In my therapy practice, I dedicate considerable time to helping people understand what’s happening deep inside of them, in the layers of the nervous system where the conscious mind blurs into the unconscious. This is the part of us that some therapists call the “bodymind.” Understanding the communication of the bodymind creates the ability to “talk” with our inner self: to understand what it is trying to tell us, and even to work with it in its own “language.” It is my experience that the bridging of this gap is ultimately what eliminates most symptoms.

My previous article on self-regulation explains that most symptoms that bring people to therapy are the result of, or strongly related to, difficulties in maintaining this biological balance. It’s important to be aware of this underlying process. After all, we can’t manage things if we’re not aware of them!

This article expands on our understanding of self-regulation. It’s about developing our capacity to be calm, aware, and present, even in stressful situations. For those who have genuinely struggled with this despite repeated and intense efforts, it’s time to stop blaming yourself. As it turns out, this capacity is largely biological. And although we often forget this, biology is the platform upon which social and emotional interactions play out.

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Self-regulation of the autonomic nervous system (ANS) can essentially be broken down into two opposing functions: it goes up or it goes down!

In a car, we can press the gas pedal to access more energy, or the brake pedal to slow down or stop. Similarly, the ANS has two parts, or branches: the sympathetic nervous system (SNS), which makes us go up into greater arousal, and the parasympathetic nervous system (PNS), which helps us come down into calmer, less aroused states.

Upregulation means there’s more firing of nerve cells (neurons) along a nerve pathway. So, upregulation of the SNS refers to when this “going up” branch of the nervous system is more active. This “pressing of the gas pedal” increases the amount of energy available in the body. This is why the SNS is often referred to as the “fight-or-flight” nervous system, although it can also upregulate in pleasant situations requiring more energy.

Its opposite, and the focus of this article, is downregulation. Sympathetic downregulation brings down the charge along the pathways of the SNS. At the same time, the PNS upregulates, which helps the SNS downregulate. (We will examine the important exception to this general rule in a future article.)

Both upregulation and downregulation of the SNS are biological processes that we can feel and experience happening within us. Recently, a woman I work with in therapy was able to describe the involuntary muscular tensions, unpleasant pangs, and fluttering sensations of her anxiety (upregulation). She also described the wonderful (downregulation) sensations of her body finally letting go into blissful sleep when she settles down in bed at night.

As most of us can intuit, SNS upregulation can feel terrible when it’s a response to something stressful happening. However, SNS upregulation can also feel great when it’s in response to something fun or exciting: our team scoring a touchdown, or dancing when our favorite song comes on. In contrast, SNS downregulation almost always feels soothing, calming, or relaxing.

I am focusing on SNS downregulation because it’s incompatible with states of anxiety, rage, or stress. Additionally, SNS downregulation keeps the SNS in check, so that it doesn’t “overshoot” and produce too much stress to effectively cope with a problem.

So, then, how do we encourage SNS downregulation? How do we help the body settle down into a state in which it can rest, digest, and repair? For that matter, how do we know when we’re in a downregulated state?

Well, here’s the catch. Downregulating the stress response is an acquired capacity. It’s like a muscle: you have to build it over time in order for it to be strong.

Although infants are born with the capacity for stress response (fussing, crying, etc.), their parasympathetic pathways, which help downregulate the SNS stress response, are not online at birth. This means babies can go up, but they can’t come down on their own. (They will go into a “freeze” state if ignored long enough; this looks calm, but it really isn’t.) The baby’s nervous system develops the ability to calm down through thousands and thousands of supportive, soothing interactions with caregivers. At first, the caregiver is essentially functioning as the child’s parasympathetic nervous system. The development of this “braking system” continues throughout childhood, through continued positive interactions that meet the child’s needs.

There are many situations in which a child may not receive enough soothing in order to learn to downregulate sufficiently. These situations are not always the fault of the parents. Perhaps the child’s mother had a lot of her own unmanaged anxiety, was depressed, and/or experienced posttraumatic stress. Or maybe the family lived in poverty, with constant stressors impacting everyone’s sense of safety. Perhaps someone in the family passed away or suffered a major illness, rendering them unavailable for care. Maybe the child grew up in wartime or, unbeknownst to their parents, was frequently bullied at school.

Great things happen when we are parasympathetically dominant. Our breath is full, slow, and deep. The digestive system works well. The body can focus on repair, including reduction of inflammation, tissue repair, and hormone production. Subjectively, people feel fully present and alive. Many report feeling a pleasant softness and warmth, perhaps even throughout their bodies.

It’s important to point out that disconnecting from stress is not the same as resolving (downregulating) it. Alcohol and drugs, eating disorders, exercise or sexual compulsion, or even “zoning out” on the internet may make the chronically stuck upregulation of the SNS seem to go away for a time. However, as the people I work with in the therapy room could tell you, it’s not the same as sinking into a lovely, full-body sense of calm and relaxation.

Great things happen when we are parasympathetically dominant. Our breath is full, slow, and deep. The digestive system works well. The body can focus on repair, including reduction of inflammation, tissue repair, and hormone production. Subjectively, people feel fully present and alive. Many report feeling a pleasant softness and warmth, perhaps even throughout their bodies. When the SNS is on “standby” and the PNS is more active, people have a “buffer” for stress. They have energy to get through their day, but they can stay calm and present in challenging situations.

One of my first tasks in therapy is to assess and support the person’s ability to downregulate their stress responses. After they are provoked by something, how quickly and smoothly does their system deactivate? Are they still bothered by a small aversive event hours or days afterward?

Here’s a vital point often overlooked by therapists who haven’t had sufficient training in this area: In therapy, it is essential to make sure the person has the ability to downregulate the stress response before going into highly stressful material. In other words, you should never go into material that’s overwhelming, because overwhelming inherently means it’s bigger than your capacity to deal with it. So instead of the issue resolving, more symptoms arise. The way around this is to first support the capacity for downregulation. Then, only after this “braking system” is on board, take the difficult material a small bit at a time.

If someone doesn’t have a strong enough ability to come out of the stress response, how can they develop it?

• Therapy: Working with downregulation of the stress response can be tricky, as it involves the deepest survival energies of the body. It is advisable to work with a therapist who has extensive training in this area. Remember, SNS downregulation was originally designed to come online under the guidance of another person (usually a parent) whose nervous system is well-developed.
• Relaxation: Some people benefit from seeking activities or situations that cause the relaxation response and then deliberately spending time “feeling into” the resulting good sensations in their body. However, in relaxation states, some people experience a rebound in tension, stress, or anxiety. This is called “relaxation-induced anxiety” (RIA) or, in severe cases, “relaxation-induced panic.” In my experience, people with RIA are well served by working with a trained practitioner.
• Physical exercise: Exercise is often helpful, as it tends to burn off excess SNS charge and encourage the production of endorphins. Exercise promotes good mood, self-esteem, and a sense of accomplishment.
• Meditation: There are many forms of meditation, some of which specifically aim to produce downregulated states. However, in my experience, meditation can be unhelpful for some people who have a lot of traumatic response stored in their nervous systems. In these cases, their nervous systems simply won’t cooperate, and those around them may not have the awareness or tools to work with this issue.
• Resonance: Simply put, resonance is the feeling you get from being around another person or other living being. I usually explain it by asking people to think of how they feel when they place their open palm onto the rib cage of a calm, happy dog. That feeling of warmth, relaxation, and well-being is a downregulatory feeling obtained via resonance with the dog’s nervous system. Of course, when others around us are tense, our bodies tend to pick up on that and become tense too. Thus, being around stressed, anxious, or angry people is usually the opposite of what’s needed to develop SNS downregulation.

