their child makes without intervening. An extreme example might be if a teenager said, “You’re an awful parent, you have no business having children,” and a parent made no protest about being treated that way. On this far end of the continuum, the lack of a parental response to push against doesn’t provide the child with the feeling that there is a strong parental self to separate from. If there is no other out there to individuate from, it becomes difficult for a child to develop a sense of who he or she is and the ability to be autonomous. The child is left wondering, “Who am I?” Potentially more problematic, the child may be left with a feeling of powerlessness. He or she has not been given the experience of successfully asserting his or her developing self in the world.

There is a lot of room along this continuum for parents to develop responses that feel comfortable to them while allowing some room for their children to develop their unique selves. It helps if parents let their children know what behaviors are acceptable. For instance, telling a child, “You can’t talk to me that way” is not the same as saying, “You can’t be angry at me,” or “You are hurting my feelings.”

When children respond to parents in disappointing or unacceptable ways, it is important that parents stop and consider how they will meet that response. Each situation requires thought. Sometimes, interfering with the child’s wishes or experiences provides an opportunity for the child to push back against the parent and feel a sense of his or her developing self. At other times, supporting the child’s differentiation provides the child with a sense of confidence and recognition of his or her developing self. No matter the age of the child, parents who are curious and interested in why there is disparity or opposition are communicating their openness to more than one way of behaving and/or feeling. This openness to difference helps children develop into self-confident, autonomous adults. Moreover, parents are less likely to repeat the dynamics of their own childhoods if they consider their children’s behavior from a developmental perspective. They will be in a better position to not take things so personally and will feel less hurt, insulted, or disrespected by their children.

How many relationships do you see around you that you would actually want to be in? For most of us, we can count the number on one hand. An even better question might be, “Am I in the kind of relationship I would want my own child to be in someday?” If you want to top that and move into the area of upping your chances to have an exceptional relationship, you will ask yourself, “Am I being the kind of partner I would want my child to have someday?”

As a therapist who has worked with couples for more than a decade now, I see a disturbing trend on the rise. We are settling for mediocrity in ourselves as partners while expecting our partners to be exceptional, asking more of them than we do from ourselves. If you are thinking to yourself, “Could this be me? Am I being an exceptional or mediocre partner?,” please keep reading. because there are three simple traits that genuinely happy and fulfilled couples seem to have in common. If you are looking to take your relationship to the next level, consider raising your personal standards in any of the following ways, remembering that if you want a better relationship, it begins with looking at one’s own self first and foremost.

1. Exceptional partners have a good idea about what makes it difficult to have themselves for a partner, and they feel a sense of appreciation and respect for the challenges their own personality presents for their partner. They work hard to keep these attributes in check and not let them get out of control. Mediocre partners are rather hazy about their own shortcomings as a partner but can easily enough rattle off a long list of their partner’s flaws.

It is easy enough for most people to list off a handful of traits that make it difficult to have their significant other for a partner, but when the question is turned back on oneself—”What makes it difficult to have MYSELF for a partner?”—the exceptional partner demonstrates a rare willingness to identify his or her own shortcomings and backs this up with a steady commitment to managing and keeping his or her own difficult traits and imperfections in check so that they don’t impact the partner in unfair ways.

Whenever I work with a new couple, I always eventually get to that question because it helps me understand how to best help them. The old saying, “We can see everyone but ourselves when we enter a room,” applies to relationships, too. It’s normal to not know the answer to this question, but the willingness to be open and want to know the answer is everything. As the research from the world-renowned Gottman Institute has found in Seattle, Washington, female partners in particular need to know that their opinions and feedback truly matter to their partners. This is actively demonstrated by listening with the sincere intent to understand the other’s feelings and positions and find common ground and areas for compromise and by validating your partner’s stance without necessarily agreeing with it.

2. Exceptional partners understand that while they are not responsible for their partner’s happiness, contributing to their partner’s happiness is nonetheless a top priority. Mediocre partners, in contrast, are primarily focused on their own gratification first, and while they too can be thoughtful, thoughtfulness is not a daily habit.

