​With the summer months approaching and social events taking place, many will struggle with social anxiety to some degree. Social anxiety may present itself on a spectrum. There are various marks, depending on the individual. In general, social anxiety refers to as one’s experience of anxiety in social situations. To a certain degree, anxiety serves us well. One example of this is when we are make big decisions or are in important situations. In those cases, anxiety helps alert our mind to the risks, which consequently brings us to think more thoroughly through our choices and/or behaviors. But for those who struggle with some form of social anxiety, every day events such as starting a conversation or attending an event can be very stressful. There are helpful techniques one can practice and incorporate when starting and continuing a successful, pleasant conversation with another individual.
 
Pointers for starting a conversation

• When starting a conversation, you want to be aware of making eye contact and speaking loud enough for others to hear you.

 

• When starting a conversation, start by speaking about something general, and not too personal, such as the weather. Another conversation starter is giving someone a compliment, or simply introducing yourself by saying “we haven’t met, I’m…”

 
Pointers for continuing a conversation:

• Carrying conversation takes more than one-person participation; therefore, it’s best to keep a balance between contributing to the conversation and listening. Try not to speak too much.

 

• Another point to be aware of is maintaining a genuine sense of self, and to some degree a certain sense of vulnerability. People appreciate vulnerability (though not too much since it can put people off when they don’t know you well enough). Others may relate to what you are saying or presenting, and this gives them a chance to normalize that feeling for themselves.

 

• When you are first getting to know someone, you want to show some curiosity about who they are, while being careful not to get too personal (as it can put people off since you just met). Try to keep your questions open ended since such questions require more than a yes or no answer. Examples of open-ended questions would be questions that begin with what, why or where. Some topics to bring up that are not too personal would be their hobbies or their line of work.

 
These are all good tools and techniques to use when one struggles with social anxiety. However, it’s important to keep in mind that during such times one may need further assistance to accomplish or overcome this struggle. Therapeutic interventions have been proven to assist individuals with social anxiety. In a therapeutic relationship, a therapist and client can work together to role-play and overcome fears that may come up for them. 

Every time I suggest to a client the idea of scheduling sex, without fail I get the same reaction. Either turning up their nose or a flat out no accompanied by “that so unromantic” or “it kills the vibe, if I need to schedule sex I would rather not do it.”  
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Since you refuse to schedule sex, this is what it looks like: You want to flirt but you withhold because you're afraid that it will lead to sex and you just do not have time. Days go by as you and your partner make halfhearted attempts at initiating sex but you are both so distracted that nothing ever happens. You are tempted to sext your partner but abstain because you know you’ll both be drained at the end of the day, so why bother ignite the passion. You neglect to do anything to spark sexual tension because you've completely forgotten that sex is even a thing.
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Imagine this, you know that your sex-date is scheduled for Monday or Wednesday or whatever your favorite day of the week is. You allow yourself to flirt, because you know there is no way sex is happening. So flirt all you want because you are going right back to that task that is waiting for you. You sext or send naughty messages as your sex-date draws closer. You allow sexual tension to build up because you know you are going down (or up) with a bang. All the passion that you invest has a goal and when on your sex-date you are present, no distractions. You are excited to remain intimately engaged because you most definitely remember that sex is a still a thing.
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And if you break the schedule... have sex outside the allowed day… oh well, I doubt you'll complain.
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​I used to wonder what makes one individual more resilient than another when faced with a painful situation or struggle. Linehan M. speaks on the concept of radical acceptance and its usefulness in painful situations. When one is faced with a painful or challenging situation, there are several ways in which he or she can perform: they can solve the problem, change how they feel about it, accept it, or stay miserable. However, Linehan talks about total and complete acceptance – radical acceptance – as a way to manage life’s challenges. When one accepts his or her situation, it doesn’t necessarily mean the person is glad about it. In actuality, radical acceptance may bring about sadness; but this is accompanied by an added feeling of centeredness. On the other hand, when we don’t radically accept our situation, the sadness may not be present. Instead, a deep sense of unbearable pain may take its place. 

