Blog Archives - Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A., LMFT

Recovering Addicts Need Connection

5/29/2016

Recovery from addiction is the reversal of the alienation that is integral to the addiction. Recovering addicts must establish roots in a caring community. With that support, addict can stay straight as they struggle for a perspective on their lives.

With help, with connection, recovering addicts can integrate new beliefs and discard dysfunctional thinking. Without the mood alternating insanity to insulate them from knowledge about their own selves, and they become participants in the restoration of their own sanity.

All forms of addiction are vicious because they further the inability to trust others. Yet without help from others, the addict cannot regain control because the addiction feeds itself.

Any programs that offer meetings for recovering addicts to restore the network of human relationships are typically successful. Joining with other recovering addicts helps those who are lured back to believing their own denial, a core symptom of the disease of addiction.
Most importantly, is to stay out of the delusion that one can use drugs and/or alcohol, "just one more time" or "be moderate" is to listen to another recovering addict share their story as values and priorities are re-claimed.

Out of the Shadows ~ Carnes

On Being Positive...

5/25/2016

Life is easy with a positive attitude, wouldn’t you agree? Well, easier at least.
One of my favorite sites, The Ririan Project, has a list of ways to perk up that disposition, if you need to.

I’ve always been amazed by some people who insist on being in the negative.

You can change that,
and it’s the first step to stepping in a more successful life.

1. Appreciate as much as you can. This is one of those very simple things you can do to bring a more positive outlook to your life. I have also found appreciation to be a great way to turn an angry, sad and frustrated mood around to a more positive one.

2. Stop comparing yourself to others. If you don´t then you´ll just create a lot of unnecessary pain in your life. If you pass one person then you´ll just find another person more successful than you. And your brief sense of being a winner will transform once again into anxiety, fear, tummy-aches and possibly heart-attacks.

3. Realize that it is possible to choose how you react. You don´t have live your life in reaction. You have a choice. There is always a gap between stimuli and reaction. If you focus on that gap it will widen and although it might seem in the beginning like stimuli and your reaction are tied together that is not the case.

4. Educate yourself. Self-education can be a great help to live a more positive life. Read great books on the areas of your life you want to improve. Maybe it’s it your financial situation. Or your health. Or your relationships. Ask people with more success in that area than you what they did to improve.

5. Act as if. Your emotions work backwards too. So even if you don´t feel positive, confident, calm or decisive you can act like it. And after you have done that for a few minutes, guess what happens? You will actually start to feel positive, confident, calm or decisive.

6. Live in the now. Don´t let your thoughts drift into the past or future more than necessary. It’s often a sure-fire way to start negative loops of thoughts in your mind.

7. Do some mental rehearsal. This is great way to improve your performance and decrease anxiety in any upcoming situation. Maybe you´re heading into a meeting soon. Then visualize now how great the events will unfold – see and hear it – and also how great will you feel at this meeting.

8. Redefine failure. Michael Jordan once said: “I’ve missed more than 9000 shots in my career. I’ve lost almost 300 games. 26 times, I’ve been trusted to take the game winning shot and missed. I’ve failed over and over and over again in my life. And that is why I succeed.”

9. Focus on what you want,
not on what you don't want.
One common problem is to focus your thoughts on what you don´t want rather than what you want. If you do that then it will be hard to get what you want in life.

Emotions are the Music of the Dance Lovers Do; It Helps if the Music is Clear.

5/21/2016

We have cracked the code of love and have found the pathway to the relationships we long for. You can create a fulfilling, safe-haven relationship, restoring the romantic love bond, beginning now:

1. Abandon the out-of-date idea that love is something that just happens to you.
All the new science tells us that romantic love is no longer a mystery. It makes perfect sense. You can learn its laws. You have more control over this riot of emotion than you think! What you understand, you can shape. The first step is to decide to learn about love and the new science of bonding.

2. Every day, try openly reaching out to someone and asking for their attention or affection.
Accept that you are a mammal and that love is an ancient, wired-in survival code. You are happier, healthier, stronger, deal with stress better, and live longer when
you foster your bonds with your loved ones. It is OK to need them; they are your greatest resource. We are not designed for self-sufficiency. The strongest among us accept this need for connection and risk reaching for others.

