Chats With Dr. Steve

Relationship Gaslighting - Video

Sun, 27 Mar 2022 16:44:00 GMT

Are your experiences being ignored?

New Year's Resolution - Video

Sat, 08 Jan 2022 19:40:00 GMT

Relationship brain hacks for starting the New Year in a positive direction.

Slaying Marriage Dragons - Video

Mon, 16 Aug 2021 08:00:00 GMT

How to overcome the withdraw/anxiety cycle inside your relationship.

Brain Wellness - Video

Sun, 01 Aug 2021 18:00:00 GMT

The ABC's of healthy brain functioning for those in relationships.

Own Your Brain - Video

Sun, 25 Jul 2021 22:20:00 GMT

The importance of mindfulness skills for achieving blended wellness.

From Eeyore To New You - Fun Video

Fri, 05 Feb 2021 18:36:00 GMT

How to create a new identity and marriage,

Life Shift - 1 Define Safety Needs

Sat, 07 Nov 2020 21:00:00 GMT

When taking ownership of your life, the ability to define and set clear boundaries is necessary for being self-determinant. For many of us, experiences in our family life, work setting, and even significant relationships has robbed us of happiness and a sense of safety for feeling good about our existence. Taking ownership of life shifts involves the ability to influence our surrounding thereby allowing our minds, bodies, and inner spirit to settle into a relaxed state. Boundaries are essential to healthy relationships and, really, a healthy life.

Dr. Dana Gionta (2014) is a leading psychologist and life coach that specializes with helping people learn the skill of setting clear boundaries. Gionta believes setting and sustaining boundaries is a life skill that most people did not learn in their youth and even early adult years. She explains most adult learned one or two simple pointers by watching others at work or in the community. For Gionta, the secret is to know and understand what your limits are for then building the structures for you to get your expectations met in a safe fashion.

Dr. Gionta's suggestions for building better boundaries and maintaining them include: identifying your stress limits, knowing your discomfort red flags, being clear with your intentions, and giving yourself permission to be healthy. Her other coaching pointers include: the need to experiment and practice for refining skills, making all-around self-care a priority, and the willingness to follow through with one's stated action plan. And of course, having an encouraging support system is Gionta's recommendation for getting started in shifting one's stance with others.

Setting boundaries takes courage, practice, and support from those who also care about your well-being. By starting small and building your skills and confidence, you can begin to shift your life into new avenues of health and happiness. Shifting starts with defining your emotional, physical, and even sexual needs for clarifying the structures needed for building security and mutual "win-win" relationships.

Boundaries assist people in the psychological task of differentiating their own needs from the needs of others. The respected goal that people can be different provides everyone the ability to get close and define how each person wants to work and live together. Harmony for all is improved when clear lines of differentiation are welcomed and respected for fostering the empowering belief in self-determination. Boundaries then provide further guidance in goal setting for other avenues of personal well-being.

Life Shift - 2 Create Passion and Purpose

Fri, 06 Nov 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Passion can be defined as a strong inclination toward a self-defining activity that people care deeply about for investing time and energy on a regular basis. But what is the difference between a healthy harmonious passion (love?) and an obsessive devotion (addiction?) for guiding a person in how they focus their behaviors on the object of their affection? Psychological well-being, broadly defined as happiness, life satisfaction, and self-growth, represents one of the most important aspects of optimal physical and psychological functioning.

Indeed, most medical, and psychiatric care givers agree that happy people experience several benefits ranging from physical health to better relationships to high-level performance. Being happily devoted to a significant person, noble cause or exciting hobby is obviously one essential ingredient for feeling fulfilled with one's life.

Dr. Robert Vallerand is currently a Full Professor of Psychology at the University of Quebec. He holds a Canada Research Chair (2019) in Motivational Processes and Optimal Functioning for studying the concept of passion and the impact of harmonious activities on the public's sense of well-being. His research (2012) demonstrates how the experience of positive emotions during activity engagement that takes place on a regular and repeated basis helps sustain emotional and physical health.

The positive feelings of being engaged or connected to a worthwhile person or activity also prevents the experience of negative affect, psychological conflict, and ill being associated with stress related disorders. Passion shores up our self-esteem while strengthening us to fight off the negative effects of stress in our daily lives.

Vallerand and his colleagues (2008) developed a model of passion that addresses the question of can a person be "negatively" passionate about an object, cause or person for hindering people's ability to grow and be healthy. He and his team looked at how people see themselves and how a person's passion influenced and defined a person's identity.

In short, the research concluded there is extensive evidence that the rewards of being in harmony with one's love does contribute to higher levels of optimal functioning as both psychologically and physically measured. But the research also demonstrated how people with an obsessive passion or fixation on an even a commonly defined "positive object" can cause clear evidence of distress and conflict with a more balanced lifestyle.

The issue of passion becomes one of whether the focus of devotion is one of choice. To what degree you choose to engage in certain activities must be measured against the possibility the event/person is starting to control you. Internalizing the importance of an activity or person for achieving intrinsic value is optimum as long a s a person can engage in the passion with a flexible, mindful manner.

When it is time to go home, do other healthy activities or just shut down the event...the healthy, harmonious passion can be put away. When the activity begins to control you and influences your ability to choose wisely...then other words like obsession and addiction come into play for describing your hobby.

Life Shift - 3 Explore Your Desires

Thu, 05 Nov 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Some of us, in our background, have been taught "don't ask for to much" as maybe others thought they were helping us "not to be greedy" when it came to expectations. Modern life now teaches the importance of pursuing personal, health and professional desires and goals in athletic endeavors, business culture, and even recreational hobbies.

People are now more than ever, willing, and eager to set realistic goals for themselves as means to focus their energy and visualize the goals and rewards they seek to obtain. Exploring deep desires frees you to dream of possibilities while helping you visualize the steps needed to fulfill those heart-felt longings.

