When clients come into therapy with the issue of social anxiety, one of the most common statements I hear is "I am afraid of what people will think of me." It would seem that somewhere along the line, what was incorporated into their core belief system was a fear of judgement, a fear that somehow they weren't going to live up to someone else's expectations. "What happens if I say something stupid?" "I worry that all eyes will be on me." They fret about what they should wear,

There are times when we struggle to understand someone's inability to be intimate; in their levels of affection, in their daily investment in the relationship, in their level of being attuned to our needs. As everything exists on a continuum, as does intimacy. Our ability to be intimate with others, to be vulnerable and open correlates directly with our level of feeling safe. If we don't feel safe in that position, we will maneuver, avoid, step around, shut down. The level

Healthy relationships are about investment. In the article "23 Damn Good Pieces of Marriage Advice All Couples Need to Read" by Fatherly, we read the advice given by therapists and relationship experts as to how to keep a marriage healthy. Here are five that resonated with me: "Remember your commitment. When there is a foundation of caring and love, then you can trust at all times that you will get through whatever difficulties you are facing." -Janet Zinn, LCSW "Be flexible

There are times when we get into a "poor me" or "why me" train of thinking. Sometimes it comes from a lot of stress that we are under, chronic pain can bring it on, or our life circumstances are feeling particularly challenging for whatever reason. And although it is perfectly okay to recognize and accept that this is the way we are feeling, we must be cautious not to stay there. Defeatist thinking tends to create a cycle that can lead to feeling stuck, and if we give the "po

What often happens in therapy is that people are able, through exploration, to see the other side of the story. Sometimes we are just too invested in only one side and it becomes clouded by that judgment. I came across a poem that is a wonderful example of this phenomenon. Written by Abdullah Shoiab , it is entitled Pretty Ugly: Pretty Ugly I’m very ugly So don’t try to convince me that I am a very beautiful person Because at the end of the day I hate myself in every single w

I recently worked with a client on identifying her "layers of connection." As a relationship species, we rely on connection to others to feel whole. Connection; however moves out in layers. First, we have the people in our lives that we would consider to be a part of our inner circle; those are generally our partners, our children, our siblings, parents, best friends. These are what we would consider the first layer and are the people we are most deeply connected to. These a

I came across this quote by Abraham Lincoln: "I am a slow walker, but I never walk back." - Abraham Lincoln What a nice little reminder that the speed to which we have movement forward is not what matters. Some people can illicit structural change in leaps and bounds; there are times when our "aha" moments lead us to instantly begin doing things differently. Sometimes the movement; however, is slower. There are patterns that need to be broken, new habits that need to be forme

We are a relationship species with an inherent need to attach. When we are loved unconditionally (by even just one person), we feel safe and secure and free to be ourselves. Attachment is often what drives us to seek approval, gain acceptance and it is often at the base of wanting to be liked. When we are able to love unconditionally, we are able to create an environment for our loved ones that include stability, consistency and attunement. The elements of stability and cons

Building from yesterday's post in which we looked at some key steps to managing difficult emotions, today we look at the "0 to 60" response. Very often, people will remark that they can't control their emotions- that when they feel something, their need to act on it is immediate. That might be anger by means of a quick or short temper, fear - which can produce a panic attack or immediate tears when triggered to something sad or overwhelming. As we touched on yesterday, every

We all have them - difficult emotions. Sometimes the struggle is with anger, sometimes it is with fear, or shame, or deep sadness. The difficulty is often in what feels uncontrollable; a reaction that feels out of our grasp and all-consuming. But we can learn to help control and contain difficult emotions. The first step is to simply begin to be aware of your emotions . It is to understand that it is not the feeling that gets you into trouble. Every feeling that you have is

This meme came to my attention: An unhealed person can find offense in pretty much anything someone does. A healed person understands that the actions of others has absolutely nothing to do with them. Each day you get to decide which one you will be. - Jay Shetty To me, there is two levels of truth to these words. The first, is about security. When we feel secure in ourselves, we are able to recognize not only the role we play in interactions, situations and experiences, but

Some people call it karma - the idea that 'what goes around comes around.' Other people prefer to look at it as the Golden Rule - 'do unto others as you would have them do unto you.' We can also look at it from a scientific perspective with Newton's Law of Effect which states that 'for every action, there exists an equal and opposing reaction.' Regardless of how we like to understand the process of cause and effect, through experience we begin to become open to the idea that

In our third and final post about assertivness, we look to being heard. To be honest, this is a tricky one. Sometimes we do so much work on finding our courage to voice our opinion, or tell someone how we feel, that we make an automatic assumption that the person we talk to about our needs is going to respond accordingly. And that doesn't always happen. As a result, we can feel deflated and ask ourselves, "Why even bother?' The fact is, you can't change another person and s

Building on yesterday's post and the description given to us about assertiveness by Dr. Jonice Webb, we can break down the two individual parts to the definition: "Assertiveness is: Speaking up for yourself — in a way that the other person can hear." (As a note: although this definition of assertiveness was pulled from the article I cited in yesterday's blog post, the rest of this post is my writing only.) The first part of that statement refers to the process of finding o

In an article entitled, "Why is it So Hard to Be Assertive? 5 Skills You Learn" by Dr. Jonice Webb , she writes about the importance of knowing the true meaning of assertiveness. I quote: "Why is it so hard to be assertive? There are some very good reasons why it’s such a struggle for so many.The first reason is that lots of people think they know exactly what assertiveness is, but they actually only know half of the definition. That missing half makes a huge difference. Ass

We like to say in therapy that it's about "doing the work." The understanding piece is important in getting there; so is self-reflection; but at some point we have to roll up our sleeves and dig in. Here are five ways to know if you're doing the work: Not immediately placing blame when reacting to something . This means you are taking the time to evaluate how you reacted, why you are having that response, and how you want to move forward in dealing with situation. Creating ne

I came across this writing by Brianna Wiest: "Of all the things you can clean and fix in your life, fear is not one of them. It will always be there, a gentle humming undercurrent to whatever it is you do. It can be loud or it can be soft. You can try to hold it back or you can learn to coexist with it, to nod to it as you pull away from the shore. You cannot cleanse yourself from fear, nor should you. It's how you learn to live in spite of it, the mental strength you develo

In our concluding post on things to consider for the new year, we take a look at being accountable to ourselves. We often hear that healing begins with us; that true growth comes internally, that structural change comes from within. And yet we have a natural tendency to seek change externally; we look to be validated by others, we turn to external things to soothe ourselves, we convince ourselves that in order to love ourselves, another must love us first. Being accountable

One thing that tends to be something worth considering when it comes to our emotional health is the ability to decipher what is ours to carry . We are a relationship species and our attachment system, as a result, creates a need in us to be accepted. Our natural tendency to want to fix something, the lessons we learn growing up about being responsible for other people's feelings or problems, people-pleasing behaviours - they all have the ability to contribute to the feeling t

Moving right along in our series on things to consider in the new year, today we explore being conscious of our energy . Part of living a balanced life is to be able to pay attention not only to our phsyical energy level, but to our emotional energy as well. When we worry and ruminate, when we over-extend ourselves, when we don't get enough sleep, or we put ourselves in a position of saying yes without thought, we are depleting ourselves. Some things to consider when being co