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Ghosts in the nursery (Part 1)

5/30/2016

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“In every nursery there are ghosts...visitors from the unremembered past of the parents.” - Selma Fraiberg, et al., 1975
from Ghosts in the Nursery: A Psychoanalytic approach to the problems of impaired infant-mother relationships
I love my dad. He has always been a solid and consistent presence in my life. He’d be the first to admit that patience has never been one of his strengths. He’s a math wiz. He taught math before going into computer programming and consulting and writing his own program for book dealers to help them manage their inventories.
    
I was always pretty good at math, but I was never a math wiz like my dad. He helped me with my math homework growing up and it was often a pretty unhealthy dynamic where I could feel his impatience creep in and I would automatically start to shut down and protest and do things to enrage him.

I wasn’t conscious of the dynamic at the time and I doubt he was either, but we repeated it over and over and over again. Needless to say, it didn’t do wonders for my self-confidence when it came to mathematics. At the first opportunity I had, I stopped taking math and opted for Japanese. Arigatō gozaimashita, ​pops.
I can see it happening it and I'm still doing it

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Does Marriage Counseling Work?

5/26/2016

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Many of the couples that I have seen in my private practice have been in marriage counseling before. When it’s not their first rodeo, they’re more jaded and skeptical. I always start off by telling people it’s understandable and perfectly acceptable to be skeptical as long as they are open to seeing what happens and to doing the work required.

After meeting with a couple for an initial session, I usually meet with each person for an individual session to better understand where they stand in terms of the relationship and if they have any big secrets that could sabotage our work if they aren’t revealed.
    
Another thing I always tell people is that I don’t want to waste their time or my time. If they are both wanting to work on their relationship with honest intention, that is all that I need to get started. Sometimes it’s not so clear. Maybe one member says they are willing, but have checked out and are going through the motions. Maybe one member is having an affair and is still keeping it a secret.
Marriage counseling starts with stopping the blame game

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How to save a relationship

5/17/2016

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In order to save a relationship, you must first realize that there is something that needs saving. That requires at least one member of the couple stepping back and saying that the status quo is not ok.

Ideally, both members of the couple will realize that they need to do something about their relationship. Hopefully, both will want to do something, but all you need is one to get things started.

So you realize that your relationship is in danger. Now what? Start by focusing on you. It’s common to blame your partner and see him as the root of all evils in the relationship, but it takes two to tango. It always takes two. Blaming simply doesn’t help. It won’t help you or your relationship.

Time for self-reflection. Sit down by yourself with a piece of paper. Without thinking too much, just allow yourself to write. Start with the following:

  • What is working for you right now in your relationship?
  • What is not working for you right now in your relationship?

Remember, do not focus on your partner. Instead of saying “he isn’t romantic with me”, say “there is not enough romance in our relationship”. You have to be willing to own your part if you want things to change. Blaming only serves to maintain the status quo. Ok, keep going…

  • For each thing you listed that isn’t working for you, write down at least 3 things that you can do to create change.
Take responsibility for your actions

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Finding Love Again

5/13/2016

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Things happen all the time that are outside of our control. From bug bites to job loss to illness and death, we erect altars to happiness and talismans against suffering. 

When negative experiences occur, the aversion is reflexive. Our sympathetic nervous systems get triggered, producing hormones like cortisol and norepinephrine that facilitate action and self-protection.

Our minds react in kind with anxiety about the impact of the experience, fear about the repercussions, projections into the future regarding the possible impacts and wishing the experience would be other than it is:

"When touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, were to shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pains of two arrows; in the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the uninstructed run-of-the-mill person sorrows, grieves, & laments, beats his breast, becomes distraught. So he feels two pains, physical & mental...

Now, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones, when touched with a feeling of pain, does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. So he feels one pain: physical, but not mental. Just as if they were to shoot a man with an arrow and, right afterward, did not shoot him with another one, so that he would feel the pain of only one arrow. In the same way, when touched with a feeling of pain, the well-instructed disciple of the noble ones does not sorrow, grieve, or lament, does not beat his breast or become distraught. He feels one pain: physical, but not mental..."
​
"Sallatha Sutta: The Arrow" (SN 36.6), translated from the Pali by Thanissaro Bhikkhu. Access to Insight, 30 June 2010,http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn36/sn36.006.than.html 
The parable of the two arrows

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Love After Marriage

5/9/2016

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We tend not to speak about the things we need to speak about the most, confined by shame to the prisons of our own minds. It is from inside these prisons that we project our doubts and insecurities onto the world.
​
​Social media has a way of making it seem like everyone has their shit together. Can that be possible? If over 50% of marriages end up in divorce, does that statistic not apply to Facebook users? Is Facebook the panacea for all failed relationships?

Here are some things that we usually don't see on social media:
  • I'm scared and unprepared.
  • I miss being just the two of us.
  • I'm exhausted and fed up.
  • I wish we waited longer.
  • Our sex life sucks.
  • Lactation without copulation.
Shame imprisons

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