There are times when reality is painful and, as a result, we try to push away the associated emotions and or fight against it through unhealthy coping mechanisms. Although this form of coping tends to bring about a temporary relief, in the long run, it intensifies the unwanted feelings. This happens when we bury the underlining emotions or situations and instead resort to obtaining temporary relief through unhealthy coping mechanisms. When one incorporates radical acceptance into their daily life, they are committing to accepting their reality as it is, and understanding what they can and cannot control. Furthermore, part of radical acceptance is being nonjudgmental and looking at just the facts of the situation, in addition to letting go and not fighting against the reality of the situation. While Many of us find it difficult to be present when dealing with uncomfortable and painful moments or emotions, that is all part of radical acceptance through which we can achieve a meaningful life.

​Taking a step towards self-betterment, and achieving a sense of centeredness happens when one completely and totally accept their reality, even if they think the reality is unbearable. Through psychotherapy, therapists and clients work together to bring about a radical acceptance of the past and present, in order to accomplish a more centered sense of self in any given situation.




Reference
Linehan, M. Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy of Borderline Personality Disorder. New York: The Guilford Press, 1993. ​

The definition of self-esteem is one’s evaluation of their own self-worth. The ultimate question being, “Am I worthy?” Our culture has hijacked worthiness into being something that society decides upon. It is no longer, “I am worthy just because”, but it is “I am worthy because I earn money, I am a mother, I have a career, I own a car… “ Hence, if worthiness has been hijacked, so has self-esteem. Self-esteem has become the pursuit of all the things society decided are worthy actions, behaviors, milestones, and items. Pursuing self-worth became an outcomes based task, if you can prove it, if you succeeded at it, then you are worthy, otherwise, you are not worthy and your self-esteem plummets. Society defines worthiness and we have all bought into it. Your measuring stick of self-esteem is yours and societies idea and definition of who is worthy, what makes one worthy, and what we should consider valuable. With this understanding of self-esteem, we become hyper focused with only one area of improvement. We invest all our self-worth in specific domains such as being a good mother, being financially stable, or having the job of our dreams.

Proving that we are worthy comes with a high price. Since worthiness is prescribed by the culture you live in, you are always dependent on others to notice and validate that you are doing well. Relying on others for validation and recognition creates a cycle of fear and anxiety. You become anxious about the other person’s opinion and you become fearful that they will reject you. Rejection means, you are not worthy! And your self-esteem is crushed.

There are three things in life that satisfy us; competency, relatedness, and autonomy or what Freud said the ability to work, love, and play. Competency is our ability to work toward and master a task; relatedness is our ability to love and maintain relationships; autonomy is our ability to play and take risks. The pursuit of self-esteem interferes with these three life satisfying goals.

Competency is our ability not only to learn a new task, but to learn from our past experiences. Self-esteem steals this opportunity from you because you are focused on the end goal and not on the process. Learning from your process allows you to recognize specific failures so that you can recreate your journey by implementing changes to improve the process. Competency is not only about completing the task, it is about mastering the task in the most efficient, productive, and satisfying way.

Self-esteem interferes with our autonomy. Since self-esteem is contingent on societies rules and what society says is acceptable, you are stuck between embracing what you desire or satisfying others so that you can say you are worthy, by their standards (do you get this nonsense?). Essentially, self-esteem is confining and rigid, stifling your ability to play and take risks. For example, failure by society standards is terrible, only unworthy people fail. Therefore, you never try something new because you are afraid you will fail, if you fail then you are unworthy, and once again your self-esteem is hit. The cycle continues, you avoid risks because you do not want to ruffle the feathers of your delicate self-esteem.
 
Finally, self-esteem hinders our capacity to love and experience relationships. We get lost in the goal of being in a committed relationship (society says: “you should have a boyfriend, you should have tons of friends.”) that we lose sight of living in the moment, allowing the ups-and-downs of relationships impact us. We become so preoccupied with our self that we completely overlook the experiences of other people in our life. When people challenge us in relationships we fail to appraise ourselves accurately because we are too busy protecting our self-esteem. We jump for a quick fix instead of introspecting and reflecting.

