Why Not to Marry

To marry or not to marry … that is the question

I am going to tell you why NOT to marry right now.

There are lots of lovely things to be said about love and marriage. It can be a beautiful thing if you are in love, being loved right back, and are emotionally mature. If you are thinking with a level head about your life and the future compatibility with your special someone, imagining being together forever will feel warm and good.

But I want to be blunt and list some reasons why not to get married right now.  

If any of these apply to you, I suggest you wait and think more on this very important life choice:

1.     All your friends are getting married and you feel left out.

2.     You are itching for a pretty wedding (a wedding is neither a marriage nor the reason for one).

3.     It’s the next step in Your Plan. Just because you finished college, got a job, had some fun being single, and are a certain age does not mean you marry so you can finish the puzzle you might be thinking your life should look like.

4.     You are lonely. We all get lonely.  And honestly a part of why a lot of folks marry is because they want to be coupled and not spend their lives single (and a bit lonely). But don’t let it be a big part of why you are marrying.  You might be clouded by fears of being alone rather than judging your compatibility or the quality of your commitment.

5.     You are afraid of losing him if you don’t tie it down right now.  (Fear is not a good place from which to make decisions. Especially big ones)

6.     Your family thinks you should. This is YOUR LIFE.

7.     Your friends think it’s time. (Ditto.)

8.     You are pregnant.  This may be an arguably good enough reason to marry given many other factors. But marrying someone who isn’t right for you,  isn’t kind, or doesn’t love and respect you -  just because you are pregnant and planning to have a baby – is not good enough reason alone to marry.

9.     You are engaged. Yep. You heard me. Just because you are engaged and have been planning to get married, doesn’t mean you should go forward if things aren’t going well. I hear people say it a lot, “We already told the family, bought the rings and everything, so I felt like I had to go forward.” This is not a good reason or place from which to start a lifelong commitment. If the relationship is showing distress, seek counseling or postpone the wedding. Figure out if it’s right to marry this person for a lifetime, not if you will be embarrassed in the short term by changing course.

10.                         Just because you are invested. This is a term I hear too much. We do invest. We invest our time and labor and love into lots of things. If you think you are invested now, just imagine 15 years from now after your heart wasn’t in it from the start.  We spend time with people, we love, we share joys and sadness and live our lives in relationship to others. Sometimes that ends. It doesn’t mean what we shared wasn’t or isn’t important. It also doesn’t mean it must last forever if the elements for continued shared joy and commitment are no longer present. Move on if this is the main reason you are deciding to move into marriage.

 

It might seem from what I have said that I am against marriage. I am not. However I see a lot of folks get clouded as to why they are marrying and what is motivating this huge decision. 

So let’s face facts: A large percentage of marriages will end in divorce. I know I may sound cynical, but I work with clients going through divorce and let me tell you, you want to choose your next ex very carefully.  I am serious. If you marry and divorce this person, chances are you are going to have to negotiate the most important aspects of life with him or her: children and money. You don’t want to do this with an unkind, deceptive, uncaring or disrespectful person.  It will be hell. Choose marriage wisely, as you may very well be also choosing your co-parent during a divorce.

And last, we live alot longer than ever in human history. Marriage was so very useful, and in many ways imperative (especially for women) in days past. The factors that made marrying as vital as it once was have changed. Today we can marry for love, and to add value to our lives.  We can take our time and choose wisely.

Just think, you can wait until age 30 to marry and still spend easily 5 to 6 decades with this person. Don’t you think you should be very clear about why you are choosing this person, and if you are ready before you promise yourself for the next 50 +years?

How to be more Resilient through a Break-up

Break-ups Can Really Hurt.

 

A break up is an ENDING.  I have found that endings are very hard for a lot of people. Any ending can feel challenging:  be it a job change, graduation, moving, letting go of a friend - or an intimate relationship ending.  And so, endings are often avoided. 

But being able to do endings well is a wonderful skill.  I don’t mean that there won’t be hurt, sometimes an enormous amount of hurt, attached to ending or letting go of someone. If you love or loved that person, it certainly will feel sad to let them go. Sometimes the sadness feels so heavy you think you cannot manage it for one more minute. 

But how you think about this loss will be key to how well you manage the process.  Resilient people heal. Their perspective about their loss and pain is what allows them to get through hard times without completely falling apart, or giving up on themselves and others.

Life changes.  Endings are inevitable. Some are chosen by you, some are chosen for you. Some are happy endings you planned and some are completely unexpected. But if you resist change and if you believe that things should be able to stay the same as you expected, you will experience a great deal more difficulty than is needed.

Intimate relationships often end after a period of pain or struggle, betrayal of some sort, or at least time spent sorting through hard issues. So when it ends you may already be worn thin. Even if you ended it and know it is for the best, letting go of someone we have spent time and intimacies with is usually a hard process. But it is a process. It is a process that can feel like a severed limb, or a bitter-sweet relief. If you are reading this I am guessing your recent or impending break