Dr. Marilyn Price-Mitchell (2018) reviews how written goals provide a road map by which employees can measure their efforts and see how they contribute to the success of the company. Her research highlights evidence indicating goal setters see future possibilities clearer and the bigger picture for staying on task.

Dr. Gail Matthews (2015) also shows in her research how people who wrote down their goals had a 33% higher success rate compared to those who just formulated outcomes in their heads. Locke and Lathan (2006) demonstrate that putting your desires into clear, measurable goal statements improves people's confidence, motivation, and autonomy for taking action to reach one's dreams.

When developing a strategy for applying the research on goal setting for your career, your home life, and your significant relationships, Dr. Price-Mitchell has simple suggestions. Her recommendations for businesses and parents alike include five action-oriented behaviors for building great resilient mindsets for pursuing goals. Her steps include: put goals in writing, self-commit, be specific, challenge for growing, and getting feedback and support for making things fun. And then it is time to celebrate the adventure of going after one's dreams and desires.

Explore your deepest desires today but more importantly...write them down in clear language for committing yourself to pursue your dreams. Your job is to find your destiny and then to do it with specific steps needed for allowing you to follow the steps necessary for goal realization. Do not get caught being a problem solver. Get comfortable with risk taking for energizing your commitment to change and shifting your life toward goal obtainment.

Life Shift - 4 Share Your Humanity

Wed, 04 Nov 2020 21:00:00 GMT

Between the extreme positions of being bum and hero lies the middle ground of being simply human. People comfortable with being in the middle are free from the over-powering effects of depression (never good enough) on one side and anxiety (needs for perfection) on the other side of the self-esteem continuum. This short essay will provide you guidelines for how to share your humanity with others. The lesson starts with the need to laugh at ourselves...for "we are all Bozo’s" on this bus called life on planet earth.

Dr. Brene Brown is a Social Work Research Professor at the University of Houston. In 2012 she wrote the New York Times #1 bestselling book Daring Greatly: How the Courage to be Vulnerable Transforms the Way We Live, Love, Parent, and Lead.

Brown defines vulnerability as basically uncertainty, risk, and emotional exposure. In her book and lectures, Brown shares insight into her own journey of being afraid to risk being not having all the answers. She goes to share how her inability to lean into the discomfort of vulnerability limited the fullness of those important experiences that are wrought with uncertainty: love, belonging, trust, joy, and creativity.

Dr. Brown uses a speech by Theodore Roosevelt delivered in Paris France in 1910 as the essence of her suggestions on the steps to daring greatly. The speech, sometimes referred to as "The Man in the Arena", credits the man in the arena as the real strong person to be admired. The speech's famous line clarifies the bravest of persons is "whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly...who at best knows the triumph of high achievement and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly." To be a critic of others is not the person who counts. It's the person who best knows the necessity of both victory and defeat for showing up each day in the arena of life that defines vulnerability.

Your focus for today is to give thought to how you want to show up knowing you will have victories and defeats along the way. And yes, there will be critics in the crowd who will make fun of you when once in a while when you stumble or fall.

So, you might as well laugh at yourself and enjoy being silly when it is appropriate to fool around. Theodore Roosevelt a century ago encouraged everyday people to be brave and to embrace their humanity. For the intellectuals in Paris, Europe, and back in the United States, Teddy reminds all of us that the truly great individual is the one comfortable enough to be vulnerable and risk failing. Those that show up, knowing there will be highs and lows, and people laughing at us, were the ones to be respected and admired.

Life Shift - 5 Express Your Inner Self

Tue, 03 Nov 2020 20:00:00 GMT

Shifting your life involves the challenge to take ownership of your needs and wants. We become responsible for creating our own destiny by becoming vulnerable for expressing clear boundaries and expectations with others.

Writing life action goals tells our inner brains, others and the universe our intentions for the steps we plan to follow for achieving what our hearts desire for claiming our own happiness. Taking responsibility for your direction fights off the effects of stress and the extreme tendencies to move toward depression and anxiety. Openly express your inner core insights and tools for effectively sharing your thoughts and feelings with those around you.

Dr. Will Meek (2013) reviews the essential components of communication for highlighting all the places an interaction can go wrong. For human communication, Meek presents the key pieces of communication as a sender, a receiver, and the message.

He then takes the messaging part one step further for describing how humans code and decode interactions around speech and nonverbal forms of communication. The receiver then interprets (decodes) the words and nonverbals, with everybody assuming they are all on the same page. Except everybody learned different understandings for what words symbolizes. And different nonverbals complicate the interaction through different understandings of what body language, hand gesture, eye roll, tone inflection, and rate of speech is supposed to convey.

Dr. Meek considers all communication, without exception, as a two-person problem. And thus, a two-person solution, or skill improvement, approach is needed to decrease missed meanings behind thought and feelings expressed. For the sender, Meek recommends be aware of opportunities to make assumptions and thereby the need to slow down and choose your words wisely.

He highlights the need for the sender to think about the receiver's point of view or background for taking into consideration how the receiver will decode the message expressed. For the person decoding an incoming message, Meek suggests the receiver to “check-in" for clarifying if what is being heard is correct.

Your focus for today is to commit to taking ownership of the messages you want to send. If something is important in what you are sharing...ask the receiver what is being heard. Also ask what is being felt or experienced to the meaning behind the interaction. You want your partner to not only hear the words but the emotional aspect of what you are sharing as well. When someone is sharing with you, provide the sender with feedback and clarifying questions to see if you are taking in the intended message. Summarize what you heard and what the emotional impact of the message meant to you.