In summary, the ability to go within and really settle oneself is developed during infancy and childhood. This capacity to downregulate stress states is important in maintaining health, relationships, and happiness. Those whose life circumstances didn’t permit development of this capacity during childhood can still develop it through awareness and work with a skilled professional.

References:

1. Dychtwald, K. (1986). Bodymind. New York, NY: Pantheon Books.
2. Hamblin, J. (2012). Relaxation-induced anxiety. The Atlantic. Retrieved from http://www.theatlantic.com/health/archive/2012/11/relaxation-induced-anxiety/265313
3. Moore, M., Brown, D., Money, N., & Bates, M. (2011). Mind-body skills for regulating the autonomic nervous system. Defense Centers of Excellence for Psychological Health and Traumatic Brain Injury. Retrieved from http://www.dcoe.mil/content/Navigation/Documents/Mind-Body%20Skills%20for%20Regulating%20the%20Autonomic%20Nervous%20System.pdf
4. Sharma, A., Madaan, V., & Petty, F. D. (2006). Exercise for mental health. National Center for Biotechnology Information. Retrieved from https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC1470658
5. Yuan, J., McCarthy, M., Holley, S., & Levenson, R. (2010). Physiological down-regulation and positive emotion in marital interaction. UC Berkeley Information Services and Technology. Retrieved from http://www.learningace.com/doc/1047040/bc95860e894457e838c865c3b7297551/206-physio-down-regulation-and-posemo-in-couples

“Most of our troubles are due to our passionate desire for and attachment to things that we misapprehend as enduring entities.” —Dalai Lama

Attachment is inherent to our nature, as is the desire to have pleasant experiences. We are attached to feeling good, comfortable, and secure and to things we think will bring us happiness. Attachment is the emotional dependence we put on situations, objects, or people. Strong attachments come in many forms—including overindulgence in or pursuit of food and drink, sex, power, fame, even principles or ideas—and can manifest in potentially harmful ways, such as gambling and addiction.

Living without desire is unrealistic. There is nothing wrong with wanting, but when we are too attached to our desires, we risk becoming captive to them. An attachment to pleasure, for example, becomes an obstacle when it continually compels us to chase it, even when it may be unwise or unhealthy to do so. So, while pleasure is a good thing, these powerful forces—attachment and desire—can cloud our reality. Reality is always changing and includes a mix of pleasant and unpleasant experiences. When we pursue desire to the exclusion of reality, suffering can happen, and happiness may become harder to attain.

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When the fulfillment of a desire is obstructed or when what we want slips out of our grasp, it may give rise to fear and anger. Reducing our dependence on desired outcomes is critical. We can pursue our desires, but we must be able to drop them when needed. We can embrace our desires, but we must not be bound by them. Our desires should not run the show.

Controlling the Desire for Control

In our desire to control the external, we may lose control over the internal. The more we want to control things, others, or situations, the angrier we may become when things don’t turn out the way we expected. If we understand that our desire for control is the source of our anger and a hindrance to our happiness, we can change our perspective on desire. We can aspire to reduce our need to control situations or other people and accept the feelings that result from not getting what we want.

If we set our expectations as a “wish list” rather than a “need list,” we may experience less anger.

As human beings, we cannot avoid having expectations. Expectation is the gap or discrepancy between what we have and what we want. With expectation comes disappointment, which may lead to anger. By having expectations, we give power away. Accordingly, to reduce disappointment and anger, adjusting our expectations and decreasing our attachment to them is imperative. If we set our expectations as a “wish list” rather than a “need list,” we may experience less anger.

If we want to be empowered, we have to own our expectations and the choices we make as well as the feelings that result from those choices. No one can make us feel angry; our expectations lead to anger. Again, expectations are a part of life, but it is up to us as to whether we are attached to them.

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Reversing Desire and Achieving Happiness

In their book The Tools, Phil Stutz and Barry Michels describe a method to overcome or “reverse” desire. The goal is to embrace the opposite of our attachment tendency. Instead of clinging to our desire, we welcome pain so we can continue moving toward our goals. Once we accept pain, we notice that our state of feeling moves from attachment (clinging energy) to non-attachment (flowing energy), a state in which we are free and open to all experiences. This state of accepting whatever comes is, in a word, happiness.

I want to end with a word from Thich Nhat Hanh, the well-known Buddhist philosopher and peace activist. His powerful quote summarizes this article: “Letting go [of attachment, desire, and expectations] gives us freedom, and freedom is the only condition for happiness. If, in our heart, we still cling to anything—anger, anxiety, or possessions—we cannot be free.”

Reference:

Stutz, P., & Michels, B. (2013). The Tools: 5 Tools to Help You Find Courage, Creativity, and Willpower—and Inspire You to Live Life in Forward Motion. New York, NY: Spiegel & Grau.

I hear from so many men and women whose marriages and relationships are in crisis. “How did I get here?” they wonder. We all know it takes two to tango. What we may overlook is our ability to ignore warning signs. Upon further analysis of the relationship in counseling, we may wonder what messages we missed and what we can learn from them.

Take, for instance, the woman who is thinking of divorce because she found out her husband is having an affair, one of many she has recently discovered. While her husband’s behavior and choices lend evidence to his lack of respect for her, we can also find small clues along the way that she may have dismissed—red flags, if you will, signaling danger.

One night, a few years back, her husband was on the phone late at night. When she asked who he was talking to, he gave a general answer about work. She immediately felt the hairs on the back of her neck go up, and her stomach flip-flopped. She had an intuitive feeling he was not being truthful. In order to keep the peace, however, she said nothing further.

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The next time she felt that same distressing sense, he did not call her for his nightly check-in when he was on a business trip. She had already been uneasy that he was going to dinner with both female and male colleagues and having after-dinner drinks. When he didn’t call her as usual, she called him but got no answer. She texted him but got no answer. She stayed up extra late to wait for his response, but it didn’t come. A nagging feeling told her something wasn’t right, but when he came home and minimized the missed calls and texts as her “overreacting,” she felt foolish for thinking anything could be wrong with their relationship.

Another time, she found a gift of female lingerie in her husband’s gym bag. She chose to say nothing, hoping the lingerie would wind up being a surprise for her. She waited. And waited. She eventually brought it up and received a strange answer that didn’t sit well with her, nor make any sense. Yet she ignored her feeling that danger was near.

When she eventually found out he was having affairs, she exclaimed, “I knew it!”

So why do we ignore the red flags in our relationships? I think there are several answers, and all of them are complicated by love, devotion, and sacrifice.

Often, we don’t want to know the truth. We would have to change something—our lives, the place we live, our finances, perhaps even ourselves—if we found out the truth.

