Remember JADE When speaking with a mean person

This is quite tricky.

When you make a mean person accountable, they will flip the script and say you are the abuser.

When this happens, please learn this wonderful acronym created by Al Anon, called JADE. Justify, Argue, Defend or Explain. Do not Justify Argue Defend or Explain, instead state: This is what I what I choose. or: No.

No is a complete sentence. And remember reasoning is only with reasonable people. Know your truth, hold your boundaries firmly and with kindness and then you are empowered. If you forget you are interacting with someone who is so self centered they have little ego strength to take responsibility for their actions, you will slip and fall. So please do not delude yourself, and hold this Acronym as the saving grace for your own health and well being.

And remember is is all about Progress, Not Perfection.

Life shrinks or expands in proportion to one's courage. Anais Nin

Resentment the papercuts of a relationship

When one person in a relationship is in pain while the other feels fine and ignores the issue, it creates an imbalance that can lead to resentment and lasting damage. By acknowledging the pain and opening communication, a couple can heal with integrity. Healing within couples work can look like a couple compassionately letting one another go or a couple falling back in love. Either way, the first step towards this growth is owning and sharing one’s needs. When we disown our needs, or our need to be needed, and expect our partner to mind read our needs, we are already placing a stumbling block to growth and intimacy. We learn this though, to dislocate from our needs, how to even begin to find our needs is the first step. How shame shrouds our needs is real.

Ultimately, healthy relationships are built on mutual care, empathy, and the willingness to address difficult truths. One difficult truth may be “I need to learn to express my pain and hold my power.” Or “I need to see my partner’s pain and know I can make mistakes, but I myself am not a mistake.” Ignoring a partner’s pain may seem easier in the short term, but true connection requires facing discomfort together. You can not be your own dentist, this is where a couples therapist comes in. When communication collapses a couples therapist is there to be the catalyst for change, healing, loving communication and growth.

"Alice had begun to think that very few things indeed were really impossible."
Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland

Listen to your intuition

When something feels off, it is.

There is a fascinating psychology with journalists, investigative ones especially. They were lied to as kids, so from a very young age they began investigating for the truth, they became truth seekers. So as adults they are at least one decade (if not two) more experienced in investigation than their colleague who did not grow up with a parent who was a compulsive liar. The silver lining.

But then there is this fascinating space we can occupy. We go toward the familiar, and can end up choosing a compulsive liar. What happens when a truth seeker chooses a compulsive liar? Then the truth seeker internalizes her/his/their own introject, (an introject is the internalized voice of the parent) and the journalist begins to lie to themselves choosing connection over protection.

Do not lie to yourself. Choose to trust yourself. Many times, there is protection in rejection. Choose protection. Life is too short. The moment you choose the liar over your truth, we begin to dissociate and fragment and mirror the liar, who needs to remain fragmented, who chooses not to integrate.

This is when it is important to listen to and repeat this statement. I choose to trust myself. I choose to be patient and wait for a good person. I choose the discipline of hope. I choose space to occupy. I choose to trust myself. Trust yourself. And be compassionate towards yourself, and do not judge yourself. It is hard to be alone. Be gentle with yourself.

“I must be a mermaid, Rango. I have no fear of depths and a great fear of shallow living.”
― Anais Nin

Gentle Start Up. Rules for Real Relationships

Anger is important, it provides information. When we come in hot, we only inflame the situation. As Irvin Yalom wisely said, strike when the iron is cold. In couples therapy there is no room to come in yelling and degrading your partner, it is ineffective, mean and simply does not work. Anger is valid, it is not okay to yell at your partner.

Sometimes you do need a deliberate space to begin to practice this new communication style and this is where couples therapy comes in.


It always seems impossible until it's done:
Nelson Mandela

Treat yourself and your partner the way you treat and love your child or children. (hopefully.)

Would you yell at your child? Tell her or him or them how awful they are? No you would not, and when a child witnesses a parent degrading another parent, what they see is a part of them degrading and being degraded because children do not seperate their sense of self from their parents for a long long time. So be careful and caring and why would you yell at your partner? That is the most important person in your world, that is the person you chose because in your heart you knew they were simply perfect for you. Do not destroy that with your words or self hatred or hatred. Build upon it. Choose to be good.

You can’t be your own dentist

There comes a point where we think maybe I should go to therapy. Why do I circle such self destructive patterns? Or maybe we should go to therapy because we seem to try to communicate and then just end up hurting one another…. Absolutely go to therapy: Within the work I do,

especially as a couples therapist- I have learned some forms of couples therapy actually make a couple worse, they would be better if they didn’t have therapy This is not that type of couples work, it’s collaborative and behavioral as well as insight oriented and you both leave being able to communicate in a healthy way with compassion and empathy holding one another’s experiences as both separate and valid. One may think well why can’t we just do this on our own? I say sure go for it, but we try to do everything on our own, inter dependence. It’s not a bad thing.

If you feel isolated, go to therapy. For couples if you feel you are stuck in maladaptive patterns… go to therapy.

Love this-

Happiness cannot be pursued; it must ensue. Life is never made unbearable by circumstances, but only by lack of meaning and purpose. Frankl

One Cure

I had a friend who eventually, I stopped being friends with her- because she talked behind my back. And actually she had no friends…

Because she spoke behind everyone’s back and her (ex) husband’s as well. To their faces, she was the best of friends but behind their back she spoke poorly of them.

It’s a directive I provide to my clients: do not speak poorly about your partner. Do not speak behind their back. Once this is done, it dissipates a lot of anger and tension.

I encourage you to see speaking behind anyone’s back as simply a violation of your code of ethics. The mystics of Judaism called this the evil tongue and it is considered a form of murder, character assassination because it is so hurtful and harmful to the speaker and to the person being spoken poorly of.

Instead of turning away and speaking poorly about your partner, turn towards them and say what you feel, easier said than done. That hurt me. I feel degraded. I feel sad. You will get you to the other side of this thru. Not around.

Love is the only way to grasp another human being in the innermost core of his personality. No one can become fully aware of the very essence of another human being unless he loves him. By his love he is enabled to see the essential traits and features in the beloved person; and even more, he sees that which is potential in him, which is not yet actualized but yet ought to be actualized. Furthermore, by his love, the loving person enables the beloved person to actualize these potentialities. By making him aware of what he can be and of what he should become, he makes these potentialities come true.

Viktor E. Frankl, Man’s Search for Meaning

Sometimes we project goodness onto people who simply are not.

In an attempt to collapse time, we can create a myopic vision of a person and project goodness onto a someone who simply is not, not due to mental illness (that degrades the mental health field) but because they choose to not be good.

The eerie piece is we may not fully understand how unwell the person is, or sexist or racist or mean, so we stumble upon our own naivety and arrogance. We may feel flooded with shame as we wake up from the daydream. We realize we have been lying to ourselves in order to ameliorate the loneliness.

It is not your fault they are not okay. You have the right to make mistakes, you are not a mistake just because you made one in assuming the best from someone. You must name that they are not well, or you will be the one who feels unwell, and please remember to delineate the 3 C’s, you did not cause it, you can not cure it, and you can not control it. Their degrading behaviors, their coldness, their way of using you is not a reflection of you but of them.

Be gentle with yourself, and remember who you are. You fell and now we get up again. You are stronger than you realize, you are loved and loveable, you are wise.

The Narcissistic Self and the Cure.

What is the self-experience of the narcissist? What is their intrapyshic world compromised of? This one drifts between two states the states “encompasse a vague falseness, shame, envy, emptiness of incompleteness, ugliness and inferiority and the counterparts: self righteousness, pride, contempt, defensive self-sufficiency, vanity and superiority.” McWilliams desctibeds this in her book Psychoanalytic Diagnosis. Kerberos (1975) describes this as opposite ego states grandiose (all-good) vs. depleted (all bad.). The cure, reaching the “good enough state.:”

How do these isolated beings reach, the good enough state? What is the cure?
This is for everyone who has ever been abandoned and this is especially the isolated narcissist. This is the cure, like a soothing balm on very burnt skin.

You are good enough. You are lovable. Your imperfections make you perfect.

Your mantra: my imperfections make me perfect. I am good enough. I am lovable. And if you have a partner, or a child extend that to them, silently state or aloud. You are lovable. You are good enough. Your imperfections make you perfect.

Rituals for Connection

John and Julia Gottman go on their honeymoon once a year, on their anniversary. Once a week my couples utilize the sacred date night, standing babysitter, with the agreement to not talk of the bills, or kids, or to-do list which dominates our lives so well within the ever lasting connectivity of the internet and the para-pandemic world of work and play being collapsed into one home. Every night the parent gives her child a warm bath and a good night story and a back rub. Every evening he makes dinner for his partner and puts their phones in a box and then they drink a glass of wine and talk about their day. Every birthday is a celebration of gratefulness with a party and presents. Every morning she kisses her wife before going to work. Every day she speaks with her best friend and checks in with how she is doing. I encourage you to choose one.

These rituals once established provide a rhythm to life that simply enhances the well being of that person and the circle of people that that person interacts with. Life is truly overwhelming at times with a never ending conveyor belt of things to do, without establishing one ritual we end up collapsing into the void. An established ritual over time simply becomes woven into the fabric of your daily life.

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom.” ~ Anaïs Nin.

Grudges lock patterns in place, how to forgive for movement

Forgiveness, holding the grudge and sitting on a burden of proof for you or your partner to change overnight will not work for movement in the relationship, or in your life.  This is the forgiveness mantra that can help, say it to yourself for yourself and in your mind to the your partner    "I'm sorry, please forgive me, thank you, I love you":

Sometimes an apology can feel manipulative, a band aid, not sincere. The way to move towards validation within an apology goes like this:

Apologize for a specific behavior with validation,  and then the other person apologizes for a specific behavior with validation, I am so sorry I snapped at you, I could see how that would be hurtful.  The word, “but… “ deletes the apology.  

And then return to the promise to move towards one another with respect and commitment to individuation and interdependence, to building a culture of love and appreciation deliberately.  Neither of you have to forgive right away, but choose to forgive within the day.  Holding onto anger just locks the patterns in place in your life and in your relationships. Forgive yourself for being human and making mistakes, not being a mistake because we are not mistakes, we just make them all the time. And forgive your partner. If you are not making mistakes in life, you are dead. It is part of living, part of life to totally fuck up again and again and again, and then repair and work towards growing. If you are not growing up, you are growing down. It is that simple.

Apologies can lock one person as victim and the other as perpetrator which may be the case, and in an abusive relationship that is the case. Usually the argument, tension is co created. Apologies need to go both ways, both partners taking responsibility for what they have done to co create the tensions in the partnership. One person apologizes and takes responsibility for hurting the other person, and then the other person apologizes and takes responsibility for hurting the other person. This is not always the case, when one person just vomits on the person their own stuff, there is not much room for the other person to apologize. But usually it is co-created, and then rebuild a culture of appreciation and love. For every 1 negative comment there is an and to 5 positive comments, do this for yourself when you tear yourself down and for your partner. The only way to authentically do this is by doing this for yourself first.

Friendship building:  Share something, not related to the to-do lists of life, but a dream you had, or a childhood memory you had, something friendship building, be curious.

"The most important relationship in your life is with yourself. Because no matter what happens you will always be yourself."
Dianne Von Furstenberg

--

I teach you both how to become one another’s couples therapist.

As a couples therapist I teach you both how to become one another’s couples therapist. There is a place for listening with empathy, how to attune to one another. Within every complaint there is a longing. So when listening to your partner, all these parts can become activated set aside what you want to say and be curious, there is an opportunity here to build trust.

as Part of you becomes activated,

Take a deep breathe and concentrate on tightening and then relaxing every single muscle in your body. If you begin to feel flooded, defenses have gone up, and then it’s time to take a break and return when you are calm. The goal of the speaker is to use the words “I feel…” the moment we trip a wire into “you” we hit the defense button and land in criticism.

We do a lot of this on autopilot. I come in and direct and encourage and then redirect. I teach you when to take a break and highlight when by accident it’s gone into the language of attack and defense and then we begin again and again and again. And over a relatively short period of time, with these practice sessions you and your partner learn how to make conflict and opportunity to build trust and heal.

