Parenting - Couples Therapy Better Treasures

March 31, 2022

In preparing for intentional, conscious parenting…

Forging Emotional Maturity in the Self-Relationship via Secure Attachment Exercises from this Therapist

Exciting seeing your openness in moving into this wondrous transition to motherhood! Here is the link to the feelings wheel. I suggest printing it out. Your homework across the next few months, would be to secure time across your day to pause for a mini-mental-mindfulness (MMM) break, during which time you would take the pulse of what feelings you were aware of having in that present moment and then uncover a bit more psychic material about the construct of your experience of feeling that/those emotions. So, for instance, in any given MMM moment, you would pull up your feeling wheel, consult it to identify one feeling–then keep going to see if there are more feelings you may be having accompanying the one first identified.

Once you’ve written down all the feelings you might be having in that given moment, now explore one of them toward deepening your observation of what happens, process-wise, in your awareness of ‘feeling the feeling/s.’

For instance, if appalled turns into fear or contempt, or something else. What do you notice in your body? If thoughts accompany the feelings, note anyone that stands out or reemerges, but move back into a non-judgmental observational attitude, with (similar to, “of course”) an, “hmmmm, this is interesting” approach to observing what comes next. Steer away from, “what does having this feeling mean for me?” Instead, just simply note.

Write it all down. Important not to judge as what is happening is just a part of your past conditioning.

Welcome whatever comes forward with an attitude of COAL. This journaling and mindfulness serves as a deliberate act, embracing what is happening for you. Doing so with COAL, is an act of deliberate self-acceptance…the kind of self-acceptance you want to give to your progeny.

Write those down (It can be hard to identify emotions, so use the inner wheel then move outward to see if there is any specificity that clarifies the essential feel of the emotion (e.g., disappointment becomes more clearly identified as appalled–or something else perhaps not on the list…it’s a launching point)).
It is a gift to say to oneself, “I love you no matter what is happening inside of you.” “Love is not earned by feeling any this and not that.” Ultimately, you (and your child) can learn from your practice that feelings do not compel action, they are simply feelings and we have competency and mastery in tolerating and moving through whatever comes up. Nothing is reacted (acted out), we learn from our feelings, notice them and can make informed choices about behavior following our mindfulness. We choose how (or not) to respond to our experience following mindfulness. The feelings are one influence upon our behavior, not the only influence. In moving through the feelings we acknowledge any wisdom imparted there, but can also now weigh-in influences such as our goals, values, and resources and our partnerships with others before choosing behavioral responses.
C-uriosity
O-penness
A-cceptance
L-ove
Basically, COAL is a validating, non-judging, compassionate, and accepting attitude. It’s an attitude you hope to approach your new love-bug with routinely as you lean into fostering safety for your child’s experience (an experience increasingly individuated from your own, and intrinsic to existential potentiality/emergence). This attitude fosters their own flexibility, maturity, and possibility. The attitude authenticates a fundamental belief and confidence in feelings as separate from, but informative for engagement in life.

What we are looking for in our work together is feeling states that pattern with dysregulation routinely/habitually. This is where we can add the most value to your treatment. Anxiety is habit-forming. Once we remove the first layer, we often find that other emotions arise in our welcoming awareness. Interestingly enough, however, disorganized reactions to those feelings will track back to the core fear and will present new growth opportunities to practice greater emotional intelligence, flexibility, adaptability. And in so doing unlocks greater existential potentiality, more self-realization, and greater self-actualization, including emotional freedom and greater resourcefulness. Exciting!!!

January 28, 2021January 30, 2021

The Magic of Rituals

Rituals build Your Family Culture. As such, they can be passed down offering a beneficial inheritance for the next generation, passing on your hard-won relational wealth!

All couples want to build a relationship that others take note of for its robust strength even during times of stress and pressure. Couples who have those relationships, don’t just luck out, they have been trail-building! What I mean is that they have numerous expedited paths to intimate connection. They can reach that space where they feel known and loved by their partner much faster than many other couples.

