#067 - Loving self and other through grief

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#067 - Loving self and other through grief

My partner recently lost their father, whom they have had not contact for may years. Though his death was coming for a long time it was still a shock. My partner has left to be back with family and take care of things related to their dad’s passing. I have the tendency to want to help too much or fix how they’re feeling, which I am working on in myself with a therapist. This situation is very hard, though, because my partner has a hard time asking for what they need/want, and I have a hard time with the unknown and not having a specific direction to follow. I have just been saying, “I’m here for you, let me know what you need, I love you, this totally sucks, I’m giving you a virtual hug and kiss,” etc. Trying to not save them, but let them be where they are. I have been really sad at home alone and not hearing from them much, and I’m wondering if you have any advice on how to be there for my partner and also for myself at the same time?

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#64 - Asking for a Friend: Navigating disorganized and anxious partnerships

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#64 - Asking for a Friend: Navigating disorganized and anxious partnerships

Hi Karolina,

My partner has a disorganized attachment style and I have an anxious attachment style. Sometimes when we are triggered it feels like I’m being pushed away energetically, often through shortness in our interactions. My response is usually to give them lots of space and not engage, which worked best for us in the past. But now we are learning that my partner actually needs me to move closer, ask them about it, and connect. I struggle to do this because of my upbringing – if someone was upset it was best for me to stay out of the way. I know my partner wants more engagement when they are upset, but I can’t recall that in the moment and have the complete opposite reaction. It has been coming up for us a lot, we keep seeing the pattern but not much is changing in the moments. What are your suggestions for us?

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#061 - How fear can help with anxiety

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#061 - How fear can help with anxiety

I know the experience of anxiety deeply, and about the running from it as well. The body sensations, energetic experiences, hot racing thoughts, and the drive to fix it, or collapse in the face of it, are all familiar to me. I often ask folks to slow down when they say they are anxious so we can find out, together, what they are feeing somatically. Often it is a fast energy, with contracted points in the body, and if not handled gently can escalate to panic pretty fast. No wonder we, as a culture, want to do anything we can to not feel these particularly frightening sensations!

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#060 - Dating with Disorganized Attachment

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#060 - Dating with Disorganized Attachment

When I was in grad school a teacher asked the folks in the class to raise their hands to indicate which attachment style they most identified with. For most of us at the beginning of our grad school experience we were just starting to learn what “attachment style” meant. We “knew” that secure attachment was the best and anything else was bad. Beyond that, very few of us understood the nuances of attachment styles. So those who raised their hand as being securely attached were given the stink eye, because competitiveness in grad school extends to attachment styles too!

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#056 - Developmental trauma "acts of triumph"

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#056 - Developmental trauma "acts of triumph"

Within the therapeutic relationship acts of relational triumph can occur which translate to the clients world outside the office. Witnessing the transformative power of literally going with, emotionally and somatically, my clients to the most terrifying places in the psychic realm humbles me. The places of overwhelm, panic, and dissociation are the places where these acts of triumph live, but we must go together.

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#055 - The gentle path of healing

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#055 - The gentle path of healing

When I was younger just getting into recovery and self-healing work I was very immature. I figured all I had to do was find the right mindset, mantra, prayer, or belief, work really hard at keeping it in my mind and all would be well. So I would find a really cool idea or phrase, which had given me some relief, and squeeze every ounce of serenity out of it till I was sweating and bleeding everywhere (metaphorically of course!).

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#051 - It's not about transcending

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#051 - It's not about transcending

A tact, which is useful, involves not transcending the problems of humanness but descending into the muck of life and welcoming it home. One way of thinking of this process is imagining that these painful experiences and parts of ourselves are things which need to be welcomed home, and not just welcomed home and shoved in the basement, but given a seat at the table of our life.

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#048 - Shame: That bad feeling

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#048 - Shame: That bad feeling

There is this feeling that at times can be hard to name, it often comes in the morning right when you wake up, before you begin to distract yourself. In the body it is a sinking or dropping feeling in the stomach, a lack of energy, difficulty in lifting the head and looking the world in the eye, or my personal fave: a deep self loathing that brings into question my very existence as a being on the earth. Fun!

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#046 - Being a therapist is about letting go

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#046 - Being a therapist is about letting go

 

Every day that I work with clients, at least once, I try to control the direction of the session. This can look like having a brilliant insight and I want to share it with them. I see something and I am sure that that is the missing piece of the problem they have been working with for so long. They want to go in one direction and I want to go in another. Some problem I have “overcome” is presenting in my client and I want to tell them what to do so they can have the same insight and healing as me.

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#044 - How long will my healing take?

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#044 - How long will my healing take?

I have asked this question many times. I have asked it to friends, therapists, lovers, the universe, God, you name it. I have heard spiritual teachers talk about it, offering techniques for the “fast track” to spiritual enlightenment. I have tried really, really, hard to heal myself. And some of it has seemed to work. I am different than I was 10 years ago, that’s for sure. I am less likely to drink myself into a black out (extremely less likely!).

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#042 - What is this like?

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#042 - What is this like?

I recently returned from a meditation retreat on the east coast. I was excited to go and have many days of silence and the freedom to go deep into my own experience without many distractions. Though daily mindfulness practice and meditation are important there exists something special when we can be in deep silence and practice for an extended period of time. Our culture is very much focused on the up feeling, getting high, being excited, the big “Wow.” Those moments are wonderful and leave us feeling the joy of life. But they are also only part of the picture. When we embark on any journey of discovery we must be willing to treat the “wow’s” and the “ugh’s” equally: One to raise us up when we are bogged down, and one to humble us when we think we got it all figured out.

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#036 - Spiritual/Emotional Growth: The hard way or the easier way

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#036 - Spiritual/Emotional Growth: The hard way or the easier way

I was talking with some friends the other night and we were exploring what it’s like to enter therapy. My friend had a very insightful statement that going into therapy is stressful because it “stirs stuff up.” I had to agree with that! That’s been true in my professional life with my clients and with my own personal journey. And yet my perspective is a bit different than my friends: Yes is stirs stuff up, and this stuff is going to get you no matter what!

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#028 - It's still going to take a lifetime, no matter how hard you try!

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#028 - It's still going to take a lifetime, no matter how hard you try!

At some point in my teens I became very good at slacking. I was skilled at not doing what I was supposed to and doing what I wasn’t supposed to as much as possible. For instance, getting high before basketball practice, skipping school, stealing, applying only to colleges that didn’t require an essay in the application were all tools of my trade.

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