Monthly Archives: May 2018

May21

It Makes Sense We Sabotage Ourselves and Why It’s OK.

Posted on by
Standard

Self sabotage comes in many forms.

We can become hyper aware because we have been dealing with unreliable people for a long time and we expect things to go wrong.

We can get in the habit of not making commitments because those we trusted thwarted all that we loved.

We may want to be unseen because any attention means possible abuse.

We may people please to keep us safe at the expense of our own needs.

We may want to control everything just to feel safe enough to exist.

There are many more ways to self sabotage but the reason why we do that is because there are unresolved issues just under the surface of our awareness and our self sabotage keeps us distracted enough not to feel those feelings.

Self sabotage is a coping method and that is OK until you are in a place to look at those feelings and release them.

It’s not easy but with some kindness and compassion for yourself you will gradually let go of self sabotaging behavior.

May20

Betrayal

Posted on by
Standard

One of the worst experiences one can have is to be betrayed. What is betrayal? It’s disloyalty, stabbed in the back, unfaithful, double crossed, tricked, given false information, or no information, misled, abandoned, let down, and deserted. You get the idea.

It’s that crushing feeling of shock, disbelief, anger, shame, and you want retribution and fight hard against denial of the betrayal because it hurts so much.

This is no easy feeling to deal with, it may take some time to process what is going on. Here are some suggestions.

  1. Have some detachment.
  2. Talk it out with a trusted friend.
  3. Feel the emptiness and grieve.
  4. Don’t act out irrationally.
  5. Make a recovery plan.
  6. Be really good to yourself.

The key to healing betrayal is to be self-aware and really good to yourself. Know that it is only a matter of time before you feel better.

May19

Coping With The Loss Of A Loved One.

Posted on by
Standard

My father passed away a few days ago. We had a challenging relationship. So as I go to the viewing today I will leave you all with this lovely article about grief from the American Psychological Association.

Grief: Coping with the loss of your loved one

Coping with the loss of your loved one

Coping with the loss of a close friend or family member may be one of the hardest challenges that many of us face. When we lose a spouse, sibling or parent our grief can be particularly intense. Loss is understood as a natural part of life, but we can still be overcome by shock and confusion, leading to prolonged periods of sadness or depression. The sadness typically diminishes in intensity as time passes, but grieving is an important process in order to overcome these feelings and continue to embrace the time you had with your loved one.

Everyone reacts differently to death and employs personal coping mechanisms for grief. Research shows that most people can recover from loss on their own through the passage of time if they have social support and healthy habits. It may take months or a year to come to terms with a loss. There is no “normal” time period for someone to grieve. Don’t expect to pass through phases of grief either, as new research suggests that most people do not go through stages as progressive steps.

If your relationship with the deceased was difficult, this will also add another dimension to the grieving process. It may take some time and thought before you are able to look back on the relationship and adjust to the loss.

Human beings are naturally resilient, considering most of us can endure loss and then continue on with our own lives. But some people may struggle with grief for longer periods of time and feel unable to carry out daily activities. Those with severe grief may be experiencing complicated grief. These individuals could benefit from the help of a psychologist or another licensed mental health professional with a specialization in grief.

Moving on with life

Mourning the loss of a close friend or relative takes time, but research tells us that it can also be the catalyst for a renewed sense of meaning that offers purpose and direction to life.

Grieving individuals may find it useful to use some of the following strategies to help come to terms with loss:

  • Talk about the death of your loved one with friends and colleagues in order to understand what happened and remember your friend or family member. Denying the death is an easy way to isolate yourself, and will frustrate your support system in the process.
  • Accept your feelings. People experience all kinds of emotions after the death of someone close. Sadness, anger, frustration and even exhaustion are all normal.
  • Take care of yourself and your family. Eating well, exercising and getting plenty of rest help us get through each day and move forward.
  • Reach out and help others dealing with the loss. Helping others has the added benefit of making you feel better as well. Sharing stories of the deceased can help everyone cope.
  • Remember and celebrate the lives of your loved ones. Possibilities include donating to a favorite charity of the deceased, framing photos of fun times, passing on a family name to a baby or planting a garden in memory. What you choose is up to you, as long as it allows you honor that unique relationship in a way that feels right to you. If you feel stuck or overwhelmed by your emotions, it may be helpful to talk with a licensed psychologist or other mental health professional who can help you cope with your feelings and find ways to get back on track.

How psychologists can help

Psychologists are trained to help people better handle the fear, guilt or anxiety that can be associated with the death of a loved one. If you need help dealing with your grief or managing a loss, consult with a psychologist or other licensed mental health professional.