Life Shift - 6 Practice Safe Bonding

Mon, 02 Nov 2020 20:00:00 GMT

Conversations that start with the phrase, "I'm struggling" acknowledges you are having a hard time and you are open to feedback, guidance, and suggestions by those around you. Shifting involves the idea of getting into the arena of life which often incorporates the need for assistance from others.

By being vulnerable, you allow others to assist you with your goals thereby making you stronger. Having others on your side also has the added benefit of decreasing the negative effects of stress and isolation. Over time, asking for help gets easier, and the healthier support you experience, the better equipped you become for handling other challenges down the road.

Dr. Alice Boyes is author of the resource book entitled The Anxiety Toolkit (2015). When asking for help she suggests several key steps in getting the assistance you need. The first step is to demonstrate that you have already tried to help yourself. Explain what attempted solutions you have already acted on. For Boyes, you then need to demonstrate a willing to follow through with offered suggestions is important for drawing in assistance. Boyes also suggests you consider the timing of your request for showing respect and also increasing the full focus of the helper.

It is also important to clarify what type of helping hand you need. Are you looking for advice, support, or just physical muscle for getting through the moment? Dr. Boyes recommends making your requests using multiple channels. She highlights the importance to provide others various channels for offering their assistance.

And for us to request assistance from varying resources for increasing the range of suggested possible solutions to our issue. And lastly, Boyes reminds us to offer help and support to others for building those collaborative relationships for long term bonding and friendship.

Having well established support systems has the added benefit of greater mental flexibility for considering creative solutions to challenges around us. These support systems allow us to relax and examine problematic events from an open mind perspective.

Secure attachment to significant partners and colleagues allows us to ask for help with the open frame for others to feel free in offering highly creative avenues of possible answers. Brainstorming opportunities are created for looking at situations from new perspectives that maximize your potential to successfully respond to the challenge before you. Your confidence goes up allowing further "win-win" opportunities to play out with those wanting and able to provide your assistance.

Life Shift - 7 Create Community

Sun, 01 Nov 2020 20:00:00 GMT

Bonding with others can be tricky. If we bond with losers, we'll become...well...you know. The clear thing that relationship research (Holt-Lunstad & Smith, 2012) does teach us is that solid bonding experiences with healthy people are highly associated with better emotional, mental, and physical well-being.

In fact, having strong positive relationships is a better predictor of mortality than any other healthy lifestyle behavior. Having strong support systems for times of stress helps us flourish for using challenges to give us strength and a sense of community for fighting stress at home and the workplace.

Research by Feeney and Collins (2014) indicates there are two ways for us to thrive in life: 1) successfully coping with adversity, and 2) the ability to pursue personal and professional goals and opportunities for moving ahead. Strong support systems can help us with challenges and goal pursuits. When coping with adversity, strong support systems buffer us from negative effects of stress by providing us reassurance and acceptance that we are not in "the battle" alone. We have a team behind us that strengthens our resolve and ability to stay motivated for staying on task.

Bonding with others also encourages us to thrive for taking advantage of opportunities for advancement and growth. According to Feeney and Collins, strong supportive relationships can push us to take chances based on positive assessments of the situation and our own strengths and skills for planning winning strategies for tackling a situation courageously.

Being well bonded to people we trust can also serve as a "launching function" for helping us get new projects started and sustained over prolonged endeavors. Knowing we have friends and colleagues cheering us on encourages us to "stay the course" for anticipating the celebration we hope to share with our supportive teammates.

Solid support systems help us to regulate our emotional state, help us to be more resilient, and interpret events and situations around us as being more manageable. Our motivation to overcome adversity goes up and our physiological functioning improves. Being securely connected with caring friends and colleagues, frees our minds to be more creative and to learn from our mistakes in productive fashion.

With our support people there to cheer us on, our bodies stay empowered and lifestyle behaviors, like better eating, sleeping, and exercise are easier to stay consistent. And when others can lean on us, the mutual rewarding experience of "secure team" allows everyone to share in the adventure. Everybody wins and everybody has someone to lean on in both good times and bad.

Long Term Success - Fun Video

Fri, 09 Oct 2020 17:00:00 GMT

Couples have to engage in this activity for over-coming the stresses of modern day life.

Creating A New Path - Training Video

Fri, 18 Sep 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Get out of your old rut for creating an exciting trail for you and your partner.

Healthy Coupling - Essential Skills Video

Thu, 10 Sep 2020 17:00:00 GMT

Learn the essential relationship skills needed for empowering you and your partner to connect passionately on a consistent basis.

Getting Your Mojo Back - Video

Sat, 22 Aug 2020 21:36:00 GMT

Whether getting back out into the world from Covid-19 or recovering from a recent set back in life... you may need to get your confidence and mojo up to speed.

Affair Discovery - Action Plan Video

Fri, 14 Aug 2020 10:00:00 GMT

Discovering your partner is having an affair can be devastating even if you suspected something was off. Often it’s the unknowns that can paralyze you. Develop a plan for going forward . . . safely for putting your lif...

Are You Sunburned?

Sat, 01 Aug 2020 15:36:00 GMT

Did you ever get sunburned as a kid where you often found yourself saying "Don’t touch me” to family or your school mates? Whether over-exposed to the sun or hurt by other life traumatic events, many adults suffer from painful experiences associated with their youth.

The problem with physical afflictions, and other psychologically sensitive issues, is that left untreated, either traumatic event can produce lasting damage to your self-esteem.

With true sunburn your sensitive skin condition can discourage you from getting physically close to other people. Fear of triggering one’s sensitive skin condition causes many people, young and old, from participating in bonding activities that build support systems for later moments of distress.