Years ago, I placed a beautiful canopy bed up for sale. A couple arrived to purchase it. As they dismantled the bed piece by piece, there was an attitude of playfulness and a sense of mutual joy they took in one another that was striking in its rarity. “What’s your secret?” I asked them. They shared that the secret of their successful marriage was that every morning they ask themselves, “What might I do today to let my partner feel loved?” Exceptional partners make it a habit to be exceptionally thoughtful. They seem to recognize that life is short and seek out ways on a regular basis to express their love. For these couples, love is indeed not just a feeling but an active verb.

3. Exceptional partners ask a lot of themselves and not more nor less of their partners. Mediocre partners, on the other hand, have the balance tipped in the opposite direction. They either are asking more of their partner than they are of themselves or sacrificing their needs regularly in order to serve everyone else, leading to chronic feelings of depletion and often bitterness and not feeling appreciated.

It is often said that we should ask more from ourselves than others because this is the one thing that is in our control. However, this advice has its limits when it comes to the person we spend our lifetime beside day in and day out. Exceptional partners consider themselves a work in progress and make a habit of expressing their needs and desires in a direct yet respectful way. They insist on both treating their partner well while also being treated well in return. In other words, they invest heavily in the success of the relationship and expect their partner to bring this same level of consideration and commitment.

Mediocrity in our relationships may be our conditioned norm, but we can move into the exceptional this very moment by expanding our commitment to ask more of ourselves, appreciating our partner in ever deepening ways, and becoming voluntary stewards of one another’s joy.

Related articles:
Creating the Foundation for a Healthy Relationship
9 Secrets for a Lifetime of Like, Love, and Lust
If Only My Partner Would Change, Then Everything Would Be OK

“Why are you out of bed?”
“I’m scared.”
“What are you afraid of?”
“There’s a monster under my bed!”
“There are no monsters. Go back to bed.”
“Nooooooo, I’m scared.”
Sound familiar? Almost every parent has done this. Holding a little hand, down on your hands and knees with a flashlight to prove there is nothing under the bed—unless you count the stray sock, a missing toy, and a few dust bunnies.

Your little one thinks you are a superhero. You faced the monster and saved the day, or in this case, the night. With imagination tamed, feeling safe and secure, your child falls asleep.

Imagination is an amazing thing. Children hone it to a fine art. With a towel on their shoulders and a leap from the couch, they fly!! They feed you imaginary sandwiches and wipe imaginary crumbs from your chin. They introduce you to friends only they can see. They scare themselves at bedtime. Years pass, towels are used for bathing, imaginary sandwiches and friends are forgotten. Monsters no longer hide under the bed. Reality replaces imagination.

Or does it? Many adults continue to exercise their imagination. They don’t have towels on their shoulders or imaginary friends, but they do believe in monsters created entirely with their imagination. Your child, no longer afraid of monsters, is a teenager now. You worry she doesn’t take school seriously, or her current boyfriend is a bad influence, or her college fund isn’t going to be enough. Get the picture?

Adults may not imagine monsters under the bed, but they do imagine a multitude of scenarios that would scare Freddy Krueger, and it’s socially acceptable. A vivid imagination is never questioned if the name is changed from imagination to worry. It is commonly accepted that everyone worries; it’s part of being a responsible adult. How else can you be prepared when the unthinkable happens? If you have played out the worst-case scenarios in your mind, you are ready to deal with them.

Worry is as useful for you as monsters under the bed were for your child. You make things up in your head, believe them, and scare yourself. Who will take you by the hand, shine the flashlight on your imaginary fears, and make them disappear?

Worry is using your thinking to predict the future or to continue to relive the past. Predictions rarely come true, and if they do, worry did not change the outcome. It only made you miserable before the outcome happened. How much have you changed the past by worrying about it? Unless you conquered time travel, it doesn’t work. The past is past. It doesn’t change and it doesn’t cause you pain unless you bring it into your present by thinking about it. So the monsters (worries) of the future and the past are simply you using your imagination to scare yourself. Seems a bit silly, doesn’t it?

Worry (scaring yourself with your imagination) raises your level of tension and lowers your mood. From that low state of mind you expect to find solutions to your problems. It won’t happen. High tension and low mood doesn’t make for good problem solving—ever. Recognizing that you are scaring yourself helps the worries go away. You shine the flashlight on your fears and recognize they are imaginary. From a calmer state of mind, you deal with problems as they occur rather than in the future or the past.