First, we ignore red flags because we are afraid they are telling the true, painful story. We may ask questions of our partner about their behavior and receive answers, but we leave the answers alone even if they don’t quite fit. Often, we don’t want to know the truth. We would have to change something—our lives, the place we live, our finances, perhaps even ourselves—if we found out the truth. That can simply be too exhausting to think about. Even if we are certain it’s happening, we don’t want our partner to say they are having an affair because of what that would mean for us, our families, and our lives.

Second, we ignore red flags because we think our intuition is wrong. It simply cannot be right. So we engage in denial and carry on as if nothing is wrong because it’s easier to deny than to go through the pain of conflict. Surely your beloved partner would NEVER do that to you, right? They vowed they wouldn’t. We ignore our gut feelings, signs of disconnection, inappropriate conversations, and foggy details. We assume, after hearing our partner’s explanation, that we must be “crazy” and their explanation is the complete truth. Challenging our intuition is a dangerous game because it blocks us from knowing primal truths.

Third, we ignore red flags because we have been indoctrinated to believe that marriage and committed relationships are hard work. As a couple, you are supposed to struggle and compromise, right? Marriage and relationships are indeed hard work, but they shouldn’t be so hard that you feel disrespected and at war with your own intuition.

When I ask people in counseling, “What red flags did you choose to ignore?” most often I get a puzzled expression that turns into a knowing look and then to acknowledgment. Upon reflection, most of us know what we ignored and allowed.

For a clearer picture of your relational distress, ask yourself what you are ignoring and denying. Are you brave enough to see the red flags? And finally, do you have the courage to do the arduous work of repair or healing?

I’m always happy when couples tell me they’ve been together for 30 or 40 years, even if they happen to be in my office because of a relationship issue. Like aging, relationship issues are inevitable. I like to talk with these enduring couples about what’s kept them going, kept them connected, and where they’ve struggled. I’ve learned that there are some issues that are common to long-term relationships. Some of these are related to life stages—the challenges of aging, changing, medical issues, and the like.

Growing Apart

When you’re young and newly married, it can seem like what you feel and think is going to be the way you’ll always feel and think. Then life happens—education, careers, kids. Time passes. Your focus changes and you concentrate more on outside things and less on your relationship. You get into a routine, devote your energy to simply getting done what needs done, and the playfulness and fun go out of your day-to-day interactions. You aren’t intimately connecting the way you used to.

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Fast forward 10, 12, or 15 years. All of a sudden you see your life and your life partner differently. Your giddy young love has changed into something you don’t recognize. You feel isolated, walled off, and unsure how to reach out to your partner. You’re each living your own separate life despite sharing a home. You’ve grown apart.

Life Stages and Aging

Everyone handles different life stages in their own unique way. For some, aging is a breeze, even welcomed; for others, not so much. Our self-image and feelings about our bodies can change. Sexuality and our physical abilities change. Even our identity may change.

We don’t feel the same at 45 as we did at 25. At 65, we often wish we felt like we did at 45.

Many couples are unprepared for these changes, and if they’re not talked about, they can cause partners to begin to pull away from one another. Medical issues, menopause, and physical changes can also affect our interactions with a partner.

Keeping Your Connection

So how do we deal with the issues of aging, life stages, and time in a long-term relationship? How do we keep the closeness and connection we had at the beginning? Communication is crucial.

Many couples are unprepared for these changes, and if they’re not talked about, they can cause partners to begin to pull away from one another.

Stay close with your partner by talking as best friends and confidants. Share your worries and fears about the stages of life you’re entering. Open up with each other about how things are changing in your minds and bodies.

Talk about how your relationship is changing, too. Plan together. Take time to dream about what life will be like in the future. What you will do when the kids move out? Will you travel? Take a class together? Take up a new hobby?

Be curious about your partner’s feelings about the changes that come with aging. Adapt to your changing physicality and sexuality. Focus on one another, excluding outside influences, routines, and demands. Make it about your relationship. Be in it together.

Realize that your love has many facets and you need to stay on the same page in all of them. Be vulnerable, show your partner your authentic self, and determine to never give up on yourselves as a couple. Never lose sight of the friendship, kindness, companionship, and playfulness that has allowed you to be together all these years.

Changes are inevitable, but they don’t have to change your relationship for the worse. Consciously choose to move forward together, no matter what the future may hold.

Dear GoodTherapy.org,

I figured it was time to write in with this question since I just got out of my car shaking with anger for the third time this week. I’m not sure whether my luck is worse than most when it comes to near-accidents and inconsiderate drivers on the road, whether I deal with these instances worse than most, or what.

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Obviously, I think I’m a great driver. But everyone thinks that. To me, it feels like I get cut off in traffic all the time, people honk at me when I’m doing perfectly reasonable things and obeying the law, and I’m usually very considerate when it comes to people merging, etc. But I find myself yelling at other cars and drivers multiple times a day, flipping people off, and having strong emotional reactions to other people’s behaviors on the road. I can’t arrive anywhere without feeling anxious and very angry. I’m willing to admit I dish it out, to some extent, but it still feels like the bulk of the injustice is done to me.

I know you can’t help other people (or me) become better at driving, but can you help me figure out how to get from point A to point B without seething and compromising the health and safety of myself and anyone around me? —Driving Me Mad

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Dear Driving,

Oh, so you’re the one who flipped me off yesterday?

I’m kidding. I also would agree with your assessment that, yes, most drivers (myself included) seem to think their driving is just fine and it’s all the other bozos on the road who need to get it together. You’re not the only one muttering, “Hurry up, slowpoke!” … and so on. In that sense you are not alone, especially should you live in (or ever visit) a major metropolitan area such as Los Angeles, the Bay Area, Boston, Seattle, or Washington, D.C., all with notorious commutes.

I could not presume to tell you what, exactly, is at the root of your so-called “road rage,” but I think it’s a good thing you’re addressing it. All of us get irate from time to time, but this sounds like it could be escalating and ought to be curbed somehow, lest you get so distracted you end up in an accident or an altercation with another driver. It also might be affecting your blood pressure, digestive system, and so forth. A surplus of stress always takes its toll.

One facet of your letter has to do with, to my ears, control or lack thereof. We are of course powerless over other drivers, though it’s easy to forget that when we’re sitting in our cars, in our own little bubble of comfort. It can be jarring, even scary, to sense chaos threatening that bubble, with other drivers following very different rules and protocols, or appearing to not give a damn about anyone else. Sometimes it seems every driver (except us, of course) has the attitude of “Me first, out of my way!” So it goes in the age of the selfie.

Combine this with our typical American individualism, our assumption of a right to “do things my way,” and our ever-expanding demand for speed and you get a prevailing ethos of anxious impatience and jitteriness. As one billboard for a smartphone recently declared, “It really is all about you.”

But look a little closer and I think you’ll find that anxiety, even existential dread, is a subtly unacknowledged factor behind much of this. It may sound like a stretch, but hear me out.