Getting sunburned with emotional closeness experiences had similar consequences. Fears of getting emotionally scared through rejection or being let down “yet again” discouraged those in need of love from reaching out. The art and skills of safe human interaction therefore never get practiced. Many adults are thereby unprepared for the riggers of intimate relationships including marriage.

Hurtful interpersonal moments experienced with primary caretakers in childhood creates certain expectations and then patterns, or attachment styles, for guiding people in how they interact with significant others. The patterns that are reinforced, first in childhood and then often in early adult life, can often create the very barriers to connection you may strongly desire.

The British psychoanalyst John Bowlby was the first to theorize about attachment, but the various attachment styles you’ve likely heard of were first identified in experiments conducted by Mary Ainsworth in the late 1960s.

Ainsworth’s research indicated about 60 percent of the subjects she studied were easily comforted when temporarily separated from their significant figure. These infants may have been somewhat uncomfortable yet they were secure enough in the confidence their caretaker would return to them shortly.

The research went on to demonstrate 40 percent of the infants studied had significant attachment skill weaknesses. In the remaining subjects, Ainsworth‘s work clarified the experimental subjects fell into an even split (20 percent and 20 percent) between demonstrating anxious-ambivalent and anxious-avoidant styles of attachment.

The anxious-ambivalent group were unable to be comforted and they stayed in an upset condition. These infants appeared to learn to become hesitant and unsure about bonding to a figure that comes and goes expectantly.

Those with an anxious-avoidant style appeared to have learned not to express any sign of upset when the primary caretaker could not be present. Yet when the parent returned to the room, these infants seemed to actively avoid connecting with the parent.

And as time goes on, humans grow up, and the inter-personal dynamics of our childhood appear to stay with us. The attachment style you learned as a child and as a young adult often guides how you will interact in your adult significant relationships.

In a 1994 paper, Hazan and Shaver concluded that the distribution of attachment styles among adults also shows the 60-20-20 percent split. Several years later, Fraley and Shaver (2000) suggested that in childhood, attachment styles are developed, and these “coping patterns” become the guiding influences of adults for describing their marital interactions with a partner.

In short, your sunburn moments from your youth influences how you interact with others today. The cool thing about sunburn and even severe trauma, your physical body and your emotional inter-psyche can be treated and repaired.

Let us say you recognize yourself in one of the “insecure” adult attachment types. Perhaps you notice a tendency to push potential partners away or to stay emotionally distant. This relationship strategy appears to focus on not getting hurt by not expecting to much from the people around you.

On the other side of the anxious style is the strategy, or attempt, to not get hurt by keeping people extremely close. Being preoccupied with having your partner always around may have the exact opposite effect you hope to achieve. You may have had others suggest to you your style is experienced by them to be controlling.

Any extremes in staying distant or overly close may be an indication your “sunburn” needs to be addressed.

Whether you want to examine your childhood moments with significant caretakers or early adult relationships counseling can help you adjust. Professional coaching can also teach you new relationship skills for mastering a new style of connecting with others. Brains and attachments styles can be re-wired for creating safe connection.

If your brain is suffering from early lifetime moments of getting sunburned… please reach out and get the support, you need. Finding the secure middle ground of not to distant and not to close is a relationship skill that can be learned. Seek to develop and master the healthy attachment style you need for over-coming any sunburn experiences from your past.

Where’s Your Brain?

Tue, 07 Jul 2020 17:00:00 GMT

Where’s your brain? Do you operate out of your hippocampus or amygdala part of your brain when interacting with the world? Are you open minded or have you fallen into the trap of shutting others down from expressing their views and opinions?

Hard to believe its been over forty years ago that I decided to go off to college. Appalachian State University, deep in the mountains of NC, was chosen as my safe place for exploring career and lifestyle options as a then young adult.

My brain would be required to think for itself instead of just falling in line with a pre-described position determined by the government, church or others before me. Owning my brain and owning my own belief system was the rational for choosing ASU as my campus of higher learning.

I wanted to think for myself yet from a position of being exposed to the facts and the varying perspectives reasonably argued from varying angles, about the ramification of those facts. ASU was the open forum of tolerance and diversity I needed to develop into an open minded adult.

Students exposed to these types of campus settings become equipped for learning to “think for themselves” verses being “educated” that this is “the way” to see the world. For many state universities of that day, the concept of co-existence was stressed as an American strength that would heal some wrongs from the past. While also producing an open society for preventing errors of “group think” from whomever happens to currently sit in positions of political, economic or cultural power.

The concept of “university” goes back to the Greeks for emphasizing safety to explore possibilities and appreciation for diversity thereby creating the Greek culture of open minded citizens. As an open society free to debate and tolerate varying viewpoints, Athenians demonstrated to the world the benefits of ”university” type settings for allowing safe dialogue and exploration of possibilities.

Both individual liberties and the Greek nation as a whole prospered with tolerance being accepted as the norm and expectation from the people of that day.

The Greeks certainly didn’t understand the brain details behind their commitment to an open society. But they most certainly knew the advantages for individuals and therefore the larger group for the citizens of Athens to stay in the hippocampus part of their brains for interacting with others.

The hippocampus area of the brain allows people to hear other people’s perspectives. And to emotionally empathize with another person’s “sensitivity spots” and viewpoint based on the other person’s background and life experiences. This is where people connect for creating safe environments for individuals to support each other thereby creating mutually rewarding partnerships.

But if people are taught to operate from the amygdala (fight/flight) part of their brain, the pillars of any partnership (or nation?) become unstable for allowing true “co-existence” to occur.

Today’s college campus settings are moving away from safe exploration and debates to one of a “cancel culture” for silencing opposing “popular” views. With “politically correct” views being dictated by the students themselves. And from the prior training from pop culture and education these young folks have already been exposed to in their formative years.

The result is the silencing of varying perspectives that allows students and society’s to avoid group think and thus mistakes and abuses from people in power that “know what’s best for me”. The first amendment was established to prevent the “Lords of London” from happening again in the new world of North America.

On a personal level as a marriage and family therapist, recent society trends toward silencing opposition makes my work for helping people connect more difficult. If all people hear all day long is “silence or destroy” those different from you…then how are families or couples supposed to come together peacefully?

Much of effective parenting revolves around building the safe place and expectation youth will have different perspectives and feelings around a wide variety of issues. As young people get older, the secret of healthy parental guidance is creating safe boundaries and structures for “launching” young adults into the world.

Staying connected with young people forming their own opinion about the lifestyles they want to explore involves skills for staying in that hippocampus part of the brain. Staying connected and in a loving frame is a brain skill and gift for teaching young people they can be heard and respected for making healthy adult decisions. Disagreement and lively discussion is to be expected between the generations.

Helping children to understand they own their destiny is a vital lesson for assisting young adults to be responsible for the choices they make.

Knowing they can always come home to a safe harbour to rest or openly reflect on what they are experiencing out in the sometimes difficult world, allows young people to stay connected with us. That secure connection and validation from family and parents allows children to operate from a secure base. Thus decreasing their tendencies to be blown around by the current winds of the time for dictating their actions and decisions for handling complex issues.

Adult couples also need the safe attachment sense of security for knowing their significant partner always has their back. Even adult brains benefit from knowing they can disagree with their partner with the confidence no one will do the brain shift into the amygdala for triggering an all out war. Developing the skills to be “differentiated” yet connected is much of the work of couples therapy.

Watch your brain and if you are tending to operate much of your personal or community life out of the “fight/flight” part of your brain you may want some coaching for countering this society trend. Even the Greeks knew thousands of years ago that by staying open minded, creating safe debates and by establishing avenues of open philosophic dialogue... good things tend to happens for the citizens committed to this goal.

Even if society is currently in a “fight/flight” amygdala mindset, you don’t have to buy into operating from that alarmist point of view. Staying in the amygdala part of your brain produces symptoms associated with PTSD like uncontrolled anger, increased depression and more frequent anxiety. Adults with an overstimulated amygdala also have increased tendencies to engage in addictive activities like drugs, alcohol, porn, gambling, food disorders and sexual extremes.

Modern day adults are using all kinds of “unhealthy coping techniques” for self-medicating their brains due to never being taught healthy brain skills for dealing with stress.

The frequent tendency to withdraw from others is also a major indicator that some positive connection brain skill training is needed. If isolation is your only alternative to “fighting with others” than you need more skills then pulling away or numbing out through self destructive behaviors.

Good brain skills can be learned and refined for dealing with life’s stressors. Staying in the connecting hippocampus part of the your brain is a relationship skill the Greeks taught thousands of years ago. Isn’t it time we returned to a more tolerant culture and family life for interacting with others around us?

The Art of Active Listening - Fun Video

Tue, 16 Jun 2020 05:00:00 GMT

Listening is more than hearing the words. Learn how to connect using your heart.

Difficult Decisions of the Heart

Mon, 01 Jun 2020 17:05:00 GMT

Why does it hurt so much? Is it all in your head or is your heart really telling you it’s time to walk away? And what is the cost of staying to long in a relationship where neglect and rejection are the norm?

I was saddened last week by a client struggling with the possibility his four year marriage was over. He and his wife had spent the better part of the past two years in couples therapy trying to repair and improve their now toxic relationship. A week later, I’m still wondering what could have been done differently to help them break the destructive pattern they were now experiencing.

The situation was getting out of control where cops were being called to their house. The husband was also hearing his adolescent son repeat the words “it’s okay daddy if we have to leave” as life in the house was continuing to spiral downward. The son was acknowledging what the father could not.

That things were at a breaking point and somebody had to make a difficult decision.

The pain that the son could see went further than the anguish on his father’s face. And deeper than the words expressed to me, and probably a friend or two, as my client searched for any last ditch solution to save the marriage.

The father, my individual client now as the wife had decided to seek out her own therapist months ago, was a man of high personal and professional integrity. This was a man that believed in never giving up on a friend or colleague.

Much less his former lover that once connected with him so passionately. Even if emotionally and intimately rejected by his wife for the past 2 years, here was a human being still struggling with how to hang on.

The wife, coming from a very dysfunctional family background, was more than willing to ride out a now cold and distant relationship. She seemed to operate from the position that “things weren’t so bad” and the couple could live this way well into their senior years.

The damage she was doing by constantly refusing to connect with her partner, emotionally or sexually, was currently beyond her ability to grasp.

For couples caught in the endless cycle of rejection the emotional scars run deep. At some point, someone has to see the permanent damage taking place for making a difficult decision.

Nathan DeWall, social psychology professor (2011) at the University of Kentucky, was one of the first to study the cost of staying in a prolonged state of social rejection. What he found indicated the emotional pain and physical pain systems in humans are closely aligned.

DeWall says people of all ages experience social pain differently from physical pain, but in his words “there are many commonalities.” He goes on to state “probably what happened over the course of human evolution is that as we came to rely more on social inclusion for survival, the body’s physical-pain system became the basis for a social-pain system designed to ensure we weren’t fending for ourselves in a hostile world.”

Your brain is a social organism that needs significant relationships to thrive. When injured by sudden or prolonged relationship neglect or rejection the consequences are real. Your emotional health and psychological well-being do suffer real pain.

Left untreated or unresolved, the on-going assault to the social pain system of the brain creates lasting damage.

Dealing with the possibility of a failed marriage, a person’s internal social pain system sounds the alarm for telling the nerve centers in our brain something has to give. The problem occurs when society or one’s philosophic background tells you never to give up.