They reach that feeling of being Connected more quickly,…and they have more pathways to reaching that sense of “togetherness.” Why? What do they have?…RITUALS!

Your relationship might be just as good as theirs, but they have rituals of connection that serve to (just like the real physiological lift you get just from anticipating your first sip of morning brew) get them faster from (normal states of being) disconnected to happily, maybe blissfully connected. They are driving the fast car, while without rituals (Gottman’s Shared Meaning), your relationship may be driving the beater-car (nothing against the beater—it can still cross the finish line).

So what is a “Ritual” and how do we get them/implement them?

Great question/s!

Rituals can be established at many points of time across your day/night/week/weekend/month/year/etc.

They are just like your daily/routine rituals. They have a beginning, middle, and end, and you know what you get as a result. For example, brushing your teeth you might start by pulling out your toothbrush, and you end with running your tongue across your sparkling clean teeth, and internally smiling as you note your crisp breath. For a couple, a saying hello ritual will need to be replicated (hopefully) a bazillion times, so some tips are: keep it simple, make sure you like doing it, and appreciate the feeling you get when doing it and when it is complete.

Many couples create hello and goodbye rituals, daily check-ins. Weekly, there is the platinum standard date night. But there is nothing shabby about the weekly summit meeting my couples integrate into their busy schedules; it includes a celebration of what you made it through, an anticipation of what is coming up for you in the week ahead, and an accounting of what you might be needing to get through it on top. Finally, it ends with an appreciation for and acknowledgement of the ways your partner was supportive to you in the past: what works and more of that please!

There are so so so many opportunities to build couples rituals: I have lists of them I can send you if you reach out and let me know you are interested in receiving them.

To go about building your own (Shared Meaning) Rituals of Connection. You can read a book by William Doherty: The Intentional Family. Or you could ask a Couples Therapist who uses the Gottman Method in working with their couples, or you could take a stab at it by brainstorming, trying out various iterations and making adjustments until you find the right fit for your ritual in your coupledom.

Keep in mind, a successfully sound ritual is predictable. It has the following elements: (The Intentional Family–William Doherty)

- How/When/Where might it start (How do you know that it has begun: What signifies that it is starting)?
- What happens (who goes first, second, last)
- How/When/Where might it end (How would you both know it was done/over–What signifies that it is over?)?
- The development of the ritual requires equal contribution/participation. No one person creates it. Of course during development stage, one person can take the lead, but you should both be revising it as you go along so that it meets both of your needs/expectations.
- When you don’t perform the ritual–its absence is noted and lamented. Signals a good strong ritual!

We wish you the very best in creating and crafting Rituals that build Shared Meaning in your life as a couple. Or in your family if you are Single-Householding. Whatever the size and shape of your family, Rituals offer invaluable capital for building a richly rewarding journey. They are ways that you are There-For-One-Another! They are eagerly anticipated highlights; they are the dessert after the meal. They are the memories made and longed for; they are your treasure. Enjoy them!!

March 4, 2020March 4, 2020

Because Love Breathes

There is an in and out of love. There is a rest and action. There is a pulsating rhythm to life and so it also goes with love. You can rest in that. You can explore what are your needs in the ebbs and floes of your own love experiences.

Healthy relationships are buttressed by healthy secure attachments. Aligning your actions to what promotes secure attachments is essential. Saying a proper hello and goodbye goes a very long way in fostering a trustworthiness that the relationship continues to be just as strong and secure even when we are not together, even as we inevitably come and go.

Building routine and ritual in the quintessential comings and goings can be one of the biggest challenges and victories for couples. Even parents must wrest with the daily greetings and goodbyes inevitable in raising our children. But what does it mean to create a ritual around relational breathing? Around the ho-hum daily rhythms of the couple, or if you have kids, the hive?

With intention, with consciousness, we create beauty. Whereas with mindlessness, havoc and chaos reign. We all want a beautiful life. Here’s how to set yourself up for having one.

Develop your hello and goodbye rituals.