Self-esteem cannot be the ultimate goal. Self-esteem will happen as a result of pursuing competency, relatedness, and autonomy. Use your internal voice to validate and motivate yourself. Let’s do away with self-esteem and focus on life-satisfaction, because you do not need to prove to yourself that you are worthy, “you are worthy just because.”

​Anxiety may cause many physical complications and jeopardize one’s physical health, even though the origin is due to a mental component. It’s interesting that a mental thing can cause a physical effect. Lets take for example the fight-or-flight response; your system creates the stress chemicals (adrenaline, norepinephrine, and cortisol) causing your heart to race and blood pressure to increase. This response is there to save us from danger, however in many cases when faced with mildly stressful situations we tend to interpret as threatening and instead of it helping us, it causes our brains to overreact to various situations as threatening. However, this continuous exaggerated brain activity can cause abrasions and deterioration to the heart, muscles and brain. There are some individuals that don’t necessarily internalize the daily anxiety and stresses. What makes one individual more prone to struggle with anxiety as apposed to another? Nature and nurture both play an important roll. On the one hand, learning how to react to stress may be a learned behavior, which was modeled by parents and or caregivers. On the other hand, a genetic predisposition to be reactive or calm is another side of the coin.

​Various activities to help reduce anxiety

1. Exercise – exercise has proven to reduce the impact of stress on the body
2. Balanced diet and a good nights sleep are both important in helping to reduce anxiety
3. Mindfulness – techniques combining the mind and body has been proven to assist in managing stress. Particularly, the practice of Tai chi has been brought to the attention of mental health therapists due to its ability to lower stress. Mindfulness helps calm our anxiety through deep breathing and improving flexibility.

 
Using all or some of the strategies mentioned above may help reduce stress and bring about an overall well-being, both mentally and physically. 

Gratitude is underrated. We talk about it, write about it, and post about it on social media, but do we practice it? As life spins and passes by we often forget to pause and be grateful. Studies have shown that moments of true gratitude benefits our psychological and physical health.


The most effective way of creating new habits is by scheduling the new habit and repeating the habit daily. Here are some interventions that are helpful for creating new gratitude habits. Do these and begin to reap the benefits.


Gratitude actions:

Gratitude letter A gratitude letter should be written to someone in your life that you are grateful to. The letter should include all the reasons why you are grateful and how this person  has impacted your life in a positive way. You can then then choose if you want to send the letter or keep it stored away. Even if you do not send the letter your will reap the benefits of gratitude. However, if you can stretch yourself beyond your comfort zone, the gratitude will have a larger impact on yourself and the person you sent it to.

Daily diary A daily diary can be lengthy or short phrase. Your gratitude diary can be an entry of a paragraph or 3 short sentences addressing what or who you are grateful for.

Gratitude reminder Using technology is always your best bet. Set a reminder in your phone with three short things that you are grateful for. Use your calendar to set the event to repeat every morning. Every morning when you wake up you'll be reminded about what you are grateful for.

Speak out loud Yes, I know this might sound tacky, but speaking out loud is more effective than thinking. Once a day, announce to yourself in your car, in your room, in your office, what you appreciate about yourself and what you appreciate about someone else.

Gratitude password A while back I read a blog post on Huffpost about a person who achieved his goals by changing his password every month related to a goal that he had. This can be done with gratitude as well. Create gratitude passwords. These subliminal reminders will keep you grateful throughout the day. Don't save your password or you will lose out on remembering and typing what you are grateful for.
Reminder of relationship appreciation Reminding ourselves about our relationship appreciation and what we are grateful for in our partners is desperately overlooked. When you are deciding on your gratitude tasks, remember to include your appreciation and gratitude toward your partner and toward you and your partner as a unit. Maintaining relationship satisfaction and vitality is hard work, be grateful to you and your partner for what you have achieved.

​There are various marital therapeutic interventions that aim to enhance relationship satisfaction and the longevity of relationships. Researchers have found that level of commitment is more indicative of relationships longevity than relationship satisfaction. Therefore, couples who remain in unsatisfactory long-term relationships, perhaps are unsatisfied but they are highly committed to the relationship.
 