Professor DeWall’s research clearly showed analgesic medicine did actually reduce test subject’s distress after recent social trauma. Rejection by a significant other or one’s peers can cause damage to the point professional intervention is needed.

This is not to say everybody, or even most people, need medicine after upsetting social experiences. But dealing with the possibility of losing an assumed life time partner is another level of trauma requiring greater focus.

By continuing to reach out to a partner that consistently rejects you…the consequences to your brain, heart and body have to be taken into consideration.

DeWall’s research demonstrates rejection from significant persons does provoke intense reactions. He goes on to state, “People who’ve been rejected are more likely to overeat, procrastinate, take financial risks, perform poorly on measures of intelligence, and act aggressively.”

And over time, those “character traits” settle into our bones for creating “personality styles” that become harder and harder to change the longer the trauma persists. Staying in a destructive marriage, work or family situation where contact rejection occurs does leave permanent damage at some point.

If you find yourself in a situation where consistent rejection is the norm…be careful and listen to your internal alarm system. That aching heart is real and damage is occurring. Also listen to friends around you who might see the possible permanent damage being done to your spirit.

When in doubt, seek professional assistance for gaining clarity regarding the decisions before you. You may have a little one watching your actions for learning the definition of what love means. You have to be willing to love yourself first before others can love you in a healthy manner.

Learn how to clarify and define the needs of your heart in various social situations. There is a limit to how much your heart can take. Protect your spirit by letting go of social relationships that refuse or are unable, for the most part, to consistently match the level of love or commitment you are willing to offer others.

How’s Your Inner Harmony Doing?

Fri, 22 May 2020 09:00:00 GMT

What drives you? In today’s world of polarizing politics and economic competition, how do you create inner harmony with in you and with those around you? Are you at war with everybody, including your self? Do you feel the skills for creating peace and tranquility are with in you?

Freud believed the human condition is one of conflict between what drives you and what hinders your ability to find and maintain inner harmony. He had an incredibly pessimistic view of human nature, to say the least. He seems to believe we would always be in conflict with something internally or with others around us.

Any wonder why, well over a hundred years after Freud, the term “therapy” still has people feeling a little jittery when the debate of asking for professional help begins?

Karen Horney was another early pioneer in the field of human psychology. But her view of the human condition was much different from Freud’s obsession with inter-psychic battles.

Reflecting on life goals in her diaries at the age of 18, Karen wrote her New Year’s resolution for 1904. Her goal was “To learn how to listen to the delicate vibrations of my soul, to be incorruptibly true to myself and fair to others, to find in this way the right measure of my own worth.”

Have you been recently listening to your inner vibrations? Are you clear on how that inner sense of harmony translates into your actions in society? And are you currently living in a mutually respectful way with others around you?

Compared to Freud, Karen Horney's view of human potential was a much more optimistic one. As a teenager, her early writings refuted the idea you have to be at battle within your self and with others. How well have you refuted tendencies to battle with others during the recent pandemic?

Another major contribution of Karen to the world of early psychology revolved around the importance of recognizing environment factors. She emphasized the concept people learned “connection styles” for dealing with the world around them. She saw people tending to fall into categories of attachment that could be used in the “counseling” room as a focus of discussion for exploring change.

Karen proposed three main directions in which a person can move: toward people, against people, and away from people. Here’s are her major themes behind these styles for exploring connection difficulties often reinforced by early traumatic experiences.

“Moving Toward People”— Compliance (AKA - People Pleaser)

1. I need to be liked by everyone.

2. I am completely self-sacrificing.

3. I care very much what other people think of me.

“Moving Against People”— Aggressive (AKA – Control Freak)

1. It’s a hostile world.

2. Life is a struggle.

3. I like to be in command.

“Moving Away From People”—Detached (AKA – Lone Cowboy)

1. I am self-sufficient.

2. I don’t really need people.

3. I could live quite well without anyone.

As Karen Horney pointed out, poor attachment patterns serve an immensely important function in maintaining a distorted sense of safety and security. These attachment styles actually served a survival purpose in getting us through difficult seasons in our development. That’s why the behaviors behind the sequence are so difficult to break.

The deep implication of Karen’s work is that, when in the grip of a destructive cycle, you may get so hung up on your “tyrannical shoulds” that you aren’t actually moving in the direction you truly value. For some people, it’s like you are working against the secure connection you actually crave.

Do you ever find your self not knowing the exact healthy skills needing implementation? If so, it may be because you have limited exposure to a good assortment of secure attachment moments from your past. Never getting a chance to witness or practice a particular behavior, whether in childhood or as a young adult, can leave you feeling stuck for making changes today you determine necessary for success.

For those seeking new more productive attachment styles, brains can be re-wired for avoiding old excessive tendencies to be overly compliant, aggressive or detached. Is it time for you to replace old survival patterns for a newer style, that may serve you and others, in a fashion more conducive for today’s reality?

The healthy harmony Karen Horney wrote about, over one hundred years ago, in her teenage diary is obtainable. Karen believed in the human potential for growth and transformation. She believed children and adults with traumatic backgrounds can create the peace and harmony they desire.

Her dream for the evolving field of psychotherapy was helping people achieve wholeheartedness: by living without pretense, to be emotionally sincere, to be able to put the whole of oneself into one’s feeling, one’s work, one’s beliefs.”

Are you satisfied with your efforts to live in a wholehearted fashion?

The Creation Of Self-Worth

Fri, 15 May 2020 23:00:00 GMT

I recently heard a story about a father attempting to provide his son with one last bit of wisdom before he pasted away. The parent wanted the young man to understand the importance of being in the right environment to feel appreciated. This is that story.

Before he died, a father said to his son; “Here is a watch that your grandfather gave me. It is almost 200 years old. Before I give it to you, go to the jewelry store downtown. Tell them that I want to sell it, and see how much they will offer you.”