Driving is a quintessentially American activity, and our sense of community has shrunk so much that, in a way, our freeways and highways are some of our last shared public spaces. But we seem to have lost, in many ways, even this fleeting sense of “shared” space; all of it seems to have morphed, at least in part, into “my space.” Stop by your local Starbucks and what do you see? Everyone doing their own thing with their personalized headphones, laptops, or smartphone screens, tuning out the world. We crave a comforting bubble within which to operate, free from intrusion, the borders of which are under our control. This may be a kind of bulwark against chaos, a way of self-soothing our era’s growing uncertainty, where the rules of engagement (see our current national election) seem as undefined and disorderly as ever.

At the same time, most people I know feel enormous pressure to perform in a variety of ways: as a student, parent, worker, partner, all or some of the above. Strangely, the need for speed has only ratcheted up the pressure on expectation for faster, more. Some of us have more than one job while juggling big payments and debts. Our economy is now globally competitive. Thus our bubbles of comfort—within our cars, homes, and laptops—may become a way of soothing the terror of not being productive or inventive enough in an ever-more-fierce, demanding, chaotic world.

I’m sensing a deeper fear or resentment against having to make these hazardous journeys, without proper protection, almost like a child being sent into a school full of bullies, without anyone realizing what hazards you’re actually facing.

One senses this on the road, where there is anxiety about feeling blocked or treated as insignificant, or aggressively affronted by a stranger; one Buddhist author I admire, Chögyam Trungpa, said speed is equivalent to aggression. I might tweak that a little to say assertion, as a defense against anyone intruding on “my space,” or the equally unsettling prospect of feeling insignificant or intruded upon (“This is my road, not yours”).

Thus you might develop compassion for the situation as a whole, including your own anxiety—make space “around it,” as it were, as anxiety is basically fear. I often find the outside world becomes a reflection of our own internal state. (Pema Chödrön writes nicely about this in her books.)

Finally, there seems to be an almost childlike terror in your message, a fear of loss of control, of frightening or sudden intrusion. I don’t think one has to take a strictly Freudian interpretation toward “They cut me off!” as (literal) castration anxiety. Though perhaps there is a symbolic fear on your part along the lines of feeling disempowered, helpless, that takes the concrete form of anxious agitation and anger on the road.

My therapist’s ears perked up at the phrases “injustice” and “compromising health and safety.” My intuitive mind wants to link these two together and start to speculate on how such a compromise feels imposed upon you, whether you like it or not. I’m sensing a deeper fear or resentment against having to make these hazardous journeys, without proper protection, almost like a child being sent into a school full of bullies, without anyone realizing what hazards you’re actually facing. What, in other words, is the larger or broader emotional context of your life? It can be easier to be angry at faceless drivers than those closest to us, loved ones or family; is it possible these rude drivers (and there are many) are not the only ones you’re resenting? If this is the case, why? What is making you angry or anxious in your other situations—at home, at work, with family, and so on? (Anger is usually the “first line of defense” atop deeper emotions.)

I sense, in other words, a more personal injustice being felt by you, one that is coming out behind the wheel. You might confide in a counselor to release some of whatever angry or hurtful emotions you might possibly be sitting on, maybe communicate them to the right people to help you with whatever feels burdening or imposing. Perhaps a counselor can help you figure out what these emotions are, as sometimes we genuinely don’t know, only that they keep popping up out of nowhere.

Most of all, allow some empathic space for yourself to be human. This is a more common problem than you might think, which is why I’m so glad you wrote in. More often than not we are, for all our hyper-individualization, in the same collective boat, trying to right said boat through choppy waters. Thanks again!

Kind regards,

Darren

“In the beginner’s mind there are many possibilities, but in the expert’s there are few.” ―Shunryu Suzuki

To view life with a beginner’s mind is to look at the world through the eyes of a child. The world becomes a place that is full of curiosity and wonder. I’ve witnessed this when I watch children at play. Sometimes they are amazed, open, and playful, but at other times they may be sad, restless and cranky. Yet no matter their mood, there is almost always a willingness to start anew: they are open to the next experience.

In contrast, we as adults can be guarded and cautious with our feelings. We tend to turn away from pain, and when joy arises, we want to cling to it. This conditional way of approaching life can have a negative impact on our emotional well-being, as it tends to create a limited sense of self and a narrow view of the world.

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Look at the world through a child’s eyes.

Sit with a young child for even a few moments and your perspective on life can shift. Children look at the world with eyes of interest and fascination, drawing joy from the experience of playing in the snow or simply watching leaves being blown by the wind. They also readily feel and express all emotions. Children cry when sad, laugh when happy, express anger when disappointed or scared, and play when the opportunity presents itself. In short, they experience life fully, with few expectations or judgments about how things should or shouldn’t be.

When we put away childish things, we lose our innocence and wonder.

“We don’t have to create joy. It’s an innate quality that at times is hidden or dormant. As innocent babies we all have a natural joy. When we’re not overwhelmed by stress and suffering this natural state becomes revealed.” —James Baraz

As we move from adolescence into adulthood, we often lose our connection to our natural joy and openness, the sense of wonder we experienced as children. It’s as if somewhere along the passage to adulthood, we learned that being authentic and experiencing life fully was no longer acceptable.

When we lose our ability to be open to what’s happening, we often instead find ourselves trying to manage and control things, people, and experiences that are beyond our control. We no longer maintain a connection with the joy, vibrancy, and realness contained in every moment of life but connect instead with our thoughts about how life should be. This attempt to control is reactive and is often driven by our aversion to what is happening in our lives.

 Our ability to see life as a mixture of pain and joy allows us to experience life to its fullest extent. We learn to open to joy when it arrives, to take it in through our senses and appreciate it, with the knowledge it is a visitor that comes and goes.

By cutting off our vibrant connection to life and diving into the murky world of thoughts, judgments, anxiety, and worry, we lose access to what is healing, joyful and transformational. Sometimes, we can become stuck in this virtual world and lose sight of reality.

Coming back into balance with life.

“And could you keep your heart in wonder at the daily miracles of your life, your pain would not seem less wondrous than your joy.” —Kahlil Gibran

The truth is that life is not divided solely into sorrow and joy. Neither of these extremes reflects the reality of life. Together, they represent life as it is. Our ability to see life as a mixture of pain and joy allows us to experience life to its fullest extent. We learn to open to joy when it arrives, to take it in through our senses and appreciate it, with the knowledge that it is a visitor who comes and goes.

Eventually we learn to do the same with all other experiences and open ourselves to all feelings: sadness, anger, joy, happiness, and grief. We stay present in the face of pain and sorrow and respond with compassion and kindness. The power of the compassionate heart is such that it helps us stay open to painful experiences in ways that can heal and transform us. It is when we open ourselves to pain that we realize how precious life can be and that we don’t know when it will end. In doing so, we may learn how to better appreciate life, with all its joys and sorrows, instead of avoiding certain experiences.

Sometimes joy is felt when we are at our most vulnerable because that is when our hearts and mind are open to taking in life as it is. 

I’d like to share a personal example of a challenging and painful time I went through with my family.

In 1997, I waited with my son and family in the coronary care unit of the hospital where my father had been admitted. His prognosis was grim, and we had all come together to support each other and our mother. In possession of the painful knowledge that our father was dying, it was challenging to stay present, and we were all caught up in a state of worry, grief, and fear.

