Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A., LMFT
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The Critical Inner Voice

5/30/2015

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All of us have some degree of negative self talk that is our internal dialogue.
Some call it our old parental tapes some refer to that critical voice as automatic thoughts. 
Shame based people have  dominant, negative and shaming voices
providing in various degrees, self destructive messages.

We become aware of that partially conscious message and it's habitual activity in our heads
until we meet situations of when our shame is activated. 
After a mistake one may say to oneself, "Stupid fool", or "There I go again."

Getting rid of the voices are our biggest challenge. 

To understand how shame is activated is one of the first steps in challenging those thoughts. 
As children are abandoned and the more severely are abandoned, (neglected, abused, enmeshed), the more they create the illusion of connection with the parent.  This illusion is sometimes referred to as the "Fantasy Bond."

The purpose of the Fantasy Bond is survival. 
Each child desperately relies on their parent for survival. 
Thus, "parent's can't be bad, they keep me alive,"  is the child's internal belief.

The child cannot fathom the parents are bad
because they need them for survival. 
So the child develops the Fantasy Bond.  The fantasy is that if the parents are not bad, then the child must be bad.  This gives the child the illusion of safety and belief that there is nourishment and support in his life. 

Many years later, when the child is grown up, this Fantasy Bond is intact internally. 
What was once external, the parent's screaming, scolding and punishing voice --- now becomes internal.  This internal message is maintained by the negative and shaming 'voice.'

The process of confronting our negative internal voice
and
changing the message creates anxiety. 
There is a great deal of denial towards changing this belief. 
Remember, the belief was created in childhood to survive. 
It is so important that you realize how powerful these inner voices can be,
and to also remember the voice developed from a parent's angry and rejecting place.

As children in shame based families we could not help but believe that we were bad and unlovable.
  We simply were not capable of grasping that our parents were shame based, needy or in some cases emotionally ill.  If mom transferred her own shame by means of compulsive perfectionism about neatness and cleanliness, that critical perfectionism will be generalized to all other bad habits and personal defects.  Children will treat themselves and others with the same ridicule, sarcasm and rejection that their parents foisted onto them.

We must remember that shame based caregivers or parents were once children themselves.,  The parent's defense against their pain and shame prevent their own feelings  against their shaming parents from coming alive.  The anger then is turned inward and became self hatred.  The parent then, must stop his own child's neediness and pain so that he does not have to feel his own feelings of neediness and pain.

Clients who come to treatment with these 'negative automatic thoughts' or internalized negative self talk, are taught to externalize those thoughts or negative voices.  By doing so they expose their self attacks on themselves and ultimately develop ways through verbalization, and their intense feelings are released. 
The release of these feelings result in powerful emotional catharsis with accompanying insight. It takes time, however the negative thoughts can become positive, relief is possible.





John Bradshaw, Healing the Shame that Bind You
Robert Firestone
, The Fantasy Bond

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To Grow in Courage, Faith and Love.

5/25/2015

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It takes great courage to go in new directions.
It takes great courage
to try things
that others around us have not tried.


One can have courage while one has fear.

Courage does not mean the absence of fear.
To open new door,
to take new steps
while walking through our fear,

takes the greatest courage of all. 

Each new door opened
gives us confidence to open the next door.

Faith and love,
  and trusting ourselves,
takes us through unopened doors.

As we trust the goodness within us
and going beyond the fear,
life is an exciting,
satisfying,
and a fulfilling place to be.




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May 23rd, 2015

5/23/2015

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"The miracle comes quietly into the mind
that stops an instant,
and is still."


When my mind is racing and arguments
continue in my head and will not give me peace...

All I have to do is stop.

Whatever I feel in this moment will pass.
All I have to do is stop. . . 

And breathe in and out
.....and in and out.
...and in and out.

And as I bring my attention to my breathing
I will begin to feel peace.
Standing still.


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Tending to My Inner Child

5/19/2015

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My inner child is attuned to contradiction. 
It is what I learned.

When someone's words and feelings do not match,
'the child within' notes the discrepancy. 

My dysfunctional family was full of such discrepancies
and in time I learned to mistrust my own perceptions.

As an adult,
my mistrust of my sense of reality
sometimes means that I do not question unreasonable demands
at work or within relationships. 

"I care about you but I am too busy to listen,"

is a contradiction if my friend or partner rarely lets me share my feelings.

As I recover from my old behaviors and beliefs about myself,

I pay attention to the confused feelings
produced by such contradictions. 

I let my inner child note the discrepancy
and I choose the best course of action. 
I may ask questions,
set clear limits or end a relationship.


Today I will trust my perceptions to guide my actions.


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May 16th, 2015

5/16/2015

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Self-compassion requires taking a balanced approach
to our negative emotions. 

Feelings are neither suppressed nor exaggerated. 
The balance stems from the process
of relating personal experiences to those of others
who are also suffering.

Then, we put our situation into a larger perspective.
What would we tell a dear friend who was suffering?

We can treat ourselves with that same compassion.


Self compassion is about the willingness
to observe our negative thoughts and emotions
with openness and clarity,
and hold them in mindful awareness.


Mindfulness is a non-judgmental,
receptive mind state
in which one observes thoughts and feelings
as they are,
without trying to suppress or deny them.
No judgement.  Just notice.
We cannot ignore our pain and
feel compassion for it at the same time. 


At the same time, mindfulness requires that
we not be “over-identified” with thoughts and feelings,
so that we are caught up and swept away by negative reactivity.