The son went to the jewelry store, and then came home to his father. The son said; “They offered $150 because they looked at it and said it was very old.” The father said; “Now go to the local pawn shop.”

The son went to the pawn shop with the family watch. Coming back to his father, he reported; ”They offered $10 because it looks warn and out of style.” At this point the dad asked his son to go to the museum and show them the same time piece.

After going to the museum and coming home, the son said to his dad; “Holy Smokes - The curator offered $500,000 for the rare piece and insisted he wanted to have it!” The son went on to say; “That guy is going to become my best friend!”

Having heard the excitement in his son, the father warmly smiled and gave his son the family heirloom. The lesson of not settling for bad situations that don’t appreciate your value had clearly been learned.

In the counseling office, I often hear the determination of people wanting to leave bad situations or relationships. These folks also believe a better deal, surely, exists around the corner for providing the self worth they deeply desire.

If you find yourself in a place of feeling under-valued or unappreciated...looking for other options is one solution. Especially if bad things are already happening in that circumstance.

Whether you decide to leave a place of employment or marriage that seems disheartening, you may want to first give others and your self the opportunity of repair and growth. Stating your needs and expectations at work, in your local community and with your significant partner is the first step in creating your own self worth.

Years from now, knowing you gave your self and others every opportunity to change is what will comfort or haunt your soul for perhaps a very long time.

Some employers can’t provide the raise or vacation time you desperately crave. These companies may have their own pressures they are struggling with beyond your knowledge. But the boss’s willingness to let you slide out of work early and on weekends to catch your kid’s soccer games, at least, says they are trying.

Same with a partner who has ”less than attractive habits” to live with but can reach out to you in other ways. Learning how to request and negotiate possibilities on building mutual respect and appreciation is a skill that can be taught and practiced.

The Six Pillars of Self-Esteem is a psychology book written by Dr. Nathaniel Branden. Known as the "father" of the Self-Esteem movement, Brandon identifies what he believes are the key elements that raise or lower internal perceptions of self-esteem.

Brandon’s foundation for creating feelings of self worth are highlighted in his concepts of; Trustworthiness, Respect, Responsibility, Fairness, Caring and Citizenship. He explains these character traits in these ways.

1. Living consciously: Being aware of the power of your thoughts and how your behavior affects yourself and others.

2. Self-acceptance: Knowing that you are bound to experience lapses and setbacks along with your successes and leaps forward.

3. Self-responsibility: Accepting accountability for all that you do.

4. Self-assertiveness: Knowing your needs and being able to express them clearly, directly, and calmly to others.

5. Living purposefully: Feeling that what you do is meaningful for you.

6. Personal integrity: Knowing your values and always aiming to live up to them.

Build the self worth you feel is important with the same integrity of hearing others search for the same. Strive for mutual paths that best give each of you access to rewarding experiences in the world and with each other.

Commit to the discipline of allowing each partner to speak freely for adjusting goals as life unfolds before each of you. Take a leading role in creating the institutions around you that can display your unique qualities for treating you as a rare and precise gift to be honored and valued accordingly.

What’s Your Life Strategy?

Thu, 14 May 2020 16:00:00 GMT

With the COVID-19 crisis starting to wind down, you have to ask the question “What is my life strategy?” for coming out of hibernation. As the nation and world begins to determine its new normal… what values are your priority for guiding your definition of what’s important? What will become your new normal and strategy for going forward?

Your goals of getting the most out of life need to be clear yet flexible for preparing for the next challenge surely to develop. And sometimes in ways and means you can not contemplate today. Who would have foreseen the world socially and economically being turned on its head by a “flu” (or weird protein) out of China as we have recently experienced?

During a recent interview the "Oracle of Omaha," Warren Buffett, was asked about investment strategy given 2020’s volatility in the stock market. As the forth richest man in the world, according to Forbes magazine, people wanted to know his advice for moving ahead. His response was invest your resources and energy into positions you can hold for a lifetime.

Warren Buffett strongly suggests before people debate which stocks to purchase, they have to determine ahead of time if they can own their decisions for what may require decades of commitment. Those who can’t hold to a long term value decision, Buffett believes these people will buy and sell stocks at the wrong time and therefore lose their initial investment, if not more.

Owning and valuing one stock over another based on short-sidedness or current fades is a recipe for disaster. A wise investor, and their partner, have to be prepared for riding out the typical ups and downs in the market, and world events, for capitalizing on solid positions. This shared investment strategy occurs through discussion and commitment of finding shared dreams and risk tolerance levels for developing a shared financial and life game plan.

Buffett runs Berkshire Hathaway, which owns more than 60 companies, including insurer Geico, battery maker Duracell and restaurant chain Dairy Queen. He's promised to give away over 99% of his fortune. In 2019 he donated $3.6 billion, much of it to the foundation of friends Bill and Melinda Gates. In 2010, he and Gates launched the Giving Pledge, asking billionaires to commit to donating half their wealth to charitable causes.

Buffett instructs Berkshire Hathaway investors to think long term when it comes to owning and selling stocks. When it comes to life strategy matters, partners can benefit from having similar shared values and the mindset they are in it, together, for a lifetime.

Hopefully having given time and energy to getting back to the basics with the recent slow-down, its time for you to re-invest in the future. It’s your moment to decide what core values and life strategy you want to make for “holding long-term” and riding out future normal ups and downs of daily life.

Once you know what you and your partner value, you can set personal and family goals to help bring about end-results that are aligned with your values. The strategy of obtaining mutually shared individual and mutual goals provides the foundation upon which you and your partner can stand. And ride out any future storm or world upset.

