Emotional safety is the core foundation in relationships. It’s vital for building trust, vulnerability and intentional connection. This foundation allows you to show up authentically in your relationships, and it also allows you to do so without fear of being judged or rejected.
When survival quiets down, what’s left can feel unfamiliar. It’s strange to not always be scanning for danger. Strange to have choices instead of reflexes. Strange to realize that peace can feel unsafe when you’ve never had it before. This is the part of healing no one warns you about, the part that’s less “liberation” and more “relearning how to live.”
When most couples are in conflict, they often get stuck in a cycle of trying to win, rather than trying to understand each other. The fight escalates because we don’t feel heard. And when we don’t feel heard, we protect ourselves, by defending, explaining, or shutting down.
Have you ever cried on your birthday? If so, you’re clearly not alone. So why is that? And why do so many of us have such complicated relationships with our birthdays? Some people thrive, dedicating an entire month to celebrations and gatherings. Others prefer to let the day pass by without acknowledgement.
One of the reasons why conflict becomes so dangerous and unruly in relationships is due to the heightened emotionality of each person and the natural defensive and retaliatory responses elicited. In other words, when we hurl our raw, level 10 emotions at another person during conflict, it will most likely be met by more heightened emotion, defensiveness, or even complete emotional withdrawal or shut down.
My professor made a poignant remark during the days leading up to the fall and winter holidays that had the entire class laughing at the accuracy and relatability of the observation. He shared that the holidays are a humbling time for personal growth because you can think you have worked through and resolved most of your triggers in therapy until that first fall holiday family get-together.
Living in Los Angeles, even with its desirable year-round weather, presents mood challenges as the seasons turn.I know fall has arrived and we are heading towards winter when there is a subtle yet palpable shift in the weather: the sun begins to set earlier; a cold, crisp quality permeates the air; I start reaching for the jackets that have been at the back of my closet; I am exponentially more drawn to turning on my furnace instead of the AC unit as each day passes. I also experience an indistinct shift in my moods as the days get shorter and the nights grow longer.
When it comes to taking steps on your life path, you often hear people urging you to “follow your gut.” But what exactly does that mean? And if you aren’t following our gut, what are you following?
You have two choices: to primarily listen to either your ego or your intuitive inner voice. So how do you differentiate between the two? How do you know if you are “trusting your gut” or following an ego-driven desire?
Here are 5 quick and easy tools to calm the sympathetic nervous system and activate the parasympathetic nervous system when feeling dysregulated.
I have heard people speak before about this concept of believing that they are ‘too much’ when it comes to relationships. This belief can keep people self-rejecting, negatively spiraling, and making rules like "I should keep who I am all to myself and shut down because I am too much." It is a distancing fear-based act that signals sympathetic flight mode, which puts the nervous system in a place of stress where the hypothalamus that regulates mood, sleep, hunger, and thirst in the brain activates the adrenal glands which releases about 30 stress hormones. As a result, the body slows digestion, increases heart rate, shortens breath, and constricts muscles. These beliefs, rules, emotional, and physical responses can lead to a perpetual pattern of isolating and closing off from relationships.
If I asked you to name a vulnerable emotion, joy doesn’t present as the obvious answer. Instead, we tend to think about shame, loneliness, anger, anxiety, and other more traditionally “negative” emotions. So how is joy potentially the most vulnerable emotion we experience? Brene Brown answers this question in her research about foreboding joy, which she defines as: “the experience of joy immediately followed by worry or dread.”
So many of us have experienced this confusing phenomenon of mixed emotions without an understanding as to what or why this is happening internally. The feeling is so widespread that many idioms have attempted to illustrate this particular experience: have you ever thought, “This is too good to be true” or experienced the feeling of “waiting for the other shoe to drop?” I know I have experienced this long before I had a name for it. I remember one particular instance where I was looking over at my partner with love and awe, only to have the feeling transform into fears about the end of the relationship and how devastated I would feel. I also remember the intense negative self-judgment I experienced, becoming frustrated that I couldn’t enjoy a good thing and had to ruin it with these intrusive thoughts. Learning about foreboding joy has been illuminating and validating when thinking back on these memories.