Let the mean people go away.

A relationship filtration system involves acceptance of one’s self and others as they are.

When you grow up in an emotionally abusive and neglectful home,

you will do things that may appear strange to others until you process the abuse. Like run after people who are mean to you.

Yes run after people who are mean to you.

Maybe, when you were a child, a parent or sister or every person in the family, would be mean and you would block it out, and even dissociate, and then love them as best as you could

to make them love you. So they would stay and take care of you with food and shelter. And stop being mean. Magical thinking that kept you afloat.

So then as an adult, a lover or boyfriend or girlfriend or partner, is mean and you block it out, maybe even dissociate at the moment of being disregarded and dismissed, and you love them for them to love you.

Be gentle with yourself. You are learning, stay with yourself. When he or she or they are mean, stay with it. See it. It’s not your fault. The action is a reflection of them. Not you. Walk away. That’s easier said than done- it’s possible though. Step away from the familiar.

Another method is utilizing EMDR to process the moment of dissociation, when you block out the mean action, so you can process it and remember it’s a reflection of them, not you.

You are lovable.

I promise you.

You don’t need those people in your life. Anymore. They are mean. There is nothing wrong with you. You developed a coping mechanism. A fantasy. That got stuck on repeat. Until the cassette breaks. And we break open. And try something radically new. Therapy.

Dating

Whenever you point a finger at the person you want to be with

and think he or she or they is not well, remember there are 3 fingers pointing right back at you. Do the work. If you are attracted to and chase people who are not healthy at that moment in their lives, or in general, maybe it is about taking a step back and taking some down time, and working on yourself -so you feel most comfortable with a person who is healthy, we chase what we can not have to avoid the work.

I get it.

On the flip side, if you are in already in an intimate relationship, and your partner becomes sick, mentally (which is physically, that is the brain), that is not the time to turn away that is the time to turn towards, to love that person even more.

The Danger of Sugar Coating

How often do you see something and want to unsee it? Denial is nice, sometimes an important defense. When denial is used too often we trip into what is known as sugar coating, or lying to ourselves. In lying to ourselves we can do this awful thing of choosing connection over protection. We do it if we have mean family members, the daydream they will be kind one day is a daydream that can put yourself in danger of wasting your time trying to change people who are simply mean, sometimes ruthless.

Protect yourself. As painful as it is to know something about someone, what is more painful is to continue to nose dive into wasting your time, giving to people who can not give back. You only have so many moments of time, do not waste them chasing a delusion. And be gentle with yourself, if you need to chase the delusion accept that and then place an end date on the chasing of the pot at the end of the infamous rainbow. You are the pot of gold at the end of your rainbow. In the end, we save ourselves via friendships, community, strong partners, and meaning centered lives.

Codependency Defined. And How to Ensure You do Not Get Ensnared.

Codependency is one of those words that is completely over used.

So, this is a quick run down of what codependency is and is not and how to ensure you remain healthy within a relationship.

This list is extreme, as with everything in life, there is a spectrum. We are all on a spectrum of healthy and unhealthy. You may see yourself in a few of these examples, or in all of them or in none of them.

Codependent relationships are what we call in the shrink world Closed Systems, and Love Relationships are Open Systems.

Below is a list, which is Written as a Chart by Melody Beattie from her classic book Codependent No More

• In a Love Relationship there is room to grow, expand and desire for other to grow

• In a Codependent Relationship, there is a dependence based on security and comfort, using intensity of need and infatuation as proof of Love (and this intensity etc may simply be a veil for fear, loneliness, and insecurity)

• In a Love Relationship, you have separate interests., other friends, etc. You maintain other meaningful relationships.

• In a CoDependent Relationship, there is Total Involvement. You may end up neglecting old friendships or interests, in extreme cases even careers.

• In a Love Relationship there is security of the other’s expansion, security in your own self worth.

• In a CoDependent Relationship, there is a preoccupation with other’s behavior, you are dependent on other’s approval for self identity and worth.

• In a Love Relationship, there is trust, openness.