Related articles:
Don’t Worry – Be Happy!
Self-Soothe in Your Own Compassionate Hammock
Mindfulness Practice: Learning to Live in the Moment

Everyone occasionally has a bad case of the Mondays, but that can also go away once you start joking around with coworkers. However, what happens when you’re surrounded by negativity, people who gossip and constantly complain? If positivity is lacking in the workplace, it can be a major mood drainer. Luckily, experts do have some suggestions for conquering situations with negative coworkers. These are just some possible solutions to a negativity problem, but feel free to experiment and add your own personalized touch.

Cheryl Palmer, a certified career coach and the owner of Call to Career, said when people are placed in a negative environment, it can start to rub off on them if they don’t consciously fight against it. However, she does have a couple of tips to help workers stay positive in a potentially negative work environment:

1)    Whenever possible, surround yourself with positive people. If any of your coworkers have a positive attitude, associate yourself with them. If there are no positive people at work, then make sure you surround yourself with positive people outside of work.
2)    Physically take yourself out of that environment whenever feasible. For example, you don’t have a choice when it comes to being around negative people when you are in the office, but you can use your lunch break to get out of the office and take a breather. Going for a brief walk during your lunch break can be rejuvenating.

Workers can even attempt to bring positivity to negative coworkers, especially if they appear to be more open to changing their ways. Here are two tips for helping coworkers see their jobs in a more positive light:

1)    Focus on the positive aspects of the job and/or organization. You can usually find something positive if you look for the positive.
2)    Another way to help coworkers is to focus the conversation on positive things outside of the workplace. Instead of talking about work all the time and how bad things are, you can talk with coworkers about their families and outside interests.

Tina Tessina, a psychotherapist and author of It Ends With You: Grow Up and Out of Dysfunction, said in an email that overall negatively, especially in the workplace, can lead to worse issues.

“Negativity increases anxiety and despondency, which in turn increase stress,” Tessina said. “There are many studies that show how deleterious stress is to your health.  A negative outlook also ‘programs’ your subconscious to look for more negative things, and can easily make the situation seem gloomier than it really is.”

“When you’re complaining about what’s wrong, you’re not looking for ways to improve your situation or circumstances,” she added. “You wind up not being able to see the positive options that are there. A negative attitude can also increase the likelihood that your coworkers won’t get along. Once people start on the fault-finding path, they wind up also being negative toward each other, which creates an unpleasant, edgy atmosphere.”

She has a couple suggestions for being more positive in the workplace.

1)    Be the different voice—find something positive to say about whatever they’re complaining about; or else just ignore the negative conversation. You are not required to join in when the discussion is going downhill.
2)    No one responds well to being told what or how they should think or talk. What you can do is be the ‘Pollyanna’ in the group, searching for the positive possibilities and being a creative thinker. If you don’t follow the herd, the herd may wind up following you.

Tessina said people need to realize they have the power to take charge of their own thoughts and feelings, or they could get out of hand. This is one aspect to consider if you start giving in to negative talk at work or hear other coworkers complaining.

“Your thoughts affect your mood, and how you relate to yourself can either lift or dampen your spirits,” Tessina said. “Neuronal activity in the brain activates hormones which are synonymous with feelings. Constant self-criticism results in a ‘what’s the use’ attitude, which leads to depression. Continuous free-floating thoughts of impending doom lead to anxiety attacks. Negative self-talk creates stress.”

If you’re constantly stressed and prone to negativity, it might be a good idea to look at what types of relationships you’ve built with others, because chances are you’ve surrounded yourself with negativity and relationships that are prone to stress. It’s also beneficial to do some soul-searching and come to terms with what you want to do with your life, so that’s one less thing to become stressed about.

“What I do to help clients become aware of self-inflicted stress is first, to ask them to become aware of what they’re saying to themselves—if there is a constant stream of negativity, it will create stress—just as being followed around by someone who’s constantly carping on you would be stressful,” Tessina said.