3. The next time you feel uncertain or worried or anxious, try just mentioning this to your partner and taking their hand, or noticing their emotional signals and reaching for their hand.
The bonds of love offer us a safe haven where we can take shelter and regain our emotional balance. The latest study in our lab shows that just holding your loved one’s hand can calm your brain and shut down fear.

4. See if you can notice some times when you find openness hard, and you become defensive or distant or shut down.
We know that emotional openness and responsiveness are the ground on which solid, lasting bonds stand. See if you can take the initiative and share with your partner, helping him/her understand what makes it hard to be open at this time.

5. Reflect on how you and your partner usually interact.
Can each of you reach out for the other? What do you do when the other gets upset or does not respond to you? Do you push for contact or move away? Tell your partner one thing they could do to help you reach for them rather than moving against or away from them.

6. Try to talk with your partner about how you impact each other.

Both of you offer safety or danger cues that our brain takes as serious survival information;
we are all vulnerable when alone. When do you arouse real joy or contentment for your partner? When do you spark distress—a sense of being rejected or alone? Our brains code this kind of hurt in the same place and in the same way as physical pain.

7. When you get in a fight, take a deep breath and try to see the fight as if you're a fly on the ceiling.
Often underneath the discussion of problem issues,
someone is asking for more emotional connection. See if you can get curious and pinpoint the dance; maybe it’s the typical boogie where one pushes for contact, but the other hears criticism and steps back. See how it leaves you both feeling alone and a little scared. Talk about that.

8. Invite your partner into more closeness once a day by playing a simple empathy game.
Each person thinks of an event in their day. Then you take turns at reading each others face and trying to pinpoint whether you see one of the six basic emotions: joy, surprise, sadness, anger, shame/embarrassment or some kind of fear. See if your guess is right.
Learning to tune in matters!

9. Take a quiet moment, tune into the emotional channel and see if you can each share with your partner what you need most.
Keep it simple and concrete. Do you need comfort, reassurance, support, and empathy, a clear message of how important you are to him/her? If it’s too hard to share this, share how hard it is to open up and ask.

10. Be mindful of the fact that emotional injuries derail relationships.
You can inflict great pain on your partner simply because you matter so much—you are the one he/she depends on. At a close moment, ask your lover if there are injuries that are unhealed, perhaps times when you missed their cues for support and connection. Try to help them with this hurt. (It doesn’t just fade with time.) Often just telling them that you can feel how they hurt and want to help them with it works wonders.

11. Know that the best recipe for great sex is safe emotional connection and open communication.

Write down a short description of what your ideal lover might do in bed and how he or she might invite you into erotic play. Give this to your partner and see what you discover about each other. Remember, criticism literally hurts and shuts down exploration and sexuality.

12. Talk about what you learned in your family about how to deal with emotions.
Emotions are the music of the dance lovers do; it helps if the music is clear. Then you can predict each others intentions and know how to move together in harmony. Talk about the things you learned that make it hard to listen to or share your feelings.

13. Tell each other your main goal for the next year and see if you can find one way to support each other to reach it.
It is clear that when we know someone has our back, we are more confidant and more adventurous. We achieve our goals more easily and are less derailed by disappointments.

14. Honor your connection. Create small rituals to recognize your bond.
Maybe it's a special kind of kiss when you leave in the morning or a special 10-minute bonding time when you first come home. This is sacred time.
No business agendas, problem solving or distractions in the form of small electric screens are allowed.

Dr. Sue Johnson

Compassion as a Philosophy

5/18/2016

“If you want others to be happy, practice compassion.
If you want to be happy, practice compassion.” - Dalai Lam

I believe compassion to be one of the few things we can practice that will bring immediate and long-term happiness to our lives. it is something that will bring true and lasting happiness. The kind that sticks.