I hear this same self-talk in therapy sessions every day. I have clients who describe not wanting to get too excited about a new relationship, not wanting to settle into a sense of calm at a new job, and generally not wanting to let their guard down in case the positive experience doesn’t last. So, why do we do this? Why does dread often follow joy?
As I type out these words, I find myself feeling overwhelmingly tired and in need of rest (in part due to the record-breaking heat wave taking over Los Angeles)… and so, I find it fitting to write about my experience. In this oppressive heat, I feel an all-encompassing sense of fatigue, trouble concentrating, eyelids drooping, and muscles feeling immensely heavy as I melt into the couch. Do these sensations sound familiar? As humans, we all need rest. That much is clear. So why do so many of us have such a hard time allowing ourselves to stop, slow down, and rest?
Over the years I’ve heard, and likely uttered, phrases such as, “I don’t have time to rest,” “I have too many things to do,” “I have no reason to feel tired,” “I don’t want to be lazy,” “I feel guilty when I rest,” and so on.
The way our capitalistic society requires us to operate is ultimately not sustainable. We are not computers… and even our computers need time to recharge! —and, to add to this metaphor, even a fully charged computer will begin to overheat and freeze up if it’s running too many applications at once!
Let’s start by reframing rest as productive—and move forward from there.
It’s 7 PM on a Tuesday and your partner asks, “How are you? How was your day?” You stop to consider how to answer the question. You do a quick scan of your body and try to remember the day. Your neck is hurting from sitting at the computer, thoughts swirling in your head about that salty interaction you and your partner had that morning that went unaddressed, you just got a panicked text from your mother who needs you to call her immediately, you are annoyed with yourself for eating the peanut m & m’s when you said you wouldn’t, and to boot, you were up half the night stressing about a work project, so you were completely exhausted the entire day.
So, when your partner asks “How are you?” all you are able to muster up is the answer “I’m fine. It was fine.”
I’ve heard a few acronyms to describe the word FINE. F=Fucked Up, I= Insecure, N=Neurotic, and E=Emotional.
I also heard that FINE stands for Feelings Inside Not Expressed- a slightly more compassionate description. In my example above, from the neck pain to the disappointment in myself for eating the M & Ms, to the salty interaction from the morning, there were many feelings happening that were not being said.
Flakey pie crust bakes in the oven and the aroma of cheese and tarragon wafts around me as I sit in my kitchen nook at sunset. Since childhood, the veggie pot pie has been one of my favorite dishes. I am instantly comforted whenever I smell it cooking in the oven. When I’m feeling under the weather, I find comfort in nostalgic smells.
I finally got COVID. After being quite cautious during the last 2.5 years of the pandemic, I was frustrated to ultimately get COVID simply from going about my everyday routine. When I get acutely sick, I tend to go through rapid stages of the grief cycle.*
First, I tend to go into an initial denial phase and tell myself, "oh, I am just tired," and then push forward with my responsibilities at home and with my virtual work.
Second, I get angry and think, "Oh, no. I might be sick. How could I let myself get sick at a time like this?!"
And after the anger subsides, the bargaining comes: "If I can get better super quick…like in the next day…I promise I will do more meditation and yoga, improve my sleep and reduce my stress level so that I don't get sick again."
Then comes the depression when the symptoms quicken, as I mope in bed and think, "Life is terrible. I am unhappy. What am I doing with my life? How did I get here? I don't care about anything anymore. I am so unmotivated. Am I depressed? Have I been depressed for months and not realized it? Nothing brings me joy anymore." Walking my dog and smiling with my latte just a few days prior now feel like a distant memory. The depression phase tends to be the longest as I lay in bed, and it feels like I have been this down and having these low thoughts for years.
I must decide during the depression phase to move into acceptance. The decision is to recognize that this pain and discomfort are temporary and that suffering and the depressive state are optional. I start to recall monks who meditate with discomfort and pain in the heat on top of a mountain. The sun will move from the hill, the day will cool, and the sweat will subside. Everything is temporary.
As time passes, I start to move into greater acceptance.
Here are five tips that helped me move forward from depression to acceptance to coping with acute illness, and eventually renewed joy:
