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Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Using Grief as a Teacher

Excerpt from Grieving Mindfully

Suffering can bring you to a place of profound mindfulness about your relationships and your spiritual beliefs. In the context of grief, the person, and by extension the relationship, can be your spiritual teacher. Being aware of how your loved one lived, what his or her role was in your life, and how you are experiencing the loss of that person can turn your grief journey into a vehicle for your spiritual growth. Without this person's presence in and loss from your life, you would not have this unique opportunity to appreciate life and love, and seek out personal growth.

Using the pain of loss as a spiritual teacher, you begin to cultivate a sense of gratitude toward what you are feeling and experiencing. The intense emotional pain of your grief may still hurt. However, as you experience grief mindfully, allowing yourself to feel the twists and turns of the spiral staircase, the triggers and changes in your relationships, and your own personal development, you may eventually come to realize, mentally, emotionally, spiritually, perhaps even physically, that your capacity to grieve - and your capacity to love - are interconnected.

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Tuesday, July 14, 2009

The Terrorizing/Terrified White Knight

By Mary C. Lamia, Ph.D. and Marilyn Krieger, Ph.D., authors of The White Knight Syndrome

The following case, a composite of many individuals, illustrates how the terrorizing/terrified white knight's unhealthy attempts to feel in control and safe damages her relationships.

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Tuesday, July 14, 2009

Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Six Habits that Build Trust in Yourself and With Others

by guest blogger Cynthia Wall, LCSWYou can only rely on others to the degree you truly trust yourself. This formula seems simple, but simple is seldom easy. To expect honesty in a relationship, you must commit to being truthful. Genuine compassion and forgiveness of others’ mistakes grows from the reflection of the kindness you show for your own failures.The key to building deep and lasting relationships is to strengthen your own trustworthiness. When you practice trust-building habits, you increase your confidence in coping with the uncertainties of life. These habits will help to heal the small cracks in trust and intimacy in worthwhile relationships, especially with yourself. When a relationship lacks mutual respect despite your best efforts, you will have increased faith in your ability to move on and handle separation and loss with grace.Consider the following list of behaviors and concepts with these two questions in mind: How would your life change if you committed to these habi...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Wednesday, June 24, 2009

Friday, June 12, 2009

The Many Faces of the Distancer

The Many Faces of the Distancer “Distancing” is a big category. Distancers come in many shapes and sizes. They can be single or in long-term couple relationships, gay or straight, women or men, young or old. Here are a few brief glimpses of typical distancers: Distancer Categories There are three broad and encompassing distancer categories: the Disappearing Distancer, the Defended Distancer, and the Distracted Distancer. Within each of these categories, there are predictable variations. The Disappearing Distancer Disappearing distancers are the easiest category of distancers to identify. You may recognize yourself as the disappearing distancer who completely avoids getting into relationships. Or you may be the type of disappearing distancer who occasionally approaches courtship but is too afraid of being trapped or smothered to stick around for long. The Defended Distancer The second category is crowded, so if you are a defended dista...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Friday, June 12, 2009

Tuesday, June 09, 2009

"But It's Not Sex!" What is an Emotional Affair?

Emotional affairs are amazingly complex relationships that come in many varieties, which means that no single definition can hope to completely describe them all. Nevertheless, it’s possible to define emotional affairs based upon their most general characteristics. Here is our definition: an emotional affair is an intense, primarily emotional, nonsexual relationship that diminishes at least one person’s emotional connection with his or her committed partner. Now let’s pull this definition apart to look at its major components. The Intensity of the Emotional Affair One way emotional affairs differ from mere friendships is that the people involved in them become “positively charged.” By that, we mean that people like May and Brad are strongly attracted toward each other. They look forward with great anticipation to their meetings. And when they do get together, whether face to face, by phone, or even by e-mail, they become engrossed with each other. Time flies so fast that ...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Tuesday, June 09, 2009

Monday, June 08, 2009

Rescuing Yourself from Your Need to Rescue Others

In legends and folklore, the white knight rescues the damsel in distress, falls in love, and saves the day. Real-life white knights are men and women who enter into romantic relationships with damaged and vulnerable partners, hoping that love will transform their partner's behavior or lives; a relationship pattern that seldom leads to a storybook ending. White knights can be any age, race, sexual orientation, culture, or socioeconomic status, but all have the inclination and the need to rescue. Although white knights can exist in a wide range of relationships, such as in a business or a friendship, we will limit our focus to the white knight in intimate relationships. Take a few moments to consider the various relationships you know about or those in which you've been involved. It's likely you know of relationships that include people who have found partners in need of rescuing-the rescue could have been from anything-unhappiness, financial chaos, substance abuse, depression, an abu...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Monday, June 08, 2009

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Getting Unstuck: Negotiating Relationships with Borderline Personalities

by guest blogger Randi Kreger Karen’s husband of 25 years, Cole, has borderline personality disorder. He’s incredibly jealous and verbally abusive, so she wants to separate. But she knows he’ll suffer without her—he’s already made veiled threats that if she leaves him he’ll kill himself. Donald has a borderline client, Haley, who calls outside of office hours several days each week. He knows he needs to set some limits with her, but he keeps delaying the conversation because he knows how she’ll react. Both Karen and Donald have something in common: they both feel stuck in their relationships: Unable to move because danger lies in every choice, yet still compelled to do something. They’ve made compromises they can’t live with in the long term, but don’t know how to go back and change things. Why Do People Get Stuck? People who care about someone with borderline personality disorder in their lives get stuck for several reasons: Unhealthy bonds forged by ...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Friday, May 15, 2009

Listening for Couples

Perhaps the most important application for your listening skills is when you communicate with your partner. A process called reciprocal communication provides a structure in which you can really hear each other. Here’s how it works. When you’re discussing a topic that is a conflict area for you, take turns being the speaker and the listener, switching places after five minutes. When you’re the speaker: Explain your point of view briefly and succinctly. Avoid blaming and name-calling. Don’t accuse and don’t focus on your partner’s failings. Talk in terms of yourself and your experience. Focus on what you want and what you feel. When you’re the listener: Give your full attention so that you can really understand your partner’s feelings, opinions, and needs. Don’t disagree, argue, or correct anything your partner says. You can ask questions to clarify an issue but not to debate and make cou...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Friday, May 15, 2009

Monday, May 11, 2009

Addressing the Impact of Trauma on Relationships: Steps toward Reclaiming Intimacy

by guest bloggers Suzanne B. Phillips Psy.D.,ABPP,CGP, and Dianne Kane DSW,CGP The disruption of intimacy is too often the collateral damage of trauma. Trauma, be it the loss of a child, a natural disaster, a diagnosis of illness or combat stress affects relationships. Because trauma assaults one’s sense of self, one’s view of the world and trust in others, it changes the definition of personal safety and the conscious and unconscious desire for closeness. Whether one partner or both are hurt, grieving, having nightmares, too numb to feel, too angry to speak or too sad to hope- both partners in a relationship struggle and suffer. Accordingly, trauma often disrupts partners and the intimacy they share. Believing that a couple’s relationship is not only often the locus of pain but a crucial source of resilience and recovery, the goal of our chapter “ Dancing in the Dark “ in the book Healing Together: A Couple’s Guide to Coping with Trauma and Post-traumatic Stress is t...

Posted By / 12:01 AM / Monday, May 11, 2009

Friday, May 08, 2009

Mindful Motherhood: The Freedom to Choose

Mindfulness is great in situations where you don’t want to change anything about what is happening, but it’s still distressing, and you’d like to be able to remain present and able to function in the face of that distress. For example, you may need to interview for a job that you want a lot, and you feel quite intimidated and nervous. You might be called upon to speak publicly about something you are passionate about and really want to do it, but you’re also seized by stage fright. You may have anxiety about flying but really want to visit your grandmother who lives on the opposite side of the country. Or, you might have a baby who is crying due to stomach pain or colic, and while you may not be able to change the situation, you really want to be able to remain present, aware, and nurturing in those moments. We all have our favorite coping strategies to deal with situations like this—some healthy and some not as healthy. Some of these are calling a friend, taking a walk, taking some...

Posted By / 12:00 AM / Friday, May 08, 2009

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