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

In Pushing Down Feelings, Behavior Pops Up

11/30/2014

Imagine a device with two hydraulic cylinders.
One is labeled feelings and the other behavior.
Pushing down on one simply cause the other to rise up.
That device symbolizes us.
When we push down significant feelings through repression or suppression,
we do not eliminate them.
Instead, those feelings will pop right back up in the form of symptomatic behavior.

By developing physical symptoms we have another outlet besides behavior for releasing our unacknowledged significant feelings.

Perhaps a third cylinder on the above device could be labeled somatization. It was a common expression of unresolved inner turmoil in Freud's day when a patient might present with symptoms of overt paralysis, generalized body weakness, or vague aches and pains that had no physical cause.

No matter what a person in the present may wish, he must resolve his conflicted behaviors--which are fueled by early survival-oriented perceptions--before he can attain his yearned for goals. All therapies are ultimately oriented toward this resolution, althought not all will directly address the underlying perceptions.

Whenever the mechanism employed, pushing down the 'feelings cyclinder' results in past conflicts being perpetuated in the present through popping up of behavior.
It is akin to using a do-it-yourself crucifixion kit and then anguishing over the pain suffered.

In healing the Child within, a possible resolution of one's childhood conflicts is for the Adult to acknowledge and accept the experience that were the child's.

This means knowing that the past cannot be other than what is was. We can change our feelings about the past, but we cannot change the events of the past.
With this awareness there comes a modicum of healing.
Breaking free and risking going through zero represents this concept;
the path to becoming an Adult.

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.

Breaking Free ~ Kardener & Kardener

Repairing the Dance of Disconnection

11/29/2014

Some of us are lucky enough to have been given by our parent's model of what secure love and loving looks like. It is then easier to reproduce it.
But some of us have to trust our instincts and learn all this from scratch with our adult lovers.

All relationships fall into conflict or distress at some point, and the bond between partners begins to unravel. Given how little we have understood about love and bonding, it is amazing how many of us end up creating positive relationships and just how long and hard we fight to try to repair relationships that are floundering.

Knowing how attachment works means that we are not in foreign territory when we find ourselves estranged from or enraged by the person we were convince was "the One" and what we now see us dealing with is the panic and pain of separation distress, and that we experience it in the same way children do.

Feeling rejected and abandoned, we reach out, pursue, and cling with the same anger and despair. John Bowlby, a theorist on attachment, reminds us that in love relationships,
"presence and absence are relative terms."

Bowbly points out that a loved one can be physically present but emotionally absent. Both as children and adults, we need a readily accessible and responsive loved one to feel secure in our bond. This point is captured in a comment exchange between lovers: "I am here, aren't I? Don't I do things for you?" Then, we ask, "why do I feel so alone?"

Separation distress usually proceeds through four steps: The first is anger and protest. The four year old child says, "Don't go away Mommy, you come here!" The thirty two year old says, "Do you really have to go see your mother, just when I am so overwhelmed with the kids? You never talk to me, you are selfish! Sometimes I think that you don't need me at all!" In adult relationships the overt anger can make it hard for a partner to hear the very real underlying anguish. What the partner hears is the criticism and hostility, the reaction is often to turn away in self protection.

The next step is clinging and seeking. Little one may say, "I want you to pick me up." The adult may say, "I have asked you to come home a thousand times, and right now, even now you are not listening to me. You say you love me, but you never hold me. I want you to hold me." He responds coldly, "You have a funny way of asking." Her misery deepens.

The third step is marked by depression and despair. The adult may flip into a rage and threaten to leave her husband in an attempt to get him to respond to her or she may withdraw into a sense of helplessness, the main symptom of depression.

The final step is detachment. In this stage a person accepts that the relationship is not going to fulfill his or her longing,s stops investing in it, and decides just to let it die.
I have never seen anyone come back from detachment.

We must not underestimate the force of separation distress. We are hardwired for our brains to register primal panic that results from loss, even momentarily of an attachment figure.
Couples can get help when they learn and grasp the significance of a love relationship.

Help is helping them see all the moves that are triggering their dance of disconnection. Slowing down the steps that are taking them into separation and pushing them into panic can be halted. Partners can come together and repair their bond and shape a safe-haven relationship.

