My conviction is this: whatever you actually manage to do, with the sincere intention to improve your life, will work. There really is no shortage of methods. The trick is in managing to do the thing, whatever it is.
Many of us hold unrealistic fairytale expectations about marriage which result in disappointment with a spouse or with the institution of marriage itself. Both were true for me when single. Now happily married for 30 years, I still now and then need to remember that I live in a real world, not a make-believe one.
Like many adults whose parents divorced while they were growing up, I was conflicted about marrying. Cinderella found her perfect prince, as did just about all the heroines of romantic novels and movies. So why shouldn’t I expect to find mine and then live effortlessly happily ever?
Why shouldn’t I? Like most children, I trusted that my parents would stay together, I was thirteen when they divorced.
While dating different men, I think my unconscious was keeping me safe from experiencing something similar. My pattern was to reject any man once an imperfection surfaced, and I excelled in finding imperfections. My prince was out there somewhere; he just hadn’t found me yet.
A happily married co-worker told me when we were both in our twenties: “You don’t marry a prince. You make him one.” Great advice, though it took me a very long time to implement it.
Over the years, I found many other marriage mentors among friends, clients and others, including rabbis.
I was newly married when I heard that Rabbi Moses Ben Maimon Maimonides, a renowned twelfth century physician and sage, stated that a wife should treat her husband like a king.
What? I thought, my feminist hackles raised when I heard this advice at a lecture. Some other women present had a similar response — until the speaker added that Maimonides also said that a husband should treat his wife like a queen.
Okay, this was sounding better, but how does it happen?
Manis Friedman, a contemporary rabbi who lectures about marriage around the world, gives an example of how a couple can argue while treating each other like royalty. What if one wants to sleep with the window open and the other wants it closed? The argument goes like this: each spouse insists that the window be positioned the way the other wants it.
Rabbi Joseph Richards, a younger contemporary, provides an offbeat way to treat a partner like royalty when he quips: “People are annoying, so find the person who annoys you the least and marry that one.” If we remember that we’re not always a picnic to live with, we can take minor annoyances in stride, or at least not blow them up into catastrophes.
Another one of my marriage mentors, “Mindi,” was a board member of the family service agency where I served as executive director. Both in our thirties, she was happily married with two young children and I was still single. She knew I wanted to marry. She told me, “I’m not in love with my husband. I’m very fond of him.”
“Not in love!” That sure was different from my version of a good marriage. I fell crazy-in-love sometimes, with the emphasis on crazy, because I would lose my grounding and because such relationships are not reality-based or lasting.
Fondness was a new concept. I think Mindi loved her husband as a real person with strengths and imperfections. She wasn’t crazy about him every second, because that’s an impossible state to maintain, and not a desirable one,
I am grateful for my marriage mentors. Crazy-in-love is a fantasy, but “in love” can be a reality. As Mignon McLaughlin says. “A successful marriage requires falling in love many times … always with the same person.” Fondness needs to be there for this to happen, as does the kind of thoughtfulness that fosters it, which is what happens when we respect each other’s wishes and needs, as though they were royalty.
I hadn’t seen Mindi for a long time when our paths crossed at a celebratory occasion for the agency we had both served. I was married and a mother. When I introduced Mindi to my husband, she smiled and said, “I see you’ve found your prince.”
As many of us are aware, one of the cornerstones of obsessive-compulsive disorder is doubt: Did I hit somebody while driving? Did I say or do or think the wrong thing? Did I shut off the stove, turn off the lights, and/or lock the doors? The list goes on and those with the disorder often find themselves obsessing over things that may or may not have happened.
But what if you are fixated on an event in your life that actually did occur? What if you did “something terrible” a long time ago (or last week) and now you can’t stop thinking about it?
You’re trying to remember all the details, you’re analyzing every aspect of the occurrence, and you’re wondering about how awful a person you must be to have done what you did. Then you could be dealing with real event OCD (sometimes called real life OCD).
I think it’s safe to say that most of us, whether we have OCD or not, have done things in our lives that we wish we hadn’t. It’s all part of being human. We are not perfect, and sometimes we make mistakes — in how we choose to act, in which road we decide to take, in how we treat people. Many adults cringe at the thought of some of their behaviors as children or teenagers and would now behave very differently if they could go back in time.