The key to developing compassion in your life is to make it a daily practice.
Meditate upon it in the morning (you can do it while checking email), think about it when you interact with others, and reflect on it at night. In this way, it becomes a part of your life.

Or as the Dalai Lama also said, “This is my simple religion. There is no need for temples; no need for complicated philosophy. Our own brain, our own heart is our temple; the philosophy is kindness.”

Compassion is an emotion that is a sense of shared suffering, most often combined with a desire to alleviate or reduce the suffering of another; to show special kindness to those who suffer. Compassion essentially arises through empathy, and is often characterized through actions, wherein a person acting with compassion will seek to aid those to which they feel compassionate.

Compassionate acts are generally considered those which take into account the suffering of others and attempt to alleviate that suffering as if it were one’s own. In this sense, the various forms of the Golden Rule are clearly based on the concept of compassion.

Compassion differs from other forms of helpful or
humane behavior in that its focus is primarily on the
alleviation of suffering.

Why develop compassion in your life? Well, there are scientific studies that suggest there are physical benefits to practicing compassion — people who practice it produce 100 percent more DHEA, which is a hormone that counteracts the aging process, and 23 percent less cortisol -- the “stress hormone.”

But there are other benefits as well, and these are emotional and spiritual. The main benefit is that it helps you to be more happy, and brings others around you to be more happy.

If we agree that it is a common aim of each of us to strive to be happy, then compassion is one of the main tools for achieving that happiness.
It is therefore of utmost importance that we cultivate compassion in our lives and practice compassion every day.

Powerlessness; Adults Who Were Once Victimized Children

5/17/2016

Trauma entails a violation of the integrity of the self.

All physical, sexual, and emotional abuse constitute such violations.

A traumatic state is a condition that results when a person does not have the necessary resources, support, and safety to deal with the traumatizing event.

In overt and covert child abuse, the physical and/or the psychic boundaries of the child are violated. The child is incapable of defending herself/himself against these violations. They are truly powerless over most aspects of her life. They are dependent on the support of others – on parents or parent-substitutes – and are completely vulnerable.

Children are at the mercy of their environment and of the caretakers in that environment.

That powerlessness would be thought of as undeniable except that we encounter repeated examples of adults who were once powerless, victimized children, who see themselves as somehow having been responsible for that victimization.

As children, their ability to deny their own dependence and powerlessness allowed them to survive, to cope with abuse, to reconcile confusing contradictions (“Daddy says he loves me, I love Daddy, Daddy is striking me, I must deserve this”),
and to live in a fantasy where the world, i.e. one’s caregivers, was not so precarious and violent.

For the child, the truth of what was going on when he was being abused was too much to handle. A child needs safety and support to even entertain the awareness of being abused.
In that situation, denial served a necessary protective function.

The wounding of children may not rise to the level of overt sexual or emotional abuse or legally indictable incidents of physical abuse.

More difficult to see and perhaps more common are the psychic wounds that occur as a result of the boundary violations against a child’s developing sense of self.

A parent’s uncontrolled anxiety, rage, lust, insecurity, and neediness, are absorbed directly into the self by the child who developmentally is incapable of protecting himself and who does not have yet a clear distinction between self and other.

Young children cannot protect themselves from the demands and manipulations of the adults in their environment. They need the adults around them to protect them from intrusiveness and manipulation and to support their growth as unique persons who are not born to serve the parents’ needs and wants.

Hugging, & the Love Hormone.

5/16/2016

Have you been hugged lately?

Did you know...
The average length of a hug
between two people
is 3 seconds,
but researchers have discovered
something fantastic!

When a hug lasts
20 seconds,
there is a therapeutic effect
on the body and mind.

The reason is that a sincere hug
produces a hormone called "oxytocin",
also known as
the love hormone.

This substance has many benefits in our
physical and mental health,
helps us,
among other things,
to relax, to feel safe
and
calm our fears and anxiety.

This wonderful calming is offered free of charge
every time we have a person in our arms,
when we cradled a child,
cherish a dog or cat,
we're dancing with our partner,
the closer we get to someone or
just hold the shoulders of a friend.

Try it out
and hug
a beloved today!