April Ricchuito, a yoga/MST therapist, gave her suggestions in an email for combating negativity in the workplace:

1)    “Avoid taking anything personally. This was never about you; it’s about them. Set good, clear boundaries.”
2)    “Learn to meditate. Take three deep breaths and smile before responding, especially when you are irritated.”
3)    “Watch a few funny YouTube videos if you can. Share them with your coworkers.”
4)    “Look up a few office/desk yoga exercises you can do quickly and effortlessly to get grounded and relaxed.”
5)    “If you do choose to speak to coworkers about their outlooks, speak to them privately. Use ‘I’ statements to avoid sounding like you are attacking. Offer to help them: ‘Hey, I noticed you don’t seem as positive as usual. Is anything going on that I can help you with?’”

Denise Altman, the president of the Altman Initiative Group, Inc., said it’s important to find a job that you can look forward to and have passion for – work doesn’t have to be a place you drag yourself to. She also offers the following advice: “Start the day with a positive thought or mantra—post it on your screen saver or Post-it to your computer and think on that when others say negative things.”

Kathi Elster, an executive coach and business strategist at K Squared Enterprises, and coauthor of books like Working With You is Killing Me: Freeing Yourself From Emotional Traps At Work, gave a different suggestion to stay positive, even when you’re surrounded by negativity in the workplace. “Do whatever you need to in order to keep your positive mood in check. It might be talking to a friend that makes you laugh, keeping uplifting music on, surrounding yourself with the things that remind you how good life can be—photos, your favorite scents, humorous reminders, cartoons, jokes, etc.”

The word bridezilla has become an oft-used part of our lexicon, and many people who have never been married are confused by the panic and stress that seems to surround wedding planning. But a newly engaged couple quickly learns that the stress of wedding planning is not the overexaggerated fantasy of people who simply have no stress tolerance. Wedding planning is stressful for almost everyone, and yet people never stop to think about why this is. Here’s what is really going on.

Expectations vs. Reality
A wedding is a major rite of passage, and many people—especially women—have been raised to expect their wedding to be a perfect fairy tale. But nothing can be perfect, even a wedding, and the drive for perfection can be profoundly stressful and emotionally fraught. Many people use their wedding as an opportunity to take stock of their lives so far. If they can’t afford a dream wedding, they may feel like failures. Some people have a specific list of things they intended to do before they got married. No matter how unreasonable this list might have been, unfulfilled dreams can still cause stress when you’re planning a wedding.

A Stressful Engagement
The time before you get married should be one of the happiest, most romantic times in your life. Instead, many people spend this period frantically planning a wedding, stressing about finances, and fretting over guest lists. Wedding planning can cause you to pull away or turn on your future spouse, and constant planning certainly eliminates any opportunities for romantic time together. Thus some people arrive at their wedding day feeling pretty humdrum about their future marriage and pretty frustrated with the process that got them to the altar.

Finances
Disagreements about money are among the most common marital problems. When surveyed, people indicate that financial problems are one of the biggest stressors in their lives. Weddings are expensive, with the average wedding in the United States costing well over $30,000, so it’s no wonder people can be driven to a state of panic by weddings. Couples frequently must make huge sacrifices, compromise with their parents, and work extra hours to get the money to pay for their weddings, and all of this effort can take a toll.

Requests of Others
Many newlyweds report that it wasn’t the wedding planning itself that was stressful. It was the constant pressure, opinions, and criticism from other people, such as the mother who’s enraged that you’re keeping your maiden name or the father who insists on a traditional wedding ceremony. A wedding frequently puts the differences between parents and their children on full display. Many engaged couples worry about their parents making snide remarks just before their wedding, or spend the entire time they’re engaged bending over backward to please their parents, only to find out that nothing they do is enough.

Relying on Others
No matter how much you might want it to be just you and your fiancée, a wedding is a group event. From bridesmaids to florists, officiants to flower girls, you must coordinate with many people, not all of whom will be cooperative. Trying to get everyone to understand your vision for your wedding can be like herding cats. And even simple tasks such as getting your best man to finally get fitted for a tux can be extremely stressful. When people have to rely on others to get tasks done, their stress levels tend to rise. This reliance on others is made even worse by the stress most couples feel to create a perfect wedding.