Love Sense ~ Sue Johnson

November 28th, 2014

11/28/2014

Gratitude in Everyday Life

11/28/2014

Gratitude in everyday life through mindfulness is to:

Slow down.

Talk less.

Reduce multi-tasking.
Do one thing at a time.

Focus on your breath while doing daily activities.

Relax into a feeling of calm presence with other people.

Use routine events --such as phone ringing, going to the bathe or drinking water-- as "temple bells" to return you to a sense of centered-ness.

At meals, take a moment to reflect on where your food came from. For example, if you were focusing on the wheat in a slice of bread, you could imagine it growing in the fields and being
harvested, threshed,
stored, ground into flour, baked into loaves, and shipped to a market, all before arriving on your plate. You can go pretty far with this in just a few seconds.

Simplify your life, give up lesser pleasure for greater ones.

Practicing Tolerance & Compassion

11/26/2014

With fear, I am defensive and judgmental;
with defensiveness and judgement, I am fearful.
Today I will spend practicing tolerance and compassion.
And when you direct your mind in this way you may allow tolerance to illuminate a path to deeper understanding of yourself and the world.

Decide today that there is simply no room in your life for judgement and intolerance. By doing so you make room for understanding and tolerance. This is the only thing you need is to concentrate on today. There is nothing else more important.

What is the difference between imprisonment and freedom? When you were judgmental and intolerant in the past, you may have thought you were defending your freedom and independence. In fact, all you were doing was tightening the shackles around your heart, locking out love and perhaps people dear to you.

Fear based thinking does not know what it is trying to teach you. Its only expertise is confusion. When you listen to the chatter of your ego telling you to judge, it is like listening to gossip. The ego is nothing. It is based upon fear and insecurity, and only false perception can follow---just like gossip.

Spend about five minutes considering this:

These fears and judgements have nothing to do with who I am, or who others are. Today, I will seek the truth by practice of tolerance, I wills spend today practicing tolerance and compassion.

Intolerance and impatience are joining in your mind, ceasing your preoccupation with and anxiety over the future greatly reduces both impatience and intolerance. As you learn to trust yourself you will recognize what is within your ability to change and what is not.

Acceptance of yourself and others come streaming into your life, as sunlight streams into a dark room.

Walking through Walls ~ Jampolsky

Healthy Me

11/24/2014

It takes great courage to go in new directions.
It 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 doors, 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.

By trusting the goodness within us and going beyond the fear,
life is an exciting, satisfying, and fulfilling place to be.

As I continue to remove any barriers that keep me from being fully who I am in this universe,
I continue to trust my inner guidance.

I receive all the inspiration I need to grow in courage and faith and love.

Consider the Wildflowers

11/23/2014

Consider the wildflowers.
They do not work hard to be beautiful.

They do not strive for a place in the meadow or on the hill.
They simply are.
I look at myself and can appreciate me for being, not just for doing.

I have spend much of my life in busy preparation.

All the commotion is designed to keep me moving, to keep me from failing, maybe even to keep me from remembering or feeling.

For at least one hour today, I will consider the wildflowers.

Perhaps I will lie in a meadow or on a hill or in my own backyard with a book.
Then I will allow myself to be like the wildflowers.

Not striving, or frantic, just being.
If being brings memories of painful feelings, they can come to visit but I will not allow them to stay and destroy the flowers.

Today I will allow myself the freedom to be the best of my gifts, me.

Love ~ A Process Moving from Disharmony to Harmony

11/23/2014

We said we'd walk together baby come what may
That come the twilight should we lose our way
If as we're walkin'
If' a hand should slip free
I'll wait for you
And should I fall behind
Wait for me.

Bruce Springsteen

We know the moments when we find connection again: the universe lights up.

These instances leap from the pages of novels, burn in our brain when we watch them in movies--or even industry research tapes--and, of course, entrance us when they happen in our own precious relationships.
Everything comes together: suddenly all the blocks roll away,
and there is an open, easy connection.

But how did we get there?
If we don't know the path, how do we get there again?