Habits of Happy Couples

5/14/2016

What does it take
to be happy in a relationship?

If you’re working to improve your relationship,
here are the 10 habits of happy couples.

1. Go to bed at the same time.
Remember the beginning of your relationship, when you couldn’t wait to go to bed with each other to make love? Happy couples resist the temptation to go to bed at different times.
They go to bed at the same time, even if one partner wakes up later to do things while their partner sleeps. And when their skin touches, it still causes each of them to tingle and — unless one or both are completely exhausted — to feel sexually excited.

2. Cultivate common interests.
After the passion settles down, it’s common to realize that you have few interests in common. But don’t minimize the importance of activities you can do together that you both enjoy. If common interests are not present, happy couples develop them.
At the same time, be sure to cultivate interests of your own;
this will make you more interesting to your mate and prevent you from appearing too dependent.

3. Walk hand-in-hand or side-by-side.
Rather than one partner lagging or dragging behind the other, happy couples walk comfortably hand-in-hand or side-by-side. They know it’s more important to be with their partner than to see the sights along the way.

4. Make trust and forgiveness your default mode.
If and when they have a disagreement or argument, and if they can’t resolve it, happy couples
default to trusting and forgiving rather than distrusting and begrudging.

5. Focus more on what your partner does right than what he or she does wrong.
If you look for things your partner does wrong, you can always find something. If you look for what he or she does right, you can always find something, too. It all depends on what you want to look for. Happy couples accentuate the positive.

6. Hug each other as soon as you see each other after work.
Our skin has a memory of “good touch” (loved), “bad touch” (abused) and “no touch” (neglected).
Couples who say hello with a hug keep their skin bathed in the
“good touch,” which can inoculate your spirit against anonymity in the world.

7. Say “I love you” and “Have a good day” every morning.
This is a great way to buy some patience and tolerance as each partner sets out each day to battle traffic jams, long lines and other annoyances.

8. Say “Good night” every night, regardless of how you feel.
This tells your partner that, regardless of how upset you are with him or her, you still want to be in the relationship. It says that what you and your partner have is bigger than any single upsetting incident.

9. Do a “weather” check during the day.
Call your partner at home or at work to see how his or her day is going. This is a great way to adjust expectations so that you’re more in sync when you connect after work. For instance, if your partner is having an awful day, it might be unreasonable to expect him or her
to be enthusiastic about something good that happened to you.

10. Be proud to be seen with your partner.
Happy couples are pleased to be seen together and are often in some kind of affectionate contact — hand on hand or hand on shoulder or knee or back of neck.
They are not showing off but rather just saying that they belong with each other.
Tell others how great your partner is when he/she is there,
yes, tell them about your partners successes or a cute joke they told.

Mark Goulston, M.D., F.A.P.A.

End The War You Wage with Yourself.

5/11/2016

Ending the war that
you wage with your Self
simply means letting go
of the judgments
that you hold about your Self
and replace those judgments with
self-love
and
self-acceptance.

What is the war that you wage with your Self?

You judge yourself for who you are.
You judge yourself for what you’re not.
You disown those aspects of yourself
that you can’t tolerate about yourself.
You belittle and demean those qualities
about your Self of which you are ashamed.

What are the steps to ending the war
you wage with your Self?

1.) Claim those aspects of your Self that you are unwilling to embrace as
authentic parts of your Self,

2.) Validate and accept those parts of your Self
that you hold negative judgments about,
and
3.) Celebrate your qualities and characteristics that make you uniquely
who you are.

Your life can’t attain its richest
and
fullest potential
without your willingness
to openly and freely
love and be loved.

To A Dear Friend...

5/8/2016

To laugh often and much;
to win the respect of intelligent people
and the affection of children;
to earn the appreciation of honest critics
and endure the betrayal of false friends;
to appreciate beauty;
to find the best in others;
to leave the world a bit better
whether by a healthy child,
a garden patch,
or a redeemed social condition;
to know even one life has breathed easier because you have lived.
This is to have succeeded.

- Ralph Waldo Emerson