So, no matter how simple you may try to keep the wedding plans, there will still be stressors that you should anticipate and plan for, just as you plan for your cake and photographer. Start thinking about the people and events that may create stress for you and your fiancé, and take steps to reduce those predictable conflicts. Acceptance of the things you can and cannot change is key, and practicing now can only help once you become a partner in a marriage.

Sources:

1. Miller, R. S. (2011). Intimate relationships. New York, NY: McGraw-Hill.
2. Reis, H. T., Rusbult, C. E. (2004). Close relationships: Key readings. New York, NY: Psychology Press.

Related articles:
The Fear of Hurting the Other and the Inhibition of Self
Embrace Conflict as a Path to Deeper Connection
Decision Making in Relationships: Three Important Values to Help you Know When to Give in or Dig in

If you have completed Codependency Workbook Exercise One, congratulations to you. Please take a moment to pat yourself on the back. You deserve it, because it must have taken a great deal of courage to write about your family history. Most people shed some tears in our therapy session when they share it with me. Then they feel very relieved.

Many people are not ready to share the letter with their family of origin right away. If you have a therapist available or a sponsor, discuss it with that person. If not, review it with a supportive, nonjudgmental friend. Before sharing this with your family, it is important that you be ready to deal with their reactions. Unless they are in recovery, most families will not be able to validate your experience. However, it is very therapeutic to put your family history on paper and share it with another person.

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Now we are ready to begin the next workbook exercise, which concerns relationships. Please make a list of the most important people in your life. This may include friends, lovers, a spouse, family members, coworkers, or a boss. Spend a few minutes thinking about each relationship. How many people on your list do you believe are dysfunctional? How many are addicts, have untreated mental illness, refuse to work, even if they are able, or have other major issues? Are you taking care of some of the people on your list? Are some of the relationships lopsided, where you do most of the giving?

You may wonder why some of your relationships are lopsided. Dysfunctional people can sense that you are a caretaker and are drawn to you. It is almost as though they can smell you. You may find yourself drawn to them as well.

Last night, I saw a married couple where the wife was unsuccessfully trying to stop her alcoholic husband from drinking. She was anxious, frustrated, and very angry. Of course she would be frustrated. She was trying to control something that she had no control over. The facts are that we are powerless over other people, places, and things. Realizing this is helpful to codependents because they can learn to let go and relax. Trying to fix others is impossible, and just upsets the fixer. It also is not helpful to the dysfunctional person. Normally addicts only get help because of the consequences of their using. If the caretaker undoes the consequences, they caretaker unknowingly helps enable the dysfunctional person to remain sick.

Since caretaking may make you miserable and help your loved one stay sick, maybe we can work on not doing it. How? You can begin to learn to set boundaries. For example, you might tell the loved one that you will no longer bail him or her out if he is arrested. You may tell him that you will no longer call in sick if he is too hung over to work. You may tell her that you will only talk with her when she is sober.

I suggest that you put your list away for at least 24 hours. Then pick the relationship that causes you the most stress. Think about a boundary that you may set and write it down. Practice telling your loved one about the boundary. He or she will probably not like it, but in the long run it will be good for both of you. Be sure that you are prepared to maintain the boundary before you set it. The first time you do this, you are taking a major step in your recovery. Be sure to spend some time with someone who will support you setting a boundary.

I was thinking about the phrase, “Food is love”; thinking about how this idea came to be. I often hear people say that food is a means by which their mothers or grandmothers expressed their love for family members. Sometimes their stories conjure images of warm kitchens filled with wonderful smells and family members connecting over delicious meals. But sometimes they’ll tell me things like, “She would keep putting food on my plate, even after I said I was full,” or, “It would hurt her feelings if someone didn’t eat everything she gave them.” When I hear things like this, I think not of love, but of boundary violations and invalidation of the eater’s feelings and needs.

To consider the notion of food as love, it’s important to clarify what love is. I like the definition M. Scott Peck offers in his book, The Road Less Traveled. Peck defines love not as a feeling, but as “the will to extend one’s self for the purpose of nurturing one’s own or another’s spiritual growth.” In other words, love is the willingness to go beyond our comfort zones in service of what is best for ourselves or another.