Relationship commitment hinges on dependency and size-of-investment. Dependency is how dependent partners are on one another. Is the partner able to have their needs met if they leave the relationship? Investment size is measured by gains and losses. How much the person has invested financially, physically, psychologically, and emotionally, and how much all these factors will decline if the person leaves the relationship. How much does the partner feel they invested in the relationship, and how much will they lose by leaving the relationship?
 
Relationship commitment is a cycle. The more one invests in their relationship, the more one becomes dependent on the relationship, the more one is dependent on the relationship, the more their losses go up, thereby equaling commitment. I am sure you are thinking, what is the point of commitment without relationship satisfaction!? The trick here is to achieve commitment plus satisfaction.
 
What research has also shown is that couples who have high commitment (dependency + investment size) take actions that are pro-relationship. They will choose behaviors that are beneficial for the relationship as a unit, rather than beneficial for only one partner. This creates what is called "mutual cyclic growth". The more one makes choices that are pro-relationship, the more the partners begin to trust one another, the more they trust, the more willing they are to become dependent on one another, the more dependent they are on one another, the more the investment size goes up, the more they act in pro-relationship ways.  Bingo! Satisfaction + Commitment.
 
But, what’s if you are not yet at a sufficient commitment level to act in a pro-relationship? Harvey Hendriks in his Imago therapy and John Gottman in the Gottman Method, both found a way to target investment size and couple’s satisfaction at the same time - it is a win-win. In Gottman’s relationship exercise, "bids" and Hendricks exercise, "acts of kindness"; couples are encouraged to do acts of kindness and care for each other. Thereby, each partner has his/her needs met AND the investment size of the relationship continues to grow. When partners do acts of kindness, of affection, and of care they increase relationship satisfaction, thereby increasing investment size and again the mutual cyclic growth continues.

​The common myth is that men desire pleasure and women desire intimacy. In fact, men and women want more than just intimacy and pleasure. Even more so, research has shown that the myth that men are only interested in sex is false, men desire intimacy as well. There are three things men and women desire most. Men desire, pleasing their partner, pleasure, and orgasm and women desire, intimacy, feeling sexually desirable, and emotional closeness.
 
The Man
Pleasing his partner
The challenge for some men is that they do not know how, or what to do in order to please their partner. To help your man please you, start to communicate. Let your partner know what you enjoy. Research shows that people who are more sexually forward have higher sexual satisfaction. When a man is able to please his partner it affirms his masculinity. An excited partner is rewarding feedback, letting him know that he is doing a good job.
 
Desire for pleasure and orgasm
Sex has a different meaning for men and women. Men desire sex because this is how they feel loved. They see sex as being needed and wanted by their partner. Men will often want to have sex when they feel lonely or rejected by their partner. This is not to say, that men only want sex and not intimacy. Lack of open communication about sexual preferences and interests can significantly hinder sexual satisfaction. Often, men avoid telling their partners about a specific sexual position or sexual play that they would like to try, out of the fear that their partner will reject them. When your partner shares with you his interests, respond respectfully and avoid judgment.
 
The Woman
Intimacy and emotional closeness
Women see sex as a reinforcement of their love. Women desire sex most, when they are feeling intimate and close to their partner. For some people, emotional closeness and intimacy feels threatening. These people avoid being vulnerable with their partners because they fear their partner will judge them or abandon them.
 
Feeling sexually desirable
When a woman does not feel sexually desired she is more likely to close herself off and avoid having sex with her partner. If you are finding that your lady is being very argumentative, or gets very upset when you go out with your friends, that means your lady is feeling unloved and unnoticed. Women who do not feel sexually desirable are more prone to having an affair
 
Most importantly, not all men and women are the same. Tune-in and take the time to notice what your partner wants the most. 

Originally published in the Mind Body & Soul Magazine https://nefesh.org/MindBodyandSoul/when-siblings-fight.html

When we watch our own children tumbling on the floor, grabbing toys from one another, shouting, screaming, crying, we put our hands to our head and mumble “oh no, when will this ever end?”