We notice. 
Our Feelings.
Without judgment. 
In mindful awareness.


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Mindful Self-Compassion

5/11/2015

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Mindful self-compassion
is the foundation of emotional healing.

Mindful self-compassion
 is being aware in the present moment.

Mindful self-compassion

is when we're struggling with feelings
of inadequacy, despair, confusion,
and other forms of stress.

And responding with kindness and understanding

or self-compassion.

Mindful self-compassion

also means holding difficult emotions
—fear, anger, sadness, shame and self-doubt--
and ourselves,
in loving awareness.

This will lead to greater ease and
greater well-being and
grace in our daily lives.


Mindful self-compassion
can be learned by anyone.

Mindful self-compassion

is the practice of repeatedly
evoking good will toward ourselves
especially when we’re suffering--
cultivating the same desire that all living beings
  may live happily
and free from suffering.



Christopher Germer, Ph.D.
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Change Reflects Empowerment

5/10/2015

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No matter what a person may wish, one must resolve their conflicted behaviors --- which are fueled by early survival oriented perceptions --
before one can attain yearned for goals as an
Adult. 

All therapies are ultimately oriented toward this resolution,
although not all will directly address the underlying perceptions. 

The more we try to deny the traumatic past experiences, the more we trap ourselves in perpetuating our painful perceptions from our childhood. 


In Adulthood, we recapture significant unresolved mind sets, such as being abused, disregarded, or disrespected as children.    

Some manifestations of the feelings are verbalizing, however some avoid the feelings by talking endlessly about anything else except that which is emotionally significant,

the feelings about the Inner Child.

The possible resolution of Inner Child conflicts is for the

Adult
to acknowledge and accept the experiences that were the Child's.

This means knowing that the past cannot be other than what it was. 

We can change our feelings about he past, but we cannot change the events of the past. 
With this awareness there comes a modicum of healing. 

However, if by healing we mean creating a new childhood,

then no healing is possible --

we must let go of the past.
 
Breaking free and risking going through zero represents this concept: 
the path to becoming an Adult.

The past is a place we used to live but do not anymore. 
As Adults we must recognize that what we missed as Children we cannot replace in the present, which inevitably leaves a hole.  Paradoxically, accepting that there is a hole and understanding why allows one to become whole and fulfilled.

Change would be impossible if the Childhood perception of vulnerability
as synonymous with helplessness, were true in
Adulthood. 

It is exactly because of the two perceptions
no longer equate
that one can risk change as an Adult.

The Child who believed that helplessness and vulnerability were the same,
is now the
Adult.

Vulnerability is part of being an Adult. 
We do not have to be helpless any more.



Breaking Free - Kardener & Kardener



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Self Compassion

5/6/2015

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A moment of self compassion can change your entire day.
A string of such moments can change the course of your life.

Christopher K. Germer

Being warm and understanding
towards ourselves

when we suffer, fail, or feel inadequate,
rather than ignoring our pain
or flagellating ourselves with self criticism
is self kindness.

Common humanity recognized that suffering
and feelings of personal inadequacy
are part of the shared human experience. 
Something we all go through

rather than something that happens to "me."

Take a balanced approach
to negative emotions
so that feelings are neither
suppressed nor exaggerated. 
We cannot ignore our pain
and feel compassion for it
at the same time.
 

Mindfulness requires
that we not "over identify"
with thought and feelings,
so that we are
caught up and swept away
by negativity.
Stay in the moment.
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Right Here, Right Now

5/4/2015

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Today I am letting of all  my tensions and stress.
Today I am willing to live in the moment
and experience the joy of NOW.

Today I am letting myself feel peaceful.
Today I know that every breath that I take
connects with all the energies of the universe
and when I bring my attention
to that moment of my breath,

I will feel peace.


Peace and relaxation flow through me
with every breath that I take.



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Know Thyself

5/1/2015

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Know Thyself.
Gnothi Seauton 

These words were inscribed above the entrance to the temple of Apollo at Delphi,
site of the sacred oracle.
 
In ancient Greece, people would visit the Oracle hoping to find out what destiny
had in store for them or what course of action to take in a particular situation. 
It is likely that most visitors read those words as they entered the building
without realizing that they pointed to a deeper truth than anything the oracle
could possibly tell them. 


They may not have realized either that,
not matter how great a revelation or how accurate the information they received,
it would ultimately prove to be of no avail,
would not save them from further unhappiness and self created
suffering if they failed to find the truth
that is concealed in those words --
Know Thyself. 

What those words imply is this:  Before you ask any other question,
first ask the most fundamental question of your life,
Who Am I?

Unconscious people--and many remain unconscious,
trapped in the egos throughout their lives--
will quickly tell you who they are: their name, their occupation, their personal history,
the shape or state of their body, and whatever else they identify with. 

Others may appear to be more evolved because they think of themselves
as an immortal soul or divine spirit. 
But do they really know themselves,
or have they just added some spiritual sounding concepts
to the content of their mind?


Knowing yourself goes far deeper than the adoption of a set of ideas or beliefs. 
Spiritual ideas and beliefs may at best be helpful pointers,
but in themselves they rarely have the power to dislodge
the more firmly established core concept is who you think you are,
which are art of the conditioning of the human mind. 


Knowing yourself deeply has nothing to do with
whatever ideas are floating around in your mind. 

Knowing yourself is to rooted in Being,
instead of lost in your your mind.




Eckhart Tolle, A New Earth

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    Author:
    Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A.
    Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist


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