Psychologists can help people build their resilience and develop strategies to get through their sadness. Practicing psychologists use a variety of evidence-based treatments — most commonly psychotherapy — to help people improve their lives. Psychologists, who have doctoral degrees, receive one of the highest levels of education of any health care professional.

Use the Psychologist Locator to find a psychologist in your area.

This Help Center article was adapted from a March 2011 post by Katherine C. Nordal, PhD on APA’s Your Mind Your Body Blog.

The full text of articles from APA Help Center may be reproduced and distributed for noncommercial purposes with credit given to the American Psychological Association. Any electronic reproductions must link to the original article on the APA Help Center. Any exceptions to this, including excerpting, paraphrasing or reproduction in a commercial work, must be presented in writing to the APA.Images from the APA Help Center may not be reproduced.

May18

Mental Disorder and Mental Health Problem

Posted on by
Standard

Mental Health Disorder is an illness that is diagnosable. The illness affects a person’s thinking, emotional state and behavior and disrupts their lives. Examples are depression and anxiety which is common and the not so common schizophrenia and bipolar disorder which can lead to a disability.

Mental Health Problem is a much broader term that included both mental health disorders and symptoms of mental disorders that may not be  severe enough to warrant a diagnosis of a mental disorder.

Slang terms used for mental health issues are crazy, psycho, mad, loony, nuts, cracked up and wacko. None of these terms are helpful for give much information on the subject.

Helpful Resources for your mental health and if you are assisting others.

National Institute of Mental Health – http://www.nimh.nih.gov

World Health Organization – http://www.who.int/topics/global_burden_of_disease/en/

 

 

From: Chapter 1 of Mental Health First Aid USA ISBN:978-00692-60748-0

 

May17

Thoughtful Thursday #213 – 45 Life Lessons by Regina Brett

Posted on by
Standard

People often tell Regina Brett how great she looks for her age. Turns out, she is actually 54 years old — not 90. She wrote down these life lessons the night before her 45th birthday after being diagnosed with breast cancer. Over that past decade, these lessons have gone viral on the Internet amid claims that she is 90 years old. Luckily, she finds humor in this misrepresentation, knowing how many lives she has touched.

Whatever her age might be, these universal lessons are relatable to anyone who needs a little reminder of what’s important in life.

1. Life isn’t fair, but it’s still good.

2. When in doubt, just take the next small step.

3. Life is too short to waste time hating anyone.

4. Don’t take yourself so seriously. No one else does.

5. Pay off your credit cards every month.

6. You don’t have to win every argument. Agree to disagree.

7. Cry with someone. It’s more healing than crying alone.

8. Save for retirement, starting with your first paycheck.

9. When it comes to chocolate, resistance is futile.

10. Make peace with your past so it won’t screw up the present.

11. It’s OK to let your children see you cry.

12. Don’t compare your life to others’. You have no idea what their journey is all about.

13. If a relationship has to be a secret, you shouldn’t be in it.

14. Life is too short for long pity parties. Get busy living, or get busy dying.

15. You can get through anything if you stay put in today.

16. A writer writes. If you want to be a writer, write.

17. It’s never too late to have a happy childhood. But the second one is up to you and no one else.

18. When it comes to going after what you love in life, don’t take no for an answer.

19. Burn the candles; use the nice sheets; wear the fancy lingerie. Don’t save it for a special occasion. Today is special.

20. Overprepare, then go with the flow.

21. Be eccentric now. Don’t wait for old age to wear purple.

22. The most important sex organ is the brain.

23. No one is in charge of your happiness except you.

24. Frame every so-called disaster with these words: “In five years, will this matter?”

25. Forgive everyone everything.

26. What other people think of you is none of your business.

27. Time heals almost everything. Give time time.

28. However good or bad a situation is, it will change.

29. Your job won’t take care of you when you are sick. Your friends will. Stay in touch.

30. Believe in miracles.

31. Whatever doesn’t kill you really does make you stronger.

32. Growing old beats the alternative — dying young.

33. Your children get only one childhood. Make it memorable.

34. Get outside every day. Miracles are waiting everywhere.

35. If we all threw our problems in a pile and saw everyone else’s, we’d grab ours back.

36. Don’t audit life. Show up and make the most of it now.

37. Get rid of anything that isn’t useful, beautiful or joyful.

38. All that truly matters in the end is that you loved.

39. Envy is a waste of time. You already have all you need.

40. The best is yet to come.

41. No matter how you feel, get up, dress up, and show up.

42. Take a deep breath. It calms the mind.

43. If you don’t ask, you don’t get.

44. Yield.

45. Life isn’t tied with a bow, but it’s still a gift.

May16

Beating Trauma with Elisabeth Corey

Posted on by
Standard

I have worked with Elisabeth Corey for quite some time. Along with a trauma therapist  and  Elisabeth I have made great strides in working through years of trauma. Working with her was the missing link in my recovery. I am adding her most recent blog post here in the hopes it may help you.

Bringing in the New

by  | May 16, 2018 | Defenders, Freedom Fighters, Recovery, Relationships | 2 comments

Bringing in the New

Most of us have been on this journey for a long time.  We have been searching for peace and healing for years.  We have sought out the answers to our pain for years.  We would most certainly call ourselves seekers.  We are driven by something deep inside that won’t leave us alone.  Even when we spend time in denial, we always come back.  But the resistance to our journey is strong and coming from all directions.  Society tells us to plan for the future, to ignore the past, to be as productive as possible, and to pretend we are fine, even perfect.  Our family wants us to stay in denial and keep the secrets.  Our friends wonder why we won’t stop thinking and talking about the past. All of these pressures can set us back on our journey.

But society has the wrong idea.  We think we can leave the past behind by ignoring it, denying it and focusing on the future.  But we cannot create what we want this way.  It is like building a house of cards in an earthquake zone.  It is only a matter of time before our past patterns, cycles, beliefs and emotions come rising up and shake everything to the ground.  We cannot build a new life on this shaky foundation.  We must dig deep and unearth the unconscious residue from our traumatic past.  We must pull it up and out.  Until that happens, we are not making a new life for ourselves.  There is no room for it.  The space to manifest is already full.  And it is manifesting what we don’t want.  To bring in the new, we must let go of the old.  But what does it mean to let go of the old?  Here are some examples I have found in my own life.

Letting Go of the Savior.  If we grew up with childhood trauma, we almost always have inner children hoping for a savior.  This savior might be modeled after someone who existed in real life or an imaginary person.  But these hopes sit in our unconscious and drive most of what we do.  They tell us things like, “Don’t be too successful or our savior might not feel the need to come.”  Inner children are very opposed to the idea that we can save ourselves.  They don’t understand we have an adult self now and can actually make empowered change in our lives.  And if they are too strong in our unconscious, they might have us convinced we cannot save ourselves.  They live in a state of helplessness and hopelessness.  We must come to understand this as an emotional flashback so we can live our lives without the constant search for a savior.

Letting Go of the Parental Relationship.  I am going to start by saying this isn’t always necessary in the most literal sense.  We might not need to completely let go of the parental relationship to bring in the new.  But I will guarantee we need to let go of the dysfunction and lack of boundaries.  Parents will likely fight us on this, but this needs to be done for us to manifest our best life.  These parental relationships in their current form are clouding our energy.  We have contracts with them left over from childhood.  These contracts might obligate us to take care of our parents’ emotional or physical needs.  These contracts might obligate us to take part in their traditions.  They may even obligate us to financially support our parents.  These contracts are upheld by guilt and societal duty, but they are not in our best interest.  These contracts mean we are not free.  We are slaves to our past relationships.  And new, more fulfilling relationships cannot enter our space while we uphold these contracts with our parents.

Letting Go of Dead People.  This concept might be a stretch for you.  I get that.  Depending on your beliefs, this may or may not resonate with you.  And feel free to take it or leave it.  But for me, I have sensed some aspects of my energy being held up by dead people.  My ancestors are most certainly hanging around and I used to think this was a good thing.  I do believe we transmute and transform energy for the generations before us as we heal ourselves.  And when we are on a deep healing path, this might give us quite a bit of spiritual company.  It might feel comforting for a while.  But I am starting to realize there is a point in this journey where I have to send them away.  As long as my traumatic past is living in my energy, I am not completely free to bring in the new.  But there is one significant dead person who I am particularly focused on at the moment: my ex-husband and children’s father.  He needs to go.  I have recently realized I have spent the past 7 years married to a ghost.  He is deeply and energetically tied into my needs for a savior.  And on some very unconscious level, my inner children were still expecting a return.  But a return would only give me a heart attack.  My adult self sincerely doesn’t want that for a couple of reasons.  1) He’s dead.  2) He’s deeply traumatized.  So I have to let go of that relationship in my conscious mind, my unconscious mind and on a cellular level.  There is nothing left to gain from continuing to hold on.  It is time to bring in the new.

So in this time of bringing in the new (yes this is the time), check in with what you are holding on to from the past.  It might be something glaring and obvious.  It might make logical sense and it might not.  It might be something so obscure you have to search through the depths of your unconscious.  But if you aren’t manifesting what you want in life, there is something blocking it.  Find it.  It is your life and you get to remove anything that is not serving you.  You get to say what stays and what goes.  This is your time to grieve and let go of the past.  This is your time to live your new life.

