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In her book Milk and Honey, poet Rupi Kaur writes, "How you love yourself is how you teach others to love you." But what does loving yourself look like? I believe that loving ourselves looks like having a secure attachment with ourselves. Let's learn about where the idea of a secure attachment came from.

​Back in the 1990's, researchers named John Bolby and Mary Ainsworth came up with attachment theory which spoke to how human beings relationships with their parents later impacted their relationship patterns as adults. Three attachment styles were put forth: secure attachment, anxious attachment and avoidant attachment. For example, if someone grew up with an absentee parent, they are likely to develop an avoidant attachment and ghost potential partners for fear of being rejected. To heal insecure attachments, mental health therapy can help us develop more secure relationships with our potential partners. I'd therefore like to take this one step forward and focus on developing a secure relationship with ourselves.

Feature by Nikita Fernandes

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Narrative Therapy has emerged as one of the most powerful types of therapy to support minority communities. It has gained popularity in 2022 along with the rise of movements such as the Black Lives Matter and the focus on mental health after the pandemic. Narrative therapy is relatively new. It was developed in the 1980's by Michael White, an Australian social worker, and David Epston, a family therapist from New Zealand. It gained traction in the United States in the 1990's.

Narrative therapy is a nonpathologizing, empowering and collaborative experience for clients who hold minority identities. The empowering nature of this therapy can be experienced through nudging clients to reframe their past experiences, gain control over their present and shape a better future. Narrative therapy uses prompts to have client reflect over the stories they tell themselves about their life. For example, a therapist might ask a client to write about their past struggles and highlight what helped keep them afloat. This strengths based approach can help remind clients that they are much more resilient than they believe.

Feature by Nikita Fernandes

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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. ​

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.

​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.

​Couples avoid couples therapy because they are tired of hearing what their partner thinks they are doing wrong. Most fights between couples are based on “you always do that and you never do this” kind of phrases. Lots of finger pointing and change never happens. Couples meet each other at a standoff. Each one refusing to move and insisting they are waiting for the other to make the move.
 
Why is it that we forget about our own personal growth, interests, motivations, and are only able to see how our partner is getting in our way? What happened to the fierce, independent, conquer the world, person you once were? Many people in relationships place all responsibility on the other and they fail to give themselves credit for what they are capable of, both the good and the bad.
 
Finger pointing not only causes fights, it causes your self-esteem to plummet. You once believed in your capabilities but since you started your relationship you relinquished it all to your partner. Now, you insist that the only way you can be successful is if your partner is on board. Challenge yourself. Can you move forward with your career goals, personal goals, becoming the person you want to be, regardless of where your partner is at?  Homaira Kabir, a positive psychology life coach, speaks about the importance of learning your own inner world in her article Why Should I Make The Effort.
 
Investing time in a standoff is a lose-lose. If no one makes a move the relationship will continue to suffer. If the relationship ends, you have wasted a lot of time becoming someone you do not like, now you need to work to undo the mess. Additionally, you wasted time where you could’ve been pursuing your own goals, now that the relationship has ended you are still in the same spot that you where when the relationship began. 
 
Couples therapy does not have to be about continued finger pointing, you can do that at home (and its free). Couples therapy should be focused on developing personal responsibility and taking back your individual powers. Continuing to invest in yourself will help you achieve your own goals, thereby enhancing your self-esteem, which will hopefully trigger a change in the standoff you’ve been having with your partner for so many months. 

Originally published by Jewishnews.com http://jewishnews.com/2016/06/21/watch-the-tower-fall-our-acts-of-self-sabotage/
​
Jackie is building a tower with blocks. I watch how she slowly places each block creating a taller and taller tower. Her breath is shallow as she placesthe last few blocks. She inhales before placing the last block. Then something happens. She lifts her arm, swings it back and over the tower, smirking as she watches the blocks tumble to the ground. She then announces “Ah! Just how I wanted it.”

She built the tower just so she can throw it down? Or was she afraid that the last block would cause the tower to fall and she decided to cut to the chase? In psychology the term for this behavior is self-sabotage. Self-sabotage is when we subconsciously destroy something we truly wanted.

We self-sabotage more often than we care to admit or recognize in ourselves. We self-sabotage and immediately follow up with the phrase “that is how I wanted it.” Did you? Relationships are the most common area in our life where we self-sabotage. Friendships, love relationships, marriages, work relationships, and parent/child relationships. You can self-sabotage you fitness goal, a career move, an important exam or meeting, practically any goal you set for yourself can be destroyed by you.

Why do we do it?
Self-sabotage occurs when we are afraid we will fail at our goal. In order to protect ourselves from the feeling of failure we destroy the goal on our own. Thus we can say, “That is how I wanted it”, and we effectively avoid the uncomfortable feeling of failure. Other reasons for self-sabotage are related to internal messages we say to ourselves; the need to control the ending, the need for familiarity, and the belief that one is not deserving of good things.

 “I need to control the ending”
All relationships have moments where we feel shaky and suspect the relationship might end. Some will buckle down and begin to put in the effort to make the relationship work. Others will begin to create chaos in the relationship causing the relationship to end. For example, they will begin to magnify all the flaws of their partner and decide there are too many flaws for them to stick around. Or, they will push their partner out of the relationship by being nasty, rejecting, isolating, cheating, or being difficult. Either way, the relationship ends by virtue of their actions. The dissolution of the relationship does not come as a shock because they took control and ended the relationship.