Loving is a process that moves from harmony to disharmony, from mutual attunement and responsiveness to mis-attunement and disconnection--and back again.

To really understand what happens, we have to zoom down into these interactions and atomize them.

Remember Seurat's paintings: when we move in really close, we realize that the vast scenes are composed of thousands and thousands of little dots. Researchers are doing the same with love relationships. By freeze-framing videos of romantic partners talking or arguing, and of babies playing with a parent, they are discovering how love, without our being aware, is shaped, for better or for worse, in micro-moments and micro-moves of connection and disconnection.

What matters is if we repair tiny moments of mis-attunement and come back into harmony. Bonding is an eternal process of renewal.
Relationship stability depends on not healing hug rifts but on mending the constant small tears. What distinguishes successful couples is not the ability to avoid fights but the ability to repair routine disconnections.

The Emotional Freedom Process

11/22/2014

Put on a little relaxing music if you would like. Bring out your journal. With a calming and connecting deep breath, open up to answering the following questions:

1. Acknowledging your inner victim. Make a list of thee situations in your life where you are blaming, pointing your finger, holding on to anger, and feeling like a victim.

2. Identifying the biggest blockage. On the list you just made, circle the three situations that most stand in the way of your courage and your confidence.

3. Claiming your part in the drama. Journal about whether you had a role in these dramas. What was your role in them? What choices did you make that put you in these situations?
Please make a commitment not to blame or berate yourself.
It you are looking only at a place where you have been victimized, begin with an easier situation.

4. Finding the gifts. Answer the following questions about this challenging situation:

How can I learn from this?

What is the message I need to hear?

What is the gift that this experience holds for me?

5. Freeing Yourself. Take an action will will support you in letting to of any baggage related to these three situations so that you can move forward with grace determination and confidence.

6. Heal the 'people pleaser' within you. Say no to at least three people who make a request to you, and affirm to yourself that it is perfectly safe to say no. Enjoy. Do this as many times as you can in the next six weeks. "No" is your friend.

7. Make a list of seven situations in which you told the truth even though you did not want to.

It is only the voice of fear that obscures the truths and attempts to diminish the power of the life you have lived. To silence the voice of fear, you need only reach a hand toward the beautiful unknown and call on heartful compassion
to believe that there is a profound meaning to all that you have lived, even the darkest moments.

Debbie Ford ~ Courage

You are Worthy of Love

11/21/2014

Love and belonging are essential to the human experience. One thing separates men and women who feel a deep sense of love and belonging from the people who seem to be struggling for it.

That one thing is the belief in our own worthiness.

A deep sense of love and belonging is an irreducible need of all women, men, and children.

It is as simple and complicated as this:
If we want to fully experience love and belonging, we must believe that we are worthy of love and belonging.

When we can let go of what other people think and own our story, we gain access to our worthiness--the feeling that we are enough just as we are and that we are worthy of love and belonging.

When we spend a lifetime trying to distance ourselves from parts of our lives that don't fit with who we think we are supposed to be, we stand outside of our story and hustle for our worthiness by constantly performing, perfecting, pleasing, and proving.

Our sense of worthiness--that critically important piece that gives us access to love and belonging--
lives inside of our story.

Know this.
You are worthy now.
Now when this or that happens.
Not if. Not when.
Right now.
Right this minute.

In addition to letting go of the 'ifs' and 'whens', another critical piece of owning our story and claiming our worthiness is cultivating a better understanding of love and belonging.

Oddly enough, we desperately need both but rarely talk about what they really are and how they work.

As much as we need and want love, we do not spend much time talking about what it means.
Think about it. You might say, "I love you." every day.
When is the last time you had a serious conversation with someone about the meaning of love?

In this way, love is the mirror image of shame.
We desperately do not want to experience shame, and we are not willing to talk about it. Maybe we are afraid of topics like love and shame.
Most of us like safety, certainly, and clarity.
Shame and love are grounded in vulnerability and tenderness.

We cultivate love when we allow our most vulnerable and powerful selves to be deeply seen and known, and when we honor the spiritual connection that grows from this offering with trust, respect, kindness, and affection.

Brene Brown ~ Gifts of Imperfection