May15

Resistance

Posted on by
Standard

Resistance is something I live with every day. It’s like a chronic illness. For me resistance keeps me from doing the things that I really want to do. The things I know are really good for me. I have created an inner barrier that sabotages my own efforts. Why does this happen?

There are many reasons all of us live with resistance here are a few.

Fear, maybe be don’t want to know the truth or are fearful of become uncomfortable with self-knowledge. Fear of the unknown, not realizing the need for a change, maintaining an old habit. Those are just a few reasons.

Resistance is part of the human condition. No one really likes change or makes changes quickly.

Rather, resistance to change can disappear in a very natural way.  Examining ourselves is a deep way will cause change to happen painlessly, automatically, organically. Uncovering, unblending, undoing what we have always done is the catalyst for positive, dramatic change in tiny steps.

Take the time to objectively look at your own beliefs and actions. Why are you believing those beliefs, why are you taking those actions. Are these beliefs learned somewhere along your life or are they your own? Are the actions you are taking in your comfort zone, why?

Ask these questions in a non judgmental way so your inner life trusts you to reveal the information you need.

Examining resistance is a life long self-care action. You are meant to progress not stand still.

Go back

Your message has been sent

May14

Abandonment

Posted on by
Standard

Here’s a list of what abandonment is from Susan Anderson’s book “The Journey from Abandonment to Healing” Pages 5 and 6. Susan Anderson has a blog with tons of information on the serious subject of “Abandonment”.

What is abandonment?

A feeling

A feeling of isolation within a relationship

An intense feeling of devastation when a relationship ends.

A primal fear – the raw element that makes going through heartbreak, divorce, separation or bereavement cut so deep

An aloneness not by choice

An experience from childhood

A baby left on a doorstep

A divorce

A woman left by her husband of twenty years for another woman

A man being left by his fiancée for some “more successful”

A mother leaving her children

A father leaving his children

A friend feeling deserted by a friend

A child whose pet dies

A little girl grieving over the death of her mother

A little boy wanting his mommy to come pick him up from nursery school

A child who feels replaced by the birth of another sibling

A child feeling restless because of his parents emotional unavailability

A boy realizing that he is gay and anticipating the reaction of his parents

A teenager feeling that her heart is actually broken

A teenage boy afraid to approach the girl he loves

A woman who has raised now grown children feeling empty as if she has been deserted

A child stricken with a serious illness watching his friends play while he must use a wheelchair or remain in bed

A woman who has lost her job and with it her professional identity, financial security and status

A man who has been put out to pasture by his company as if he is obsolete

A dying woman who fears being abandoned by loved one as much as or more that she fears pain and death

Abandonment is all of this and more. It’s wound is at the heart of human experience.

*******************************************************************************************************************

You could add to the list but I think you get the message, the important thing here is to name what the feeling is.

Abandonment is so very painful, it is a feeling we have all experienced at one time or another. There is a PTSD component to abandonment which leaves it victims with shame, low self-esteem, and fear just to name a few of abandonment influences.

There is hope for survival and recovery, it will not be easy, you will have to do the important work of reaching deep within yourself and uncover the pain that is just below the surface of your awareness. Most of the time this work is not done alone. Counseling, or writing or exercising, read books on the subject, mindfulness and finding some way of getting to  the trauma that abandonment left behind.

You have to help yourself just enough to lift you. You are worth the effort. Don’t give up.

May13

Taking Care of Ourselves

Posted on by
Standard

There is no way we can be optimally functioning in our lives if we are unhappy. We go through the motions of doing what we have to do hoping to get through the day as soon as possible.

We all have off days, sometimes off weeks and months, so what do we do?

Take care of ourselves.

What do we really want to do.

Are we taking care of our minds and bodies.

Are our expectations realistic.

Are we reaching out when needed.

You can add to the list. The idea here is to pay attention to what you need and stop functioning out of habit. Do t your are worth it.

May12

Mothers Day

Posted on by
Standard

This post is not for those who have wonderful relationships with their mom’s.

This post is for those who do not have a mothers love whether the mother is alive or dead.

This post is for those mother’s who have no contact with their children.

This post is for all who have suffering around their relationships with their mothers and being a mother.

I get what you are going through, I know how hard it is to get through this weekend. I know you have done the best you can and you are probably very tired and bewildered by the whole situation.

I want you to know that you deserve all the love and happiness in your universe and looking for that love is perfectly OK.

The only way, I have learned, to replace that love you are missing is to get to know yourself really well and  be your own parent. Those imperfect parents and children, including ourselves, are your chance to process and release the grief, sadness, trauma and pain over these relationships.

It is not easy to do this but if you just try you can come out on the other side so much more mentally happy and healthy.

Give it a try, you are worth it and you are stronger than you think.