• In a CoDependent relationship, there is jealousy.

• In a Love Relationship, mutual integrity is preserved.

• In a CoDependent relationship, one’s partner’s needs are suspended for the other’s- Self Deprivation defines a CoDependent Relationship.

• In a Love Relationship, there is willingness to risk and be real.

• In a CoDependent relationship, there is a search for perfect invulnerability.

• In a Love Relationship, there is room for exploration of feelings in and out of the relationship.

• In a CoDependent Relationship, there needs to be reassurance thru repeated ritualized activity.

• In a Love Relationship, there is an ability to be alone

• In a CoDependent Relationship, there is a withdrawal after separating.

• In a Love Relationship, you can accept break up without feeling a loss of own adequacy or self worth.

• In a CoDependent Relationship, a break up causes feelings of worthlessness and the break up tends to be one-sided.

When all is said and done, in a Codependent relationship: we take responsibility for another’s actions, decisions, growth and regression, and we absolve ourselves of our own responsibility to get our sh#t together and we tend to blame our partner, or family member, or friend (whomever you are in the codependent relationship with) for life’s set backs, our own failures etc.

How to remain healthy in a relationship, to put it succinctly, be your best friend, (part of that is counter intuitive and means taking care of who you are responsible for, what etc…) be your own advocate, your own cheerleader, and build community. And know what you feel when you are feeling it and why for at least 60-70 per cent of the time. Easier- this is so much easier said than done. Many times, therapy can help with this third part especially.

“If I had a world of my own, everything would be nonsense. Nothing would be what it is, because everything would be what it isn't. And contrary wise, what is, it wouldn't be. And what it wouldn't be, it would. You see?”
― Lewis Carroll, Alice's Adventures in Wonderland / Through the Looking-Glass

And holding hands is nice, because it is So Nice to be Held. It is a safety measure, human nature. It begins at a young age, when we cross the street.

If you like your life 70 per cent of the time, you won.

Via media and social media we are stumbling upon unrealistic narratives that life is supposed to be satisfying 95-100 per cent of the time. But when we aim for this, which is great to aim for, but when we miss, we can feel like failures or that something is wrong, even worse that we are wrong, that we are failures. Life is hard, when it is hard, you have not done anything wrong, it is simply hard.

Failure is part of life, it is how we grow, expand and make mistakes, course correct, and really live and when there is no room to seriously mess up, we are left in the doldrums of the mundane, the day to day monotony of looking for a good parking spot metaphorically speaking. But if we embrace failure, run towards pain (sometimes), and listen to our intuition, we can scramble to liking our lives 70 per cent of the time. That is a lot.

What made you smile today? What made your heart sink a bit? What made your heart skip a beat? What made you tired today? If you felt all these feelings, then you lived a full life today, (in my opinion.)

Waves of Emotion

The validation and compassion you send to your child, your dog, your loved one, a news story, I want you to direct that to yourself, while you read this article. You are not alone. You are loved.

Emotions. What to do with all those emotions? First, every emotion has a beginning and a middle and an end but even more so:

This emotion you are experiencing right now is providing you with important information.

And those hard emotions, the not so pretty feeling overwhelmed want to scream with exhaustion that emotion is important too.

Experiencing a wave of sadness or anger, or even fury, is healthy. The emotion is providing you with information. Unfortunately we all are taught these intense emotions are negative, and we bury them. But once buried we end up in a dangerous position. As these emotions help us navigate what is healthy and unhealthy, what to go towards and what to redefine.

For example, if you never felt anger, you would not know when to draw a boundary, when to speak up, when to walk away. Anger is the emotion that helps you navigate a situation, and joy also helps you navigate a situation. When we blunt emotions, we place blinders on our lives. When we embrace these emotions, we are empowered. Our work is to empower emotions, to name them, and to be curious. Within embracing them and moving thru them, you disrupt stagnation and you end up on the other side of the emotion. Moving thru anger, what does that look like, it can be literal, be angry while working out, or it could be a deep breath and allowing the anger to reside within you and watch as it passes. A wave has a beginning, middle and end. To end the emotion we ask for another emotion to come in, the opposite emotion to join with the emotion.

