Jo Ellen Fletcher, M.A., LMFT
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Our War on Feelings.

10/27/2017

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Feelings and emotions are energetic states that do not magically dissipate when they are ignored. 

Much of our unnecessary emotional pain is the uncomfortable pressure that comes from not releasing emotional energy. 

When we do not attend to our feelings they accumulate inside us and create a mounting anxiety that we commonly dismiss as stress.

Stress is a detrimental physiological reaction to noxious external stimuli such as noise, pollution, commuting, long work hours, and "hustle and bustle." 
Stress is also the painful internal pressure of accumulated emotional energy.

Grieving is the most effective stress release mechanism that human being have. 
Grieving is a safe, healthy release valve of our internal pressure cookers of emotion. 
A good cry, talking with a friend, partner or professional can be used as a relief value.

We suffer many dire consequences when we are unwilling to feel.
The price of emotional repression is a constant wasteful expenditure of energy that leaves many of us depressed and silent. As time goes on, we sink into perpetual apathy. 
When this occurs we forfeit our destiny of growing into the vitally expressive and life-celebratory beings we were born to be.

Our war on feelings forces our emotions to turn against us. 
Much of our unnecessary suffering occurs by the ghosts of our murdered emotions wafting into our consciousness and haunting us as in hurtful thinking. Denied emotions taint our thoughts with fearful worry, our self doubt, and angry self criticism.

We also risk "acting out" our emotions unconsciously when we are unwilling to feel them. 
Sarcasm, critical and negative thinking, habitual lateness and "forgotten" commitments are common unconscious expression of anger.  Ironically, these passive-aggressive behaviors leave us in greater emotional pain because they cause others to distrust and dislike us.

Nowhere, not in our most private moments, nor in the company of our closest friends do we feel safe to explore our feelings.  Anger, depression, envy, sadness, fear distrust are all integral to life as bread and flowers and streets.  Yet these feelings commonly evoke shame and dread in many of us the moment they arise, and we have been taught they are bad, weak or inappropriate and we suppress them.

Those who dare to express feelings that are nothing but positive, are increasingly seen as pitiful and not evolved for not being able to choose the more exalted states.  What a terrible abandonment of self, of a natural human condition and how we loose the opportunity to show compassion to another, to a friend.
We get cut off from human kindness, from compassion from love. 
We loose the measure of joy at its fullest, 
We overlook the sacraments of empathy so pain is not locked inside of us and transformed into anxiety, worry and self-loathing for showing up as a human being.

Instead of balking at the idea of expressing feelings, lean into expressing and witnessing your own emotional states.















The Tao of Fully Feeling - Walker


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Emotional Growth Takes Courage

10/26/2017

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When we are unhappy with our circumstances,
we often speak enthusiastically about the importance of change.
Change does mean giving up some unrealized needs. 
We try to have change on the one hand without doing too much on the other. 

There lies the essence of conflict in the process of change. 
The "Adult part of us" (wanting change) runs into the stubbornness
of our "Child part of us" (needing nothing to be different). 
The tension between the two states generates both the motivation
for change and the resistance for growth.

Emotional growth unquestionably requires courage. 
Think of change in terms of falling off a cliff. 
Our attempt to keep 'the land of the past' in sight impedes our voyage in the present. 
The courage to grow includes both getting to and through zero
by breaking free of old bonds and continuing to move in increasingly positive ways, even when
we think we "loose site of home."

Salvador Minuchin, a pioneer in the field of family therapy, in a presentation to a group of therapists, offhandedly commented that the had been married to seven women.  The audience gasped.  He quickly added that perhaps he should explain.  In his multiple decades of marriage, he could recognize the stages of growth his wife had gone through and the metamorphoses she has undergone from the young bride, to a young wife, to a mother, and so forth.  He felt most fortunate to have been able to grow with her, he said otherwise they could have found themselves growing apart.  Though such an outcome would have been sad and unfortunate, the consolation
would have been the emphasis they put on growing, not on apart. 
Now that takes courage.









Breaking Free - Kardener
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Couples; It Takes so much Work---Is it Worth It?

10/25/2017

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Couples as well as individuals frequently question whether all the work necessary to solve their problems is really worth the effort.  They often think that separating will end their difficulties.  The unresolved conflicts simply get re-staged and replayed in subsequent relationships.  And diluted in whatever general growth the participants have experiences in the meantime. 

Coming to appreciate that the real requirement for healthy growth is not so much the work to be done with the other person but they work we must do on ourselves.  When exposed to the old "Childhood Needs" activated by our partner's "Childhood Self" a person must exert significant effort to avoid regressing into his own Child part.  Collusion keeps the conflict alive.  Staying in the here and now as an "Adult" takes work. 

The price of Adulthood is eternal vigilance; you must always know where
your "Child part" is. 


But the payoff is as invaluable as the rewards of being an adult.


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Helplessness vs Vulnerability.  The Child vs The Adult Part.

10/11/2017

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As Adults we all have 'Child' parts within us. 
No one came from a 'perfect' upbringing, however many had great childhoods. Some did not. 
Understanding more of our emotional development lends power
to our relationships today as Adults.

In doing deeper work we look inside as individuals. As we explore our relationships as couples, we may realize that there are
some 'Child' parts of us that remain. 
Some emotional imprints that remain with us and may cause confusion.

T
he Child's fears will hold the Adult's present pleasures captive.


For example, the Child distinguishes no difference between helplessness and vulnerability. 
Those emotions for a child feel the same.  The Adult part in us can distinguish. When we are in an Adult state we can take meaningful chances, face reasonable risks, and know we will no longer be emotionally destroyed or devastated by experiences.

Understanding that emotional connection in a relationship (attachment) is necessary for a secure bond.  For Adults, a secure bonds develops with safety, accessibility and vulnerability and being responsive to one's partner, engaging in their needs and life goals and dreams.

Understanding vulnerability and helplessness and differentiating our Child parts and Adults parts helps us retain our power as Adults.  To grow and achieve autonomy and develop mature dependence we must dare to be vulnerable.  In childhood we experienced vulnerability as being synonymous with helplessness.  Thereby emotionally welding together these two very different phenomenon.  When we realize that this perceived equivalency no longer holds true; change becomes possible.

Philosophically it is conceivable that an Adult can be profoundly vulnerable and yet never helpless.  The difference is straightforward. A Child has no options; an Adult always has options.  For an Adult choice helps to make the crucial distinctions between functioning emotionally as an Adult and functioning as a Child.










Taken from Breaking Free ~ Kardener

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Understanding Perfectionism.

10/9/2017

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Perfectionism is the self destructive process of evaluating ourselves with god like standards. 

Oliver Wendell Holmes warned against this when he said,
"Young man, the secret of my success is that at an early age I discovered I was not God." 

The unreachable standards of perfectionism make us cruelly and unhelpfully self critical. Perpetual happiness and unfaltering peak performance are widespread perfectionistic expectations that torture most Americans.  Perfectionism arises automatically in children subjected to excessive criticism and punishment.  Hoping to eliminate their parents' apparent reasons for being displeased, they strive to achieve the impossible goal of becoming mistake-free.

Out of fear of their parents' disapproval, they vilify themselves for even the most minor mistakes. 
Many, out of fear of being a nuisance, eventually conclude that many of their normal needs are flaws
that must be eliminated. 

Perfectionism can manifest spontaneously in a child as a response to neglect. 
Perfectionism is often the child's desperate attempt to win parental love. If only he/she could be flawless and faultlessly excel and be perfectly self sufficient, then maybe his/her parents would act lovingly to him/her.

Many parents use their children's innocent mistakes and harmless flaws as an excuse to scapegoat them. They regularly vent their unhappiness and frustration on their children and then blame them for their own incapacity to love: "Who could love a child like that?"

Some blame their children for everything that goes wrong in their lives,
"I have given up my life for you, this is how you repay me?"

It is easy for parents to convince their offspring that they should be punished for not being perfect. Parents are virtual gods to their children, with absolute power over them.  They can thoroughly brainwash their children into believed that even the cruelest punishment is "For their own good."

Many dysfunctional families are like mini-cults. The parents indoctrinate the children with their beliefs and value when they are completely impressionable. Thereafter they harshly punish any 'disloyalty' to family beliefs in thinking or behaving,  Many adult children are so indoctrinated in their family's belief system that they never break free and claim their own unique individuality. 









Taken from The Tao of Fully Feeling ~ Walker


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


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