Understanding and committing to the value of shared dreams and visions is a life strategy in it’s self. Working with a partner on how to safely implement the shared strategy is a skill that can be learned and perfected with focused attention. Once grounded in secure attachment of collective passions and desires, you and your partner can determine “stepping stone” type goals along the way for reaching your hearts’ desires.

Commitment to mutual values allows flexibility to adjust short term goals on the fly as you keep your eyes on the long term objective. Between partners-deciding who you are and how you live your daily routine is a life strategy that can be held for decades. Your life strategy becomes clear when you safely connect for finding mutual areas of common interest and shared values.

Train Like A Professional

Wed, 13 May 2020 09:00:00 GMT

When it comes to your emotions, especially fear, dread and anxiety, the long standing assumption was feelings come first and then your body follows suit. But as every major league baseball player knows, and trains, the body reacts to stimuli before the mind can begin to process whether to swing the bat at a fast moving curve-ball.

Elite athletes know the body is faster than the brain!

In his now famous work, Looking for Spinoza, neuroscientist Antonio Damasio demonstrates how the body leads the brain for “deciding” how to interpret events around you. Feelings like fear, dread and anxiety are generated as emotions by your “mind map” assessment of what’s happening in your body.

Your brain takes a collective picture of what’s happening within your body’s core for generating the corresponding emotional state to match your body’s posture and level of tension. Whether it’s to swing at a pitch in a ball game or to yell at your partner over a simple question, your body sets the stage for your mental and emotional reaction to events around you.

Those wanting to become an athlete on a professional level train their body for re-acting to stimuli before the brain can begin to calculate the best course of action. Ball players of every sport often joke “if you’re thinking…it’s too late.”

When it comes to handling life and relationship stressors, that pop up in an instant, here’s the obvious question. Can a person or couple train for split-second situations before they occur? The short answer is a definite yes. You should train hard-and with a teammate, if possible.

It’s one thing for the local Joe to flub a sporting opportunity for becoming the game’s hero. It’s another for everyday folks to strike out at work, with your significant other or in life when you only get one chance to do it right.

Luckily, the evidence is clear that individuals and couples can train for high stress situations that can be anticipated. Daily stressful subjects including kids, work, and romance can be practiced for teaching your brain, first with your body, how you want to emote to events around you.

Make the decision to sit with your significant partner for “re-wiring” your body/mind sequence. Choose the mental and emotional goal of what you want to achieve from your daily practice. Then go for it with a committed practice schedule.

Think of it as putting your body and mind in a practice batting cage preparing for the fast ball during the next big game. Practice remaining alert and engaged for telling your mind you can handle the pressure without the fear, dread or anxiety produced in the past.

1. Sit close to your training partner. Grab hands as needed.

2. Choose which partner goes first. Express emotional concerns, desires and experiences.

3. Take in your partner’s feelings. Share your reactions and shifting of perspective.

Use a timer for this exercise in order to provide each partner with equal time to be heard. Repeat the sharing process as needed until each partner is “felt” by the other for generating connection.

Remember the goal is emotional attunement not intellectual agreement. By practicing the safe experience of each partner being vulnerable, and being “felt” by the other, partners train each other’s body and mind to connect instead of going into the fight/flight response. Staying differentiated in philosophy is perfectly acceptable.

The skills you develop will build confidence between you and your teammate. Start with physically teaching your body to stay connected to your partner. Welcome opportunities to practice attuning the “mind map” in each of you. This is where the ultimate feeling of safe connection is achieved for providing peace, happiness and positive energy for the future.

Use the insights of neuroscience to train for your emotional success by following your body’s lead in directions you identify as priority today.

Connection Can Be Scary

Fri, 08 May 2020 19:00:00 GMT

Many of us have been taught to stand on our own two feet for handling life’s challenges. In twentieth-century America, parents and society taught young people to be self-reliant. And that was supposed to be a good thing.

The need to lean on others for support and nurturing was suggested to represent a sign of weakness.

But what if that overemphasis on independence set most of us to struggle and even be terrified of opportunities for building secure attachment? And even if we wanted to connect… many people in America and around the world, have never experienced, much less practiced healthy partnerships with significant others.

For many young couples, the willingness to engage in connecting events is often driven by hormones and the excitement of exploring common philosophies and activities. But what happens when couples get older and more mature nurturing skills are needed?

Negotiating details of mutual security and sustaining love is a scary proposition when one or both partners lack the mindfulness skills for handling distress. Instead of using challenging events to expand the relationship into a deeper sense of attachment, crises often trigger one or both partners into a state of panic. And then the cycle begins.

And then the destructive cycle of fear and insecurity locks partners into a downward pattern of self-survival. Thus pitting one partner against the other commonly expressed in right/wrong arguments. Instead of teaming up with our partner… people shift into a panic. Under extreme or prolonged stress the theme of “every man for themselves” digs its ugly claws into everyone’s brain.

My hopes are you and your significant partner come out of the quarantine in a connected frame. If brains have become locked in the destructive pattern of doubting the other’s intentions and purposes then they don’t have to stay that way.

Reach out to your partner for reconnecting. Slow your own brain down first. Offer re-assurance you are on your partner’s team and you want to find middle-ground. If bad words and gestures were common events during the recent crisis… give your verbal intentions of wanting to make amends.

Be ready to be required to demonstrate consistent behavioral efforts for showing its safe to get close to you. And of course, safety goes both ways for consistency to be reached from all involved.

If all else fails, reach out to me or another relationship-focused therapist for professional assistance in changing directions. Brains can get re-trained and partnerships can learn new skills for achieving the mature love and affection that goes beyond hormones and the excitement of youth.

Get Rid of Stress Today - Fun Video

Fri, 01 May 2020 19:00:00 GMT

Stress happens. Here are 5 ways to de-stress now.