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.

​An affair is revealed. Either the partner who transgressed confesses or he/she got caught. The couple goes into a tailspin as they attempt to make sense of the betrayal and hopefully to begin to heal. Much on the topic of infidelity is focused on the couple and how they can rebuild trust. Rarely, does the literature focus on the children who are caught in the crossfire.
 
Research findings indicate that children who have experienced a parental affair are more likely to lack trust in their future romantic relationships. Additionally, researchers have found that 52% of children who know about their father’s affair are more likely to have an affair during their adult romantic relationships. Children often experience feelings of guilt, resentment, fear of neglect, and self-blame when learning about a parents affair. These negative emotions interfere with the ability to develop a strong emotional base.
 
How children are told about the affair can help mitigate the negative repercussions. Children should not be given too many details about the affair. Burdening children with the details robs them from their innocence. Parents should avoid triangulating a child by leaning on the child for support, thereby forcing the child to choose a side. Often, the betrayed partner feels lonely and leans on their child for empathy.  In psychology this is termed, parentification. Meaning, the child is pushed into the role of a parent. Again, this forces a child to lose out on the childhood years, which should be free of worry.
 
Parents sometimes assume that the affair is between the adults in the home and it will not impact the children. At times, it is not so. If a parent suspects that a child might have overheard a conversation about the affair, they should seek out a therapist who can guide them on how to discuss the affair with their child/children.

​Theoretically, finding a solution instead of compromising is ideal. But, is it really possible? Can we always find a solution for all concerns in our relationship? Life is about compromise - not only in relationships. So why is it that some people refuse to compromise? Why is it that people see compromising as a threat?
 
Perhaps we misunderstand what compromising means. The question is; “What is your goal? Is your goal a successful relationship, or is your goal to have only your individual needs met?
 
I like to think about compromises as gifts. You do not have to compromise, but you would like to compromise. Because, compromising will help you achieve the goal of a successful relationship. The reason why people run away from compromising is because they see it as having to relinquish a part of themselves. These types of “compromises” build resentment and are never productive in a relationship. Compromising is about finding the middle ground where the focus is on both yourself and your partner as a unit. It is about doing something you might not be excited about, yet at the same time setting limits within the compromise. For example, your partner would like to go to aunt Susan for the holiday dinner. You really dislike aunt Susan. You compromise on going to aunt Susan, yet request that you leave at a specific time. You give, and your partner gives, is it really that bad? 

People who are Smarter than you
Being around people who are smarter or more intellectual than you can expand your own intelligence. Having intellectual conversations heightens your intellect. We become smarter by challenging our thinking and stretching beyond the basics. Having smart people around you will force you to keep up with them. If you want to be smarter, hang around the smart folks.
 
People who are Positive
People with positive energy infuse positivity into others. Choose to be around the people who will encourage your goals and passions. Positive people are the ones who believe in their own success and are able to support those around them to achieve and succeed. Positive people are always looking ahead instead of wallowing in the past, encouraging others to do the same.
 
People who are Confident
Confident people are able to foster confidence in others. People who are confident are not afraid of your success, your confidence, and your healthy self-esteem. Bud Blinach writes the following about confident people, “They are not threatened by you or your success. They realize that self-esteem is not a fixed pie. There is an unlimited amount of it to go around, so positive people are always giving it away.”  Confident people are there for you when you doubt yourself by boosting you up when needed.
 
People who are Active and Living Healthy
You are more likely to be overweight if your friends are overweight. Obesity is contagious. People who are not active and are not conscious about their eating habits and are more likely to plan social gatherings that involve way too much nachos, cheese, fried foods, and watching TV. People who are active and aspire toward healthy leaving will plan social gatherings that suit their healthy lifestyle. Dragging you along for the ride. Oops, I mean run. It is easier to make healthy choices when everyone around you is doing the same.
 
NOT like-minded People
Surrounding yourself with like-minded people is important, but there are risks to only being with like-minded people. Sprinkling in some friends who have different opinions than your own will give you the perfect mix. Having people around you with differing opinions will force you to defend your position, consider different options, challenge your thinking, and it will make life more exciting.
 
People who say Thank You
Are there people in your life that take your ideas or advice and never give you the credit? It’s time to cut them loose. Leeches are everywhere. These are the people who are always copying everyone around them but never give credit where credit is due. Surround yourself with people who respect and admire your ideas/advice and they are capable of thanking you when they implement changes in their life that were inspired by you.
 
Take inventory. Who are the people in your life who add something constructive, and who are the people who subtract from your life? Choose to stick around the people who will make you a better person, encourage your growth, and will push you past your limits.