While people without OCD can certainly regret their actions and even be bothered throughout their lives by events they’re not proud of, it’s a whole different ball game for those with OCD. People with OCD just cannot let it go and likely feel a sense of urgency to figure it all out — quickly and thoroughly. As an example, let’s imagine someone with OCD who is a kind, caring person. She remembers that in middle school there was one girl who everyone teased, and on a few occasions she joined right in. She now thinks, “What kind of a horrible person bullies someone? Maybe I’m responsible for messing up this person’s life — scarring them forever?” She searches for this girl on Facebook so she can apologize, but can’t find her. Now of course she is thinking the worst: “Is this girl even still alive, and if not, I could be to blame …”
See the difference? OCD is laced with cognitive distortions such as black and white thinking and catastrophizing. While whatever real life event OCD latches on to might not be the person’s proudest moment, it is highly unlikely to be nearly as bad as the person perceives. Actually the problem is not the event, or even how the person with OCD feels about what happened. The problem is their reaction to their thoughts and feelings. Instead of trying to “solve the problem,” thoughts, feelings and memories of the event should be observed, accepted, and allowed to come and go. No compulsions (which in real event OCD typically include reassurance seeking and mentally replaying the event) allowed!
There are so many variations of OCD: hit-and-run OCD, harm OCD, and real event OCD, to name a few. The good news, however, is the treatment is the same no matter what type of OCD you have. If you think you might be dealing with real event OCD, exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy can help you turn your tormenting obsession into nothing more than an event of the past.
Let’s start with the most basic of basics: Children are dependent on us adults. They need our attention. Their survival depends on it. Adult concern and attention are required if they are to have shelter, food, safety and, yes, comfort. Wanting our attention is not a problem. Pulling for our attention is a child’s survival mechanism.
Most children, at least most of the time, find positive ways to seek out the attention they need. As infants, they have the advantage of being cute. As they grow, they figure out what the adults around them will respond to and do it.
Did you know that even babies who are only a few months old actually initiate interaction with the adults? When a smile or coo or squirm makes mommy or daddy laugh or pick them up, they learn it’s a reliable way to get their parent involved.
But some children get discouraged in their efforts to get what they need physically and emotionally. The adults are overwhelmed by whatever is overwhelming them. They are distracted. They may be ill or depressed. Maybe they were never adequately parented themselves so haven’t a clue how to respond to a child’s needs. Such parents may not intend to be inattentive to their child’s needs but the child interprets their emotional absence or busyness or unpredictability as a threat to their own emotional or physical survival.
When children feel abandoned, ignored or unheeded, they start to randomly try out ways to get adult attention. The kids quickly learn what will and won’t provoke a response. Screaming sometimes works. So does annoying the adults or refusing to do what the adults want. Some kids figure out that destroying property or being aggressive will do it. A response, any response, is what the child needs most — even if the response is to be shouted at or hit or ignored some more. Once a parent responds, the child knows that at least the adult knows the child is there.
From this point of view misbehavior is not, in itself, a problem. The child isn’t “bad”. The child isn’t a discipline problem. The child isn’t too needy or mentally ill. The child is desperate! Misbehavior, then, is an understandable though sometimes crude effort by a child to get recognized; to feel like they matter.
Adults who don’t understand this most basic of principles often react to misbehavior in equally misbehaving ways. They get aggressive; yelling and spanking. They take away a prized possession or a privilege. They abandon a child through lengthy “time outs” that only make a child feel more alone and scared — and often just make the child escalate a tantrum in order to — finally — get a response.
A negative cycle then gets going: The child feels unheeded and frantically does whatever will get an adult to affirm that he matters. The adult responds with frustration, anger or revenge. The child, feeling even more isolated and uncared for, escalates their behavior. The adult escalates or withdraws, only confirming to the child that he doesn’t matter or isn’t liked. The cycle continues until the adult “wins” simply by being louder or more forceful. Usually it ends with the child sobbing in a heap, and the adult feeling some combination of vindication, relief it is over and guilty that she or he didn’t handle it better.
The more often such a cycle is repeated, the more entrenched the misbehavior becomes resulting in an even more damaged parent-child relationship.
Scolding, nagging, and punishing don’t work if the goal is to manage misbehavior without damaging your relationship with your child or the child’s self-esteem. There are better, more effective ways to deal with misbehavior.