From this perspective, we see how a caregiver loving a child instills in that child the awareness of his or her own worth, value and lovableness. When we are young, we can’t feed ourselves. We are fed by our caregivers, and the act of being fed, of receiving physical nourishment from our caregivers, is entwined with receiving emotional nurturing. If, as infants, our signs of hunger are recognized and we are put to the breast or cuddled with a bottle, our caregiver gazing into our eyes, we learn from the beginnings of our lives that our needs matter, that they are being seen and heard and honored and that someone is looking out for us. The relationship between feeder and eater is tender and sweet. Our caregivers are feeding us, whether or not it’s convenient for them, because we need nourishment and our needs matter. Being fed is an act of being loved.

As we grow, we learn words for the experiences of hunger and fullness. The transaction between child and caregiver is a dance that shapes our awareness of being seen and heard. If we say we are hungry, and then we are fed or are gently told that dinner will be soon and we’re given a snack to tide us over, and if we say we are full and are validated in stopping eating, our trust in our perceptions is strengthened. If we are made to wait until mealtime regardless of how hungry we are, or if we are told to clean our plates even after we are full, we can construe that our internal experiences of hunger or fullness are wrong, unimportant, or even nonexistent.

If we are raised by someone who uses food to express her caring for us (and I say “her” because it’s usually a woman in this role) by feeding us without regard for how much food we actually need, it can become easy to confuse the overriding of our bodies’ signals that we are full with being loved. We might confuse focusing on the feelings of the person feeding us rather than our own needs, with love. We may find ourselves in relationships as adults in which we subjugate our own needs to the other person’s feelings.

As we get older and become more able to fend for ourselves, we learn to feed ourselves, perhaps first with snacks, and later with meals. We develop our own internal relationships between the “feeder” part of us and the “eater” part of us. If we see eating as a relationship between these parts of self, one in which we express to ourselves the importance of our health and well-being, then the “feeder” part will be attuned to the “eater” part, noticing our hunger and attending to our nutritional needs. If eating is about soothing ourselves emotionally or molding our bodies into a certain size or shape, then the “feeder” part is operating in response to cues other than our bodies’ needs, and the “eater” part can come to desire food for reasons other than physical sustenance.

Our relationships with food offer important clues to the nature of our relationships with ourselves, and changing our relationships with food can be instrumental in changing our relationships with ourselves. Feeding ourselves as a nurturing parent would a child, honoring our needs for nutrition with compassion, attending to both our emotional needs for comfort and soothing and our physical needs for nourishment, can communicate to ourselves that we deserve time, attention, and care, whether we believe it or not. And the more we do it—the more our “feeder” parts tend to our “eater” parts in this way—the more we’ll believe it.  If food is love, then eating is the most important thing we do.

Unresolved conflict about money can be a major factor in a couple’s decision to get a divorce. Learning to communicate effectively about money may be the best solution.

The ability to face, handle, and resolve conflict is a skill. Unfortunately it is usually not a skill we are taught in school. What we do learn about conflict, for better or worse, comes from observing how conflict was handled in our families growing up.

Some people may have grown up in homes where conflict was hidden; peace at all costs. No one dared take it on or discuss it. Differences lay silent for years. Conflict was swept under the rug and its existence denied. It may have been a quiet home, but there wasn’t deep and genuine closeness. Others may have experienced the opposite—a home where conflict reigned as king. Chronic conflict may have been driven by one or both parents. Maybe there were episodes of yelling, fighting, or sarcasm in which nothing was ever resolved and tension filled the air. Somewhere in between, there may have been homes where occasional fights occurred with raised voices, but parents made a consistent effort to come back and talk calmly about issues so they could come to a resolution, apologize, and make up.

What Did You Learn About Managing Conflict?

[fat_widget_relationships_right]Education about financial matters can be scant or non-existent. I recall learning how to write checks and balance a checkbook in high school; but learning about income, debt, what it costs to buy a home or raise children, how to budget, why saving is so important, how a 401K or a Roth IRA works, the difference between a bond and a mutual fund, how to diversify a portfolio, or how to make financial decisions were all gaps in my education. Now combine two people—who were raised with different money values and experiences—into a marriage. Can you see why trying to communicate about and handle money differences can wreak havoc on a marriage?