It only takes a split-second to realize that we want to be greeted when we come home, and be wished well when we depart.

How this looks is as individual as we are.

Try identifying or dreaming up your idealized version of your everyday greeting of one another.

How do you greet one another? How do you come back together?

Now look at what you would most like to receive before leaving the ones that you love.

How do you depart from your beloved?

Take it a step further and extend the benefits of this exploration.

Anticipate your longings for the times when you and your partner are not together?

What do you need when you are away?

What does your partner need when away?

A warm hello and a pleasant goodbye not only impart fondness but also leave us with the sense that we are desired and a part of something greater than ourselves. No matter what upset may be lingering unprocessed, warmth and connective efforts go a long way to reducing relational stress and creating a sense of attachment security and safety.

In thinking back, what do you recall have been the most pleasant welcoming and departures? What would increase your sense of safety and connectedness in these simple yet powerful rituals?

March 4, 2020March 4, 2020

When was the last time you did something KIND for yourself?

Be honest here. Was it last month? Last week? Last night, this morning (A+)! Many of us unwittingly skip this agenda item burying it just under: ‘darn neighbor’s torn sock,’ in our most necessary to do list items. Not good.

Yet, not surprisingly, during the times when we most neglect our own self-care needs we often become yuck-ifyingly clingy, needy, and insufferable? …Your honesty is assumed here folks.

Okay, so we all know that self-care is an aspired-for, orienting habit. It grounds us, brings us delight in the present moment. Psychologists also know that it is the golden tool to bring a sense of self-agency (“I CAN do it!) moment for patients needing a proverbial kick in the pants or jumpstart to their engines. It’s true. When we feel at our lamest, when the earth is literally turning over on us, and we are consumed by a sense of powerlessness (the essential ingredient to depression), finding a single thing that we can do for ourselves that brings us joy may be the ticket out of the dark spiral of depressed being, or being-around, as it may be.

Now you may find yourself picking on the “brings us joy” comment. You may be saying that in a state of depression, joy is unattainable. And to that, I say, “perhaps” is the answer. And perhaps not! For clinical level depression, one should really seek and obtain professional help. But truthfully, in my experience, nearly all of my patients who (after encouragement to create their own rolodex of self-care recipes) actually used their rolodexes, made good progress.

Now a rolodex of self-care may need to be updated from time to time to accommodate changes to budget, age, seasons, and resources. All good. Simply add new cards and tag them with $, $$, $$$, $$$$ or time stamps for (5mins, 10mins, 1hour, 1/2 day, whole day, weekend, etc.,.

I encourage you do not lose motivation when your budget is on empty: whereas you might have once booked monthly (or, god bless you, weekly!) massage, now you may have to hit the amazon button and get one of those little scalp-claw devices (oooooh! So good!!!). Maybe you have to use it on yourself, but maybe you are fortunate to have a loved one commit to 4-5 minutes of such heaven-inducing relaxation while you mellow out or drink a spicy and revitalizing tea.

Whatever it is that tends to fill your bucket, write it down and store it away on your cloud-storage device under, “SELF-CARE”—so you can access it anywhere, anytime. PTSD Coach is an Amazing app that automatically populates your basic self-care protocols. It was designed to give you a boost if you lack the initiative or know-how in diy self-care kit.

I especially encourage my sleep-deprived mamas out there to dig deep into the recesses of their pre-baby brains and remember that at one time, they did do these kind of semi-routine things that brought them a sense of mastery or joy. Recalling this list is great, but for new mamas, it is really important to extract distilled versions of their previous joys; as 2-3 minutes is sometimes all you get! It’s ok! It will get better! For my pre-baby self, a 10-mile run brought great joy (especially if I set a new PR), but for me as a new mama, packing the kid in the carrier and dropping by the neighborhood coffee shop on a quick walk around the block brought me an equal amount of relief. And as ever, getting your shoes tied (or slip-ins, no judgment here) is often the hardest step in the whole inertia thing. Big ups for those whose joy is in overcoming Newton’s 1st law of motion on the regular—You are a Master!