Happy Saturday, beautiful souls!
Not feeling too happy? Maybe it’s because you don’t live in a big, bustling city — as one new study suggests. Keep reading for more on that, as well as mental health tips for entrepreneurs, how yoga and meditation could be inflating your ego, why night owls are at a greater risk for depression, and more.
Research Claims Living in a Fast-Paced City Is Key to Happiness: For some, staying busy in a bustling environment is beneficial for fostering happiness.
The WHO No Longer Sees Transgender as a Mental Illness: The World Health Organisation (WHO) released an updated version of the International Classification of Diseases and has moved gender incongruence from the mental health category to a new chapter on sexual health. Says Lale Say, the coordinator of the Adolescents and at-Risk Populations Team at the (WHO), “It was taken out from the mental health disorders because we had a better understanding that this wasn’t actually a mental health condition and leaving it there was causing stigma.”
5 Mental Health Rules for Entrepreneurs: Creative. Self-sufficient. Resilient. These are positive words many entrepreneurs would use to describe themselves, but relying too much on these characteristics could have a negative outcome if they mean ignoring mental health care.
The Kate Spade Brand Is Donating $1 Million to Mental Health Organizations: The Kate Spade brand has announced it will donate $1 million to mental health awareness in honor of its late founder, Kate Spade, who suffered from depression and anxiety and died by suicide earlier this month. The first donation — $250,000 — is marked for Crisis Text Line, a non-profit service that helps people in need using text messages.
New Study: People’s Egos Get Bigger After Meditation and Yoga: Could practicing yoga and meditation do exactly the opposite of what it’s supposed to do?
Night Owls May Have Higher Depression Risk: We’ve known for a while that there’s a link between circadian rhythm and depression, but we haven’t been able to tell whether a person’s sleep habits caused depression or were a symptom of depression. The results of this new study suggest that “night owls” are at a higher risk for developing depression, though researchers state additional studies are required to confirm the findings as well as examine how environmental and genetic factors played roles.
Close and intimate relationships are fundamental to personal growth and maturity. To be valued by those whom we value, and to be understood by those closest to us is the psychological air promoting health and well-being. Consider the other end of the continuum of the warmth and responsiveness a significant relationship provides — abuse and neglect — and we can understand the depth of the core need of belonging.
Significant relationships in adolescent and adult life provide the support and challenge for interpersonal and intrapersonal growth on many levels. These types of relationships expand our perspective, deepen our understanding of reciprocity, and help us to move beyond our own needs. It is in this dynamic connection where we can see the value of accord and conflict. While romantic love and “the fall” still get center stage in the world of entertainment, in the real world of private life it is in the small moments and the seams of the ups of downs of two individuals committed to something more that we find the substance for becoming more differentiated and integrated beings. Here are three things to consider when looking at relationships through a developmental lens:
Trust and Psychological Autonomy: Close relationships provide the holding environment to develop our sense of self and the shared internal experience of intimacy. Over time we move from being the relationship to having a relationship, which represents an important developmental milestone. When you are embedded in the relationship you are unable to hold your feelings as separate from the feelings you experience within the relationship. When things are going well, you feel well; when things are in discord, your sense of self is threatened or compromised. As trust builds over time, the relationship and each individual can mature to the point of having both developmental paths of differentiating and integrating. Both our sense of self and our sense of relationship becomes deeper and more complex.
Why does this matter? If the health of relationship is defined by the initial feelings of falling in love or the excitement of romantic love, then the inevitable challenge of commitment and building the relationship will seem like an ending rather than the beginning of a new phase. Borrowing from the classic work of The Prophet by Kahlil Gibran, a mature and resilient relationship has the quality of connections and space. These words, written nearly one hundred years ago, ring true today:
Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,
Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music.Give your hearts, but not into each other’s keeping.
For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.
And stand together, yet not too near together:
For the pillars of the temple stand apart,
And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other’s shadow.
1 +1 = 3: In the first stages of relationships, 1+1=1 developmentally speaking, for it is what the individual is getting from the relationship that is front and center. The individual walls of ego collapse, manifest in the dizzying sense of excitement and the constant intrusion of the other’s being on the present situation. Love songs nail this experience of “You are always on my mind” for with the crumbling boundaries there is no sense of me without you. While it is not as poetic to sing about differentiating and integrating a more complex sense of self, with time, energy, trust, and as Paul McCartney says, “a little luck” we can work this out.