“I need to stay safe”
As psychological beings we feel safer with what is familiar to us. Even if the familiar scenes or feelings are unhealthy, we prefer the known to the unknown. If things are predictable and follow the same patterns then we know how to deal with it. When things change, even if it is for the better, we feel uneasy and confused. When a person has a history of parental emotional neglect, isolation, or people leaving from their life by divorce, death, travels; they internalize a theme that everyone in their life will eventually leave them. Since they are familiar with the feelings of being left behind they continually recreate the scene. When their relationship is moving toward connection, attachment, or commitment they panic, those are not feelings they are familiar with. After all, “everyone leaves me”. The uneasiness of the new experience causes them to destroy the relationship, forcing the other to leave them. Subconsciously the reaction to the broken relationship is; “Ah! This feels just right.”

Humans are relational creatures. We seek out and yearn for attachment. Yet, if there is a history of failed attachment during childhood, we create an ambivalent attachment map. The feelings of attachment and intimacy are pacifying yet scary. Being attached means loss. As soon as the person senses or perceives a threat of rejection he or she jumps into safety mode. In order to protect the self from the rejection, the person will preemptively leave the relationship. In a situation where most would work through the pain of rejection (or rejection never happens), they run before the rejection can occur.

Another self-sabotaging defense mechanism used to fend off rejection is being attracted to unreliable and unavailable partners. An unavailable partner can be someone who is preoccupied with his or her career, is married, or is emotionally unavailable. These types of attached-unattached relationships are a perfect fit for those who fear rejection. They get to experience superficial attachment but do not have to fear rejection because they never truly attached to the other in the first place. You cannot be rejected, if you do not attach.

“I am unworthy of the good things in life”
During our development we create a perfect imaginary image of what we should look like. I call it imaginary because this image never comes to fruition and the faster we recognize perfection is imaginary, the faster we can begin to move toward a realistic self. We judge our worthiness according to this illusory image and if we do not fit the mold we believe we are not worthy of good things in our life. The subconscious feeling of unworthiness causes us to hold good things at bay.  The feeling of unworthiness can cause constant fretting. Even if good things do happen, it will be taken away. Once again this perpetuates a cycle of avoiding success because even if success is achieved it will be short lived, so why bother at all?

You’ve been studying for many weeks for an important exam. You are confident that you will ace the exam. The night before the exam you go out drinking, you get drunk, you cannot focus on the test the next day, and you do poorly. You rationalize that you did poorly because of your drinking expedition the night prior. But, why did you go out drinking? You knew you had an exam the next day. Because, you knew (feared) you were going to do well and this will open doors for your success. You got scared, “Oh no, I do not deserve success, I am unworthy of good things in life.”

How can we change our self-sabotaging patterns?
The first step to change is to recognize our patterns. Reflect back to relationships in your past. How did the relationship end? Why did the relationship end? Who left the relationship? Are you finding a common pattern? Reflect on your life goals. What are the goals you have set for yourself and did not achieve? What got in the way of your success? Were there obstacles that you put in the way of yourself? Did you give up on your goal at the last minute?

Once you have recognized your patterns in past experiences, you can begin to identify the current behaviors you continue to do. For example, in the past, whenever you got close to getting a promotion at work you did something that caused your boss to rethink the promotion, such as missing an important deadline. The next time you are up for a promotion, become your own detective. Watch all your actions carefully. Remind yourself that these are the moments where you self-sabotage.

Knowing how to self-sooth will help you curb you self-sabotaging behaviors. As mentioned above, we sabotage ourselves because of our fear of failure and fear of rejection. If you are able to sooth your fears you are less likely to run from the possible experience of failure. A good self-soothing technique is having a short motto that you say to yourself, such as, “failure is a part of growth” or “I have the skills to overcome my failures.”

You can also self-sooth by making a connection between a past experience and your current experience. This would require the ability to introspect and identify the emotion or the internal message you are saying to yourself. Once you identify the internal message, such as “I am unworthy”, or the emotion of fear, helplessness or others, you can recognize that your message/emotion is related to a past experience or early childhood. You are simply replaying something from the past that is not necessarily current. Today does not have to end the same way as yesterday.

If your self-sabotage is because of your fear of rejection, seek out rejection. This seems counterintuitive. If one fears rejection, why would they go out and look for it? This experience would be similar to an experiment or exposure therapy. You are going to expose yourself to the stimulus you fear most. The goal is to share something about yourself or do a behavior that you believe can or will cause rejection. Begin with relationships of lesser value, perhaps a colleague before your spouse. For example, your colleague talks loudly on the phone disrupting your concentration at work. You never asked her to change because you fear that if you tell her she will dislike you. Experiment with approaching her. Then, see if the relationship takes a drastic dive. When the relationship does not fall apart and she does not reject you, do a little dance and recognize that rejection does not ALWAYS happen. If she does reject you, do a little dance as well and recognize that the feeling of rejection is not as scary as you thought. You can now up the ante on your experiment and disclose something you have been holding back from your spouse, a close friend, or parent. Follow the same steps as above and keep on dancing. Bonus points: sharing personal flaws or concerns with your partner enhances intimacy.

The next time you raise your hand to swing over your tower, ask yourself; “Is this really how I want it? Living a life where you are always obstructing your path to success is hard work. Therefor, self-sabotaging is a bad habit worthy of breaking.