Eventually someone said something—I can’t tell you what was said—and what happened next took us all by surprise: My son, who was 4, laughed out loud.

I don’t know what he saw or heard that elicited such a joyful response, but that isn’t important. What is important is that the sound of his laughter was like a balm to our broken hearts. It wasn’t just my family who was affected by it. His laughter, like a ray of sunshine on a cloudy day, shifted the energy in the room. It didn’t make the sadness or the deep hurt of losing a loved one go away, but it helped us to see that there can still be joy, even in the midst of deep pain and sorrow. In that moment I could see that life is a truly a miracle, filled with both joys and sorrows.

I believe that to be present and open to experiencing all of these joys and sorrows truly is a blessing.

May you be well.

At times, the people I work with in therapy ask questions that lead to rich exploration of their intimate lives. Years ago, Marty (not his real name) burst into my office wondering, “Why is it easier for me to talk to my friends about past sexual experiences than it is to talk about what really—secretly—turns me on?”

I laughed and reminded him it had taken a long time before he’d been willing to talk about what I call his “arousal template” with me, and we were only just beginning to explore it.

My focus has never been on the sexual performance—how long, how much, or how many—of those I see in therapy. Instead, I focus on the shame– and judgment-free acceptance and appreciation of the arousal template, or what my colleague Jack Morin calls our core erotic theme (CET). (This may be why a high percentage of the individuals I work with actually prefer to conduct sessions by phone.)

When Marty and I began our work together, his CET was well hidden. He sought me out when his wife insisted he call a therapist when she discovered, to her horror, hundreds of file folders filled with pictures Marty had cut out from magazines. These cutouts all depicted parts of the female body. When he showed me the folders, I noted that they were not all of nude bodies—many of the bodies portrayed in the images were clothed. Each was carefully cut from magazines such as Playboy and mounted on black paper. [fat_widget_sex_right]

Marty’s wife, who thought her findings meant he was addicted to sex, blamed the pictures on the demise of their sexual relationship. But when I asked him how often he was masturbating while looking at the images, after he explained to me that he and his wife had stopped being sexually intimate, he looked startled.

“Not at all,” he told me. “I do have some fantasies, but my cutouts help …” He paused before telling me he liked to organize them because they made him “not think.”

I reminisced about how I had really loved stamp collecting during my childhood in a household affected by alcoholism.

He beamed. “It’s soothing, isn’t it?”

Collecting stamps was my personal mood-altering experience. Collecting and arranging photographs was Marty’s.

We began to talk about what sex meant for him and explore the ways it could enrich his life and his relationship with his wife, whom he loved dearly. Together we began to cultivate an atmosphere of what I call compassionate curiosity.  I shared with him the idea that we are all sensuous and sexual as babies, that we become erotic as we receive and experience messages about ourselves from our parents or primary caregivers. Gradually, we incorporate these messages with our own experience of touch and the profoundly personal emotions that go along with it. Through this process, we develop our CET.

Marty laughed. “It’s not just what we do or don’t do in bed, then, is it?”

I agreed. “What you and I get to do here is explore your erotic landscape in its entirety, because your CET has a profound effect on the difficulties you’re experiencing in your marriage right now, doesn’t it?”

He nodded. We discussed some of the particular childhood challenges that may have formed a blueprint for arousal that then wrought havoc when it fused with the loneliness and isolation he had experienced throughout most of his life. As Marty began to understand, accept, and even embrace his CET, he stopped judging and criticizing himself, and his fear diminished. People who struggle with sexual patterns that distress them usually want to change these patterns, but the conflicts they hope to resolve can produce hurricane levels of anxiety.

Marty began reaching out to his wife, who had remained suspicious, and they were able to reconcile. Recently, I received a photo they had taken together in Bali with the words, “Passion grows, though my hair no longer does!”

Changing Sexual Patterns

Change is essential to the erotic adventure, but the difficult erotic patterns are often the most resistant to change. As Buddhist wisdom teaches, “What we resist, persists.” What we struggle against becomes stronger. And troublesome arousal templates can trip us up!

People who struggle with sexual patterns that distress them usually want to change these patterns, but the conflicts they hope to resolve can produce hurricane levels of anxiety. Many of those who are challenged by erotic themes they find problematic often feel compelled to repeat them. And repeat them. And repeat them.

In The Erotic Mind, Morin identifies what he calls seven pivotal steps that lead to positive change:

1. Clarify your goals and motivations.
2. Cultivate self-affirmation
3. Navigate the gray zone.
4. Acknowledge and mourn your losses.
5. Come to your senses.
6. Risk the unfamiliar
7. Integrate your discoveries

The only way out is often through.

Reference:

Morin, J. (1995). The erotic mind: Unlocking the inner sources of sexual passion and fulfillment. New York, NY: Harper Perennial.

In today’s world, it is hard to stay truly connected with others. We are so used to our digital, screen-to-screen interactions that having in-person, face-to-face conversations can feel difficult to manage.

Dialectical behavior therapy, also referred to as DBT, has an entire module dedicated to offering skills and ways to help people communicate more clearly and interact with others more meaningfully. This module is called Interpersonal Effectiveness and it focuses on how the way you communicate and engage with others impacts the outcome of your interactions.

There are three main skills sets within DBT’s Interpersonal Effectiveness module, each related to a different goal or priority.

Skill Set No. 1: GIVE

If it is important for you to keep and maintain the relationship you have, you will want to focus on the first skill set. DBT offers the acronym GIVE as a way to easily remember these skills:

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• Gentle: Being gentle means being kind and nonjudgmental. Keep a moderate or low voice. Keep from yelling, name-calling, or saying mean or hurtful things, even if you’re “just joking.”
• Interested: People love to talk and be listened to. If you act interested, people will want to keep spending time with you. Acting interested includes maintaining appropriate eye contact (no staring), nodding, and asking questions. Even better than acting interested is being genuinely interested. In my experience, you can always find something interesting or fascinating about a person by discovering what they are passionate about, or relating their story to an experience you’ve had.
• Validate: Everyone wants to be understood. When you validate someone, you are letting them know you understand their emotions, thoughts, and/or experience is real. This is not the same as agreeing with someone’s opinion. Validation is letting someone know you respect their experience.
• Easy manner: Chill out. Relax. Be flexible and easygoing. This doesn’t mean ignore or abandon your values, but realize that not everything has to be a battle to the death. People like to spend time with people who are easy to be with. If everything is an argument, or tensions continue to run high, people tend to end those types of relationships.

Skill Set No. 2: DEAR MAN

If you are wanting someone to do what you want, DBT recommends using the skills in the second skill set, often referred to by the acronym DEAR MAN:

• Describe: Before you can ask for you want, you need to describe the situation objectively. I highly recommend keeping this simple and behaviorally specific.
• Express: Express your emotions and opinions using “I feel” statements. When the other person knows what you’re feeling, you don’t leave them needing to guess or, worse, assume what your emotional experience is.
• Assert: Ask for what you want and say “no” clearly. The other person isn’t a mind-reader, so be as plain and simple as possible, even if it may seem obvious.
• Reinforce: Reinforce for the other person how responding to your request benefits them positively. If they know what’s in it for them, people are more likely to respond in the way we want them to respond.
• Mindful: Maintain focus on your goal. Don’t get sidetracked or off-topic. Ignore attacks, and avoid distractions.
• Appear confident: If you don’t look confident, it’s going to be difficult to be taken seriously by the person you are engaging with. Maintain eye contact, keep good posture, and don’t mumble.
• Negotiate: If all else fails, be willing to negotiate. Getting some of what you’re asking for is better than getting none of what you’re asking for. Ask the other person what they’d offer as an alternative solution to the problem. Also, know when to “agree to disagree” and walk away from a discussion.

Skill Set No. 3: FAST

Are you looking to maintain your self-respect after an interaction? You’ll want to refer to DBT’s third skill set in this module, FAST:

• Fair: Act according to the rule. Be fair to yourself and the other person.
• Apologies: Don’t offer apologies or over-apologize if you are just being you or when making a legitimate request. But apologize where appropriate, and don’t under-apologize if you’ve wronged or hurt someone with your actions, behaviors, or words.
• Stick to your values: If something is important to you, stick to it. Don’t change or “sell out” in order to “fit in,” get what you want, or avoid saying “no.” Sometimes, doing the thing that feels right can also feel most uncomfortable. This doesn’t mean you should avoid it.
• Truth: Be honest. Don’t lie, make excuses, or exaggerate circumstances. Take ownership for your thoughts, behaviors, and emotions.

If you keep these skills in mind, you should have little to no trouble keeping and maintaining important relationships in your life.

Reference:

Rathus, J. H., & Miller, A. L. (2015). DBT Skills Manual for Adolescents. New York, NY: The Guilford Press.

Maddy: “I hate myself. I’m just like my mother. She always bossed my father around and was so controlling with me and my brother. Now I do the same things with my husband and kids. I don’t know why I can’t stop myself from always telling them the right way to do everything. I’m her all over again.”

Frank: “I feel like a terrible person, no different than my father: so rational and unempathic. Ugh! I hated that about him; how can I be just like him? I don’t like myself when I’m that way, especially with my wife. I know it’s hurtful, but I don’t seem to be able to change.”

Ellen: “I can’t believe I’m doing to my son exactly what my mother did to me. She made me crazy with her anxiety, and now I’m doing that to him. He just graduated, and I insisted he go to a close-by college. I was so worried. I know that was selfish and not best for him. My mother’s worry always limited me. Why didn’t I stop myself from doing the same to him?”

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Maddy, Frank, and Ellen are bewildered when they find themselves repeating relationships with their parents that had a negative impact on them. Consciously, these behaviors feel unwanted and dysfunctional. They don’t wish to inflict the hurt and pain they experienced in their childhoods on their significant others. They recognize the repetition and seem puzzled and unable to understand why they feel helpless to stop.

Ambivalence About Giving up Repetitive ‘Bad’ Behaviors

Each of these individuals consciously expresses self-hate when they recognize they are hurting loved ones in the same way a significant other hurt them in childhood. They identify that their own hurtful behaviors make them feel like bad people, out of control and/or hopelessly mean. Yet they also express ambivalence about changing these behaviors. When we explore and try to make sense of their resistances to change, each person, in their own way, embraces the behaviors of the parent who offended.

Maddy: “I don’t want to be this way, but honestly, it’s hard to imagine giving up control. I really believe I do many things much better than my husband and kids. In the end, I think it’s to their advantage to do it my way.”

Frank: “I know I’m an awful person because it’s so hard for me to appreciate my wife’s feelings. But she’s so irrational. Really—does it make sense that she’s so beside herself when her friend gets annoyed with her? It drives me crazy. I know I should be more caring and understanding, but I really think she needs to get more control of herself.”

Ellen: “I know it’s selfish and wrong that I’m such a worrier and my son has become a worrier. But I’m relieved he’s extra careful and cautious in his life. He said he wanted to go away to college. But I know him, and in my heart I believe he was relieved when I said he had to go to a local school. I think he feels taken care of when I worry.”

These three individuals reflect about their actions in similar ways. Rationalizing, they believe their behaviors are acceptable. At the same time, they attack themselves for repeating with people they love in the present what was hurtful to them in the past. The contradictory notions about the effect of their behaviors make change difficult to embrace.

Even though they rationalize and describe positive outcomes from repeating the behaviors of their parents, they experience bad feelings about themselves when they hurt and create conflict with loved ones. More than experiencing themselves as hurting people they love, the idea that “I’m just like my parent” is anathema. The idea of being “just like my parents” is not simply the feeling of “similar to.” Rather, it feels like “I am my parent.” This unwanted and intolerable experience of self can interfere with feelings of self-confidence and self-esteem and can play a role in the development of anxiety and depression.

With the unending pushes and pulls (between rationalizing and self-attack) to both enact and avoid repeating these old family patterns, stuck-ness in the repetitions and conflicts is solidified.

The Role of the Unconscious

These folks are not aware of any unconscious dynamics that may be keeping them anchored to their untenable positions. But if change is to occur, an understanding of the role of the unconscious in resisting change and perpetuating early parent-child relationships is essential. The aim is to uncover the unconscious meanings of holding onto the status quo and how repeating these behaviors serves each person (even when, consciously, that doesn’t make sense to them).

I will focus on my work with Frank to describe how we explored and became familiar with his unconscious and how that helped him with his conflicts and the repetitions of his early father-son relationship.

When Frank walked into my office, I sensed a man in conflict. He was assertive and self-assured but also vulnerable and defensive. He came into therapy concerned he wasn’t cut out for marriage but wanted to work on making the marriage work.

“I love my son,” he told me. “I suppose I love my wife, too, but I don’t know about me and marriage. If only for my son, I want to make it work. It’s hard to think of her needs. I get contemptuous when she doesn’t do or see things my way. I can be mean. I hate that it makes me feel just like my father. I could never do anything right—right meant doing it his way. He was a bully. I don’t do that with my son. But I bully my wife and I can be condescending with my colleagues at work. I feel horrible when I behave like my father. He made me feel like I was nothing, and now I keep doing it to others.”

If change is to occur, an understanding of the role of the unconscious in resisting change and perpetuating early parent-child relationships is essential. The aim is to uncover the unconscious meanings of holding onto the status quo and how repeating these behaviors serves each person (even when, consciously, that doesn’t make sense to them).

Frank and I spent many sessions talking about his relationship with his father. He was close to his mother, who was also bullied and couldn’t protect him from the onslaught of demeaning and destructive behaviors he encountered. Frank had some ideas about how, because of his father, he became tough and resilient:

“I probably was about 6 and I remember telling myself I would never let him get to me. I’d never cry or give him the satisfaction that he hurt me. I never asked for anything. I left home when I graduated high school and moved to another state. I stayed in touch with my mother, who would always talk about my father. I guess I stayed curious about him. I hated him, but I never stopped wishing he would be nice to me or give me the feeling he cared. On one rare visit, I told him I was doing really well and was getting a CPA, but he didn’t say much. [Sigh.] I wish I could have made an impression on him. He died right after I got my CPA. I hate to admit it, but I never stopped wanting him to be my dad. It’s too late now.”

Frank and I became aware of how conflicted his relationship with his father was. He hated him but appreciated how his behavior drove him to seek recognition by becoming strong, independent, and ambitious. Fundamentally, Frank’s strongest feelings resided in his abiding wish for his father to “be my dad.”

When I asked Frank what “being my dad” meant to him, he was thoughtful, then tearful: “I wish he was a dad like I am. My son knows I love him. I listen to him, praise him, show him affection. I play with him. He knows how important he is to me. I never had any of that.”

The more we talked about Frank and his father, the more in touch Frank became with his longing for a father—a dad. We puzzled over what made it difficult for Frank to let go of the hated father in him. Frank began to wonder: “You and I talk about my unconscious. Maybe my unconscious believes if I hold onto my hated father long enough, I’ll get the dad I so badly want. With my son, I’m not my father, I’m a dad. Now maybe I have to let go of the father in my unconscious and be the ‘dad’ with the people I care about in the world. I sort of get that I’m struggling with this, but I don’t know how to pull it off. Maybe if I could be more of a loving dad with the people in my life, I could let go of the bad dad inside me. Then I might feel better about myself and feel recognized and appreciated in the world. How do I get there?”

Frank was well on his way to getting there when he had the profound recognition of his holding onto his father as a way of trying to experience the dad he had longed for since early childhood. It is not unusual for repetitions of hurtful early parent-child relationships to be repeated in adulthood with the unconscious wish to transform a negative or hated significant other into the idealized parent that the adult continues to long for. The holding onto the destructive parent, by taking on the parental behaviors and repeating them as one’s own, feeds the unconscious wish for having the parent under one’s control, but it doesn’t provide the wished-for, idealized parent.

When one can recognize, as Frank did, that the perpetuation of the hurtful parent doesn’t and will not provide what was missed, it is easier to let go of the repetitions and embrace a more positive role model in one’s own behavior. As a result, more positive self-feelings emerge and facilitate more loving relationships.

Note: To protect privacy, names in the preceding article have been changed and the dialogues described are a composite.

What’s “falling in love” anyway?

It has two components:

Part one: How the other person makes you feel about yourself.

Part two: How you feel about the other person.

These two parts are inextricably bound up together, and, as a matter of fact, part two follows from part one. Here’s why:

The “falling in love” kind of love, not the familial love that you have, say, for your parents or children, is about receiving. The other kind of love—the tender feelings for children, or the compassionate love that you have when you’ve been married 50 years—is about giving.

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So what is it you’re receiving when you fall in love?

You get a clear, bright, and shiny message of validation of yourself as a person. Many people can try to give you this message but it doesn’t work with other people. The one person with whom it works proves to you, in the course of being together, that he or she really gets who you are. Only someone who has plunged your depths and finds you amazing, special, and wonderful can offer this level of validation.

There may be people you have dated who feel as though they love you, but in your opinion, they don’t know you. Therefore, it’s impossible for them to validate you. Knowing the other person, genuinely knowing, is the cornerstone of intimacy. So you have allowed one person into your inner world, in the course of being together, and each step of the way you felt understood. This person, in return, continues to be intrigued by that process of knowing you, and wants more.

What could be a better experience than that?

That is part one (how your partner makes you feel). You feel exhilarated because after carefully letting down your guard to someone, this person has appreciated having been given the tremendous gift of you. Part two (how you feel about your partner) flows from this. As you let him or her into your private self, your partner did the same. And what did you find inside your partner’s heart and soul? A self that is very similar to yours!

Although opposites do attract, the fundamental, deep-down attraction comes from a reflection of oneself. Not only is this person validating you, but his very being (because it’s so much like yours) validates you all the more. That’s part two (how you feel about your partner).

(Incidentally, if you don’t see this, you do have to plumb the depths to find it. It is not on the surface. The surface includes a host of differences, but deep down you’ll find the sameness.)

So what’s “falling out of love”? The answer is: betrayal. You have opened up your soul; you’ve been vulnerable, and what did you get for it? You got hurt and betrayed. The betrayal doesn’t have to be as raw as cheating, although it can be that. But even ignoring a spouse when he or she is talking is betrayal. When this continues, the commonalities aren’t so apparent. Your spouse might be hurt, too.

Now, just suppose the two of you want to maintain the marriage. Maybe you’ve been married a long time. You may have had children together. How in the world can you get back to opening yourself up to someone who has hurt you? How can you possibly fall in love with such a person again? You are torn because it would be good to keep the relationship but the feelings just aren’t there. What can you do?

My answer is: Feeling can come back, but the process is backward from the way it was the first time.

The first time, you just opened yourself up and there it was. You can’t do that this time. Even if you really would like to, your survival instincts won’t let that happen, and you must honor those.

Here are some steps that you both can take:

1. Your partner must prove to you, in every conceivable way, that he or she has changed. He/she must acquire the skill of patience. That is, your partner is so anxious to wish away all the bad in the relationship—which is understandable—that he/she may make you feel like he/she is more concerned with what he/she is getting out of it than what you are being offered. If your partner has truly overcome his/her hurtful behavior, then it must go along with an attitude of patience for your healing—and giving of himself/herself. It has to be about you, not him/her, this time around.

2. You must be patient, too—with your spouse and with yourself. His/her awakening to the fact that you have been deeply wounded in the relationship, and that you need to heal, will dawn on him/her slowly. Your spouse will realize that change goes way beyond no longer being ugly with you. This may take time, and perhaps help from outside sources. And you can allow yourself time to heal from the hurts of the past, because that is a natural process that cannot be rushed.

3. This is a wonderful step. It is akin to noticing how your child is improving in math or picking up a language. There is the dawning awareness that your spouse is growing. Because your guard remains up (that was number one in this list), your powers of observation are keen, and you can see that something new is on the horizon. Expected behaviors don’t happen and new, lovely ones are in their place: consideration, gentleness, sensitivity, generosity of time and effort. From this, respect and trust begin to grow. Allow this step the time it needs to unfold. The more respectworthy observations you make, the stronger your trust will be in your spouse.

4. Respect and trust will allow you to open up, little by little. You won’t have to force it; it, too, will be a natural process. There will be new things in the “you” that has experienced all this pain: guardedness, healing, and newfound respect. These are the new things that you will be able to talk about. Your spouse opens the door to intimacy when you know that he/she has heard you. You become willing to be vulnerable and open more and more.

5. In turn, your spouse will be able to talk about his/her dawning awareness of his/her past selfishness and hurtfulness and any regrets felt over them. In these admissions, he/she too will be vulnerable, and this will open the door wider to falling in love again.

What’s the upside of this difficult process? It’s more than falling in love and even more than preserving a family. It’s something rich and mature that you can’t feel the first time around: It’s a rock-solid knowledge of who this other person really is, leading to a much deeper bond, greater respect, and stronger trust than you could ever have with a new person.

Many people struggle to understand how our culture defines domestic violence. Some believe that to constitute domestic violence, a person must be beaten or violently struck in some way. However, domestic violence behaviors do not necessarily include physical assault. While it may include sexual, emotional, and/or physical abuse, the most consistent component of a domestic violence relationship is an ongoing effort to maintain power and control over one’s partner.

The National Coalition Against Domestic Violence (2016) lists several abusive behaviors that are earmarks of domestic violence:

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• Frequently accusing one’s partner of lying and/or cheating: “You were 15 minutes late getting home. Who were you having sex with?”
• Controlling finances. For example, the abusive person may make eight times the wage their partner earns, yet insist they split household bills equally. The abusive person may insist they control all the money and offer an allowance they control rather than share equally in financial responsibilities.
• Forcing sexual acts, sometimes minimized with comments such as, “I just had too much to drink,” or, “I knew you really wanted it.”
• Isolating the person. This can appear in the form of behaving rudely or in other socially inappropriate ways to discourage their partner’s friends and family from wanting to be around them. The abusive person may find ways to keep their partner from spending time with family or friends, monitor their partner’s conversations, and forbid their partner from communicating with others.
• Preventing a partner from working or advancing their education.
• Destroying a partner’s property.
• Hurting, or threatening to hurt, a partner’s pets.
• Belittling a partner for not doing things “right” (in the abusive person’s opinion).
• Intimidating by creating an environment where a partner feels the need to “walk on eggshells”; the world revolves around keeping the abusive person from being disturbed.
• Treating the abusive person’s partner as if their needs and feelings do not exist, or as if they are a servant. At times, the abusive person may promise to change, but their behavior does not improve for long, if at all.

Abusive individuals often want the people they abuse to believe they are at fault: “If you would only ____, I would not get angry. You provoked me. You are crazy.” To be clear, there is nothing any person can say or do that provokes or deserves abuse. While a person may behave in ways that could benefit from modification, those are relationship issues. Domestic violence is not a relationship issue; it is in many cases a criminal act.

Abuse loves when we don’t talk about it; it thrives in silence. By giving a voice to those who feel they have none and talking about their pain, we give abuse nowhere to hide.

In many states, a domestic violence charge does not necessarily need to include touching a partner. Destroying property, stalking, and harassing—including menacing texts and phone calls—can constitute domestic violence. Domestic violence may be addressed in three different types of court: criminal, civil, and family (American Bar Association, 2001). Abusive people will sometimes attempt to pressure or manipulate a partner into dropping charges or to lie to help minimize the consequences of the abusive person’s behavior.

Often, a domestic violence relationship may seem like any happy relationship in the beginning, but becomes more controlling and abusive over time (National Coalition Against Domestic Violence, 2016). Because of this, people who have been abused sometimes report feeling shame for not recognizing the signs of abuse sooner. It is not unusual for someone leaving a domestic violence relationship to state they realized they were in a domestic violence relationship only after they felt it was too late to leave, and that they wanted to leave sooner but did not believe they could materially survive alone. However, many resources are available to assist with safety plans, housing, legal advocacy, and other resources.

Getting Help for Domestic Violence

If you or someone you care about is in a domestic violence relationship, you are not alone. To speak confidentially with a trained advocate, call the National Domestic Violence Hotline at 1-800-799-7233. Live, private chat is also available at http://www.thehotline.org/. Information and thousands of resources, including counseling, across the United States are available to people in an abusive relationship and to friends and family of a person they believe to be in an abusive relationship. Contact a trained therapist if you need further guidance or support.

Abuse loves when we don’t talk about it. It thrives in silence. By giving a voice to those who feel they have none and creating spaces for them to talk about their pain—and offering support as they do so—we give abuse nowhere to hide.

References:

1. American Bar Association. (2001). Know your rights: Domestic violence. Retrieved from http://www.americanbar.org/content/dam/aba/migrated/publiced/domviol.authcheckdam.pdf
2. National Coalition Against Domestic Violence. (2016). What is domestic violence? Retrieved from http://ncadv.org/learn-more/what-is-domestic-violence
3. National Domestic Violence Hotline. (2016). Is this abuse? Retrieved from http://www.thehotline.org/is-this-abuse/

Dealing with grief and loss is a reality we all must confront at some point. The experience of grief is different for everyone, and it has no timetable. Grieving, however, is a necessary part of the coping and healing processes.

The recent death of a friend’s son has created within me a vision of the world through which only the lenses of my eyes can see and the beat of my heart can feel. His death has inspired the desire and passion to live my best life every day while giving service to others. This could have easily gone the opposite way, leading to feelings of utter isolation, depression, and loneliness.

For all the pain it brings, grief holds many lessons:

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• Grief teaches us that loss is inevitable.
• Grief teaches us not to take loved ones for granted.
• Grief teaches us about our faith.
• Grief teaches us to be patient.
• Grief teaches us that we should live every day creating memories that will comfort us after our loved ones are gone.
• Grief teaches us about our feelings.
• Grief teaches us that it is necessary to grieve. It allows us to move forward.
• Grief teaches us to find our purpose in life.
• Grief teaches us that pain and joy can coexist.
• Grief teaches us to be true to ourselves.

What has your grief taught you?

The Kübler-Ross Model of Grief

Loss can leave us with a wide range of emotions. The experience of each emotion signals that a deep bond has been broken. One day we may be in denial, anger, or depression. Other days, we might feel like we can go on. Until, that is, the cycle starts all over again.

In her 1969 book On Death and Dying, psychiatrist Elisabeth Kübler-Ross introduced what came to be known as the “five stages of grief,” which represent the typical series of experiences for those who have faced loss:

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1. Denial: “This isn’t happening.”
2. Anger: “How could this happen?”
3. Bargaining: “Please make this not happen. In return I will ___.”
4. Depression: “I’m too sad to do anything.”
5. Acceptance: “I’m finally at peace with what happened.”

As stated earlier, each person experiences grief in different ways. Thus, it’s important to emphasize that while the Kübler-Ross model serves as a general guide for how grief is often processed, not everyone experiencing grief or loss may experience every stage, let alone in order.

How to Help a Grieving Friend

If someone you know has lost a loved one, the following suggestions may help:

• Listen: Follow the advice of musician Michael McLean. When someone is grieving, “show up and shut up.” The grief-stricken person needs to be heard and feel that someone cares. Grief is a personal experience, an experience that belongs solely to the person experiencing it, and you must allow them the respect and time they deserve. Listening to someone who grieves is an invaluable gift.
• Be a gatekeeper: In an intensely painful and overwhelming time, offer to be the person through which information is filtered for dissemination. You may find that other friends, family members, and acquaintances ask for information about your friend. Normalize grief with responses such as, “They have good days and bad days—and probably will for a long time.” Or, “Grief never really ceases. It is something you carry with you in different ways for the rest of your life.”

Getting Support for Grief

The grieving process can be long and lonely. If you are grieving, take the time you need, meet any challenging emotions that arise within you with self-compassion, and accept support from others. Talking about grief is an important part of healing. Receiving reassurance and feeling empathy expressed for your loss may help make the recovery process seem a little less daunting. If you need or desire further support, I strongly encourage you to contact a licensed therapist who works with grief and loss.

References:

1. Kübler-Ross, E. (1969). On death and dying: What the dying have to teach doctors, nurses, clergy, and their own families. New York: Macmillan.
2. McLean, M. (n.d.). Hoping. Retrieved from http://www.michaelmcleanmusic.com/page/47