The most authentic experience is the mixed experience, I like these parts of this situation and not these. For example, to 100 per cent love your life 100 per cent of the time, is not authentic. Mental health and wellness is to enjoy 60-70 per cent of your life. And that can take time, therapy or some other avenue towards healing, and courage to be curious and feel.

Written by Zoe Hicks

"If you want others to be happy, practice compassion. If you want to be happy, practice compassion," the Dalai Lama wrote in The Art of Happiness. Dalai Lama XIV

Anxiety and the Postpartum Period.

Why do I keep having these thoughts? Anxiety and the Postpartum Period.

Do you experience recurring thoughts of your little baby rolling down the stairs or getting hit by a car? Or some other random violent images? These thoughts and images amongst new mothers are common, but should not be minimized or normalized. These thoughts can be overwhelming and disorienting, especially if you have never had any mental illness in your history. So what is happening? How can you handle it? What can you do?

It is important to go to a therapist if you have these thoughts, you may have postpartum anxiety.

A person’s hormonal health will affect their mental health. After giving birth, a mother is usually hit with what I call a hormonal wave. This wave can crash onto a person, causing a temporary imbalance. The beauty of this, is that it can be cured. You need to go to your Dr. and have blood work done to test whether this is a thyroid issue and then also sit with the idea of taking medicine, talk about this option with your doctor.

How to tolerate these thoughts until the medicine kicks in? Do not try to push the images and thoughts away, because then it will come back even stronger. Allow the image or thought to pass by you, and watch it like clouds passing thru the sky. It is a thought, it is a feeling, but it is not who you. You want to both hold the thought and then let it go. Consider these thoughts like waves in the ocean, sometimes there are high tides and the waves are stronger and at times they are low tides and the waves are less frequent or non existent and very small, an ebb of a thought or image so to speak.

Every thought moves, thoughts are not who you are. Do not blame yourself for these thoughts. Share with your spouse or family member or close friend that you are having these thoughts and images. Feel free to reach out to me for therapy or to lookup therapists in your area that treat obsessive thoughts, most do.

You are not alone. You are not crazy. Your thoughts and feelings are not who you are.

They are what you are experiencing in this moment. Take care of yourself as much as you possibly can, because exhaustions exacerbates them. And of course you are exhausted. You may feel hesitant to leave your child with a sitter or your spouse. Play with going down the street to a cafe and having your spouse watch your child for 20 minutes and taking a rest. Because resting while your baby sleeps is not rest, she or he can wake up at anytime. But resting down the street, while your partner plays with the baby is healthy for two reasons. 1. It gives you down time. 2. It provides an opportunity for your baby to bond with his or her other parent.

I know this advice is counter intuitive, but once you rest a bit, then you will feel less overwhelmed and you will heal quicker this way.

“Healing takes courage, and we all have courage, even if we have to dig a little to find it.”

Tori Amos

Loneliness, Part of the Human Condition

Holidays can be painful. Lonely. Within our airbrushed society we tend to overlook the harrowing loneliness that can be very painful. It is okay to be lonely. Loneliness is part of the human condition. Does not mean you need to settle into it. There are ways to be less lonely, go to a public space, like grocery shopping. Read a novel. Go to a bookstore. Reach out to an old friend. All in all though, it is also part of being human. Loneliness, sadness, hopefulness, happiness, joy, frustration, humor, pain…

We can not medicate loneliness. Though we can make it worse, by assuming we will always be lonely. There are some chapters in life that will be less lonely than others. What I do recommend when loneliness comes in, is simply both accept it and not to settle. Breathe into your loneliness. Have compassion and love for yourself. Treat yourself gently. And then go to this amazing app, MoodFit, ( I do not benefit financially at all from recommending this tool) and click on tools, and go to CBT Though record. This tool will help, to simply express the loneliness and what universal distortions may be at play to exacerbate the loneliness.

If there is meaning in life at all, then there must be a meaning in suffering. Suffering is an ineradicable part of life, even as fate and death. Without suffering and death human life cannot be complete.

Viktor Frankl, a Genius