1 +1 =3 when we are able to have a relationship rather than be embedded in it. In this new developmental space, there is a you, a me, and the relationship. We can sense the relationship as a living and breathing entity as much as we are individually. And we can draw on its strength during good times and troubled times. Which leads to…
Conflict = An Opportunity to Grow: With self and other awareness, we can develop to the point of understanding that we see the world not as it is but how we construct it based on our sense of meaning. This process is a never-ending unfolding for as you increase your awareness, you see the world in a more complex manner, and therefore exhaust your current level of understanding. In this space a new, more complex vision can be accommodated. With development, you constantly push the edge of awareness/ignorance and perceive greater complexities — but still this vision is incomplete. This process underlies the statements from diverse sources, from the business world to scripture:
You don’t see the world as it is, you see the world as you are. (Stephen Covey, 7 Habits)
The map is not the territory. (Alfred Korzybski, Science and Sanity)
Men do not attract what they want, but what they are. (James Allen, As a Man Thinketh)
For as he thinks in his heart, so is he. (Proverbs, 23:7)
At the edges of our development, relationships become mirrors for our inner desires to grow and become more. The ego/self is inevitably touching ideas and actions that do not align with our current sense of reality, and often this occurs in the ups and downs of the relationship. No need to chase problems, for they occur often in the authentic living (differentiating) and belonging (integrating) based in meaning and values. Within this sphere, conflicts become projections of our deepest desires and inadequacies. “If only you were more…” whether thought or spoken to our significant other, becomes a clue to something in our own sense of self that requires attention and introspection. And with time and effort (something one never sees in relationships on the screens), one can mature to the self-awareness of embracing the conflict as an opportunity to increase one’s depth as a person and partner.
Relationships are more than a basic need. They are crucial to development and broadening of our sense of self, others, and how the world works. Seen through this developmental lens, for better or worse are parts of the relationship process. With the vision of growth and a deepening connection in mind, the natural ups and downs within relationships each have value in the developmental process.
References:
Christopher, J., Carson, W. & James, M. (1972) Always on my mind. (Recorded by Willie Nelson, 1982 on 45 RPM vinyl) Columbia Records.
Gibran, K. (1923). The Prophet, Alfred A. Knopf Inc. New York.
Kegan, R. (1982). The evolving self: problem and process in human development. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Kegan, R. (1994). In over our heads: The mental demands of modern life. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press.
Lennon, J. & McCartney P. (1966) We can work it out. On Yesterday and today (Vinyl album) Columbia Records.
McCartney, P. (1978) With a little luck. On Wings Greatest (Audio CD released 2018). Capital Records.
Panepinto, J.C. (2017). The Arc of a Meaningful Life: Developing a Life of Purpose, Fulfillment, and Integrity. DX Sport and Life, Inc.
Your body isn’t working as it should. Your thoughts are triggering you. It can feel like you’re in a foreign place.
How do you make friends with your body? How do you find peace within yourself?
Acceptance can come from mindfulness. Paying attention can put you back in the hear and now. Viewing your circumstances and feelings without judgment can give you a sense of ease.
We cannot control everything in our lives. For those who suffered trauma, this can be retraumatizing. We can feel helpless, afraid and out of control.
But we can also remember that we always have a choice about our attitude and how we view the circumstances of our lives.
As you read our top posts on addictions and relationships, practice acceptance. Accept what comes up and be compassionate towards yourself.
6 Hidden Addictions
(Tales of Manic Depression) – You’re not addicted to shopping, alcohol or drugs, but are these lesser known obsessions ruling your life?
4 Ways Childhood Adversity Teaches Us a Wrong Understanding of Love
(Psychology of Self) – Love is… How you end that sentence can reveals your earlier lessons on love.
Finding the Root Cause of Overeating
(NLP Discoveries) – What causes you to overeat? This may surprise you.
How to Forgive Infidelity [5 Thinking-Points]
(Surviving Infidelity) – If you think you’ll never be able to forgive your partner for cheating, this may change your mind.
Women who Enable Paedophiles
(Full Heart, Empty Arms) – It’s hard to believe, but it happens all the time. Here are a few incidences of mothers who don’t believe their children have been abused.