Children will tell you the facts of the fight, “ he touched my stuff so I hit him”, but what is the psychological cause of sibling rivalry and competition? From an evolutionary perspective, there is a biological motivation for sibling competition. Siblings compete for the parent’s resources. Out in the wild, the child who had more resources and protection had a higher chance of survival.
 
In homes where parental resources are sparse because of work, chaotic relationships, or other stressors, it is easy to understand the children’s competition. Yet, in homes where parents seem to be present and available, children still fight. Because, children are not fighting for physical survival; they are competing for emotional survival. Parents are the source of love and attention. Studies have shown, children across the world desire emotional support, attention from parents, and physical needs (e.g. “buy me something I like”). When parsing out children’s fights, you find at the core the competition over who is loved more, and who gets more attention. Larry is crying that Abby hurt him. They are fighting over parental attention. Who will get more attention? Sally breaks Daisy’s doll she got from dad for her Birthday. They are fighting over love. Does Sally fear dad loves Daisy more since only Daisy got the doll?
 
Parents can perpetuate a negative or positive competitive cycle. Negative sibling competition consists of an aggressive need to win, to be able to “one-up” the other. These siblings see one another as a threat to their success. Positive sibling competition, are siblings who care about each other’s success and they see their behaviors as contributing to the family satisfaction as a whole.
 
Parents should be mindful that their actions could promote negative competition. Parents contribute to competition between children by being the judge of fights. If parents are the ones resolving the fights, then one child always feels like he or she won the parents attention. Sometimes, parents compare children to one another. A parent might say “Joy, eat as nicely as your brother.” Parents comparison between children can foster hate and envy rather than cooperative competition. Research indicates pitting children against each other hinders their ability to develop a self outside of “good” or “bad” child. Additionally, the “good” child develops a fear of ruining his or her image in the parent’s eyes. Causing the child to force him or self to remain the “good” child.
 
Healthy competition between children is essential for their development. The skills they learn from sibling rivalries are re-enacted later in life with co-workers, friends, and romantic partners. The goal for parents should be to facilitate healthy competition and to eliminate negative and destructive competition.
 
Family goals versus individual goals
It is important to create an environment where children are looking out for each other’s success instead of trying to defeat each other. Parents can emphasize tasks where family members contribute to collective family goals. For example, instead of having bedtime competitions of who gets into their pajamas first, the competition should be about siblings helping each other achieve the collective goal of getting into bed. There are various ways to turn bedtime into a family goal, for example, giving children tasks. One child is responsible for preparing the pajamas while the other child is responsible for reminding everyone to brush their teeth.
 
Children can resolve their own fights
Studies show, children are capable of resolving their own fights. Additionally, children can learn to negotiate, compromise, and set rules for the future. If the parents resolve the fight, children will fail to acquire lifelong skills of negotiating. (If children become physical parents should intervene.)
 
When a fight occurs parents can encourage discussion, communication, and compromise. Encouraging children to turn toward each other and not toward the parent. Aaron and Eli are fighting about using their trucks to play a game of “construction” or a game of “cops and robbers”. Mom encourages them to discuss, negotiate, and compromise on a game. If Aaron and Eli do not come to a resolution, mom takes away the trucks. The parent’s role is to facilitate the discussion and decision-making and to avoid being the one making the decision for the children. If siblings are unable to compromise, they both lose the privilege. This approach ensures none of the children feel like they lost. Additionally, children will learn, if they compromise they can achieve their goals.
 
Responsibility for the family
Parents should impart to children that they are each responsible for the success of their siblings and the family. Family responsibility can be achieved by focusing on all siblings rather than one specific child. One way to do this is through group discipline. Meaning, if one child misbehaves the entire family is punished. For example, one child refuses to eat his breakfast before leaving on the family trip. Instead of telling the child that he will need to stay behind, let the siblings know the family will wait until their brother eats his breakfast. A group discipline approach teaches children to encourage and promote positive behaviors in one another. Children learn their actions contribute positively and negatively to the family’s enjoyment.
 
Most importantly, convey to your children that they are unique and special. Every child is an integral part of the family and is valued by all the family members. Encourage your children to support and motivate the goals of their brothers and sisters and to respect and accept one another as individual people. Each child’s unique skills will contribute to the success of the family.