What emotions do you feel about money?
What did you learn about handling finances?
How about your partner?

Our seven tips to resolving money conflict is a method we have used ourselves and with couples in Couple to Couple Coaching©. Conflict resolution is a skill anyone can learn. You and your partner can practice this, and then teach it to your kids.

1. Take it on together – Face and embrace conflict around money; do not avoid it or endlessly argue and fight about it. Carve out some quiet time for the two of you to talk without interruption, even if you have to hire a babysitter. Agree that during the discussion you will remember that this is not about who is right and who is wrong, but about two people with different points of view coming to a consensus.

Don’t put a conflict between the two of you; put the problem on the chalkboard and solve it as a team.

2. Check your emotions – Money can be a highly charged issue. Agree that one of you will speak at a time. Use “I” statements so you own your point of view. While one person is speaking, the other person must listen for understanding, not for developing their response back. Listen deeply until you understand your partner’s point of view so well that you could defend them in court, even if you don’t agree with it. If the conversation heats up even a little, agree that you will stop talking for the moment.

If you get emotionally hijacked during conflict, separate to soothe your own emotions; then come back to continue the discussion.

3. Get the facts – When couples come in with money conflicts, we often find that only one of them really knows what is going on financially, or that the two of them have never sat down together and looked at the numbers. How much income comes in? What are the fixed and variable expenses? Get your financial facts in order. If you don’t know how, agree to go to a financial adviser or your accountant to get this information.

Part of the solution to money conflict may lie with the numbers; imagine your home is a family business and do a Profit & Loss statement.

4. Explore “who owns the money” – Most couples we have seen don’t have equal income. Maybe one partner is staying home with the kids and earns no income, or two partners earn substantially different amounts of income. What we see in practice is the one who earns the greater income or the sole income feels entitled to decide how the money is spent. Often, the one who earns less or no money feels deterred from spending the partner’s money. Here is how we look at it:

If you truly believe that the investment and synthesis of innumerable tasks is what creates a family—child care, shopping, doing laundry, cleaning, paying bills, managing finances, scheduling doctors appointments, making money—then it follows that return on investment, including income, belongs to the couple as equal partners.

5. Look for deeper meaning – Often, disagreements about money are not really what they seem. Each of us have very different feelings about money. Have a conversation with your partner about what positive and/or negative feelings money brings up for you. Here is a list to get you started:

• Afraid
• Angry
• Sad
• Jealous
• Worried
• Deprived
• Inadequate
• Unworthy
• Overwhelmed
• Incompetent
• Depressed
• Anxious
• Frustrated
• Shameful
• Guilty
• Embarrassed
• Cheerful
• Excited
• Comfortable
• Hopeful
• Loving
• Secure
• Joyful
• Elated
• Fortunate
• Happy
• Safe
• Proud
• Grateful
• Satisfied
• Deserving
• Confident

Conflict over money can be a metaphor for a deeper struggle. Talk with your partner about what money may represent to each of you based on your experience with money in the past. Here are some possibilities:

• Survival
• Autonomy
• Security
• Self-Esteem
• Control
• Influence
• Dependence
• Freedom
• Trust
• Pleasure
• Love
• Status
• Prestige
• Power
• Independence
• Abundance
• Scarcity

It is easier to have understanding and empathy for our partner’s point of view if we understand what money represents to our partner.

Our feelings about money can be understood if we look at our money history. Don’t make your partner wrong for having his or her feelings.

6. Create consensus – Couples will never agree on all money expenditures or savings, so there is a need to compromise and come to consensus. Neither person may get it all their way, but both can live with the decision.

Money is just a means of exchange for what we value. Since value is in the eye of the beholder, there is no right or wrong purchase.

7. Agree to ongoing dialogue periodically – We live in a world where we can’t avoid dealing with money, so it is vital that couples embrace this as an ongoing issue that they need to discuss from time to time. We suggest you review your finances together at least quarterly so you learn to approach the issues of saving, spending, and investing as a team.

The way a couple handles financial conflict is a portal into the strength of their relationship. Learning to effectively communicate about money builds a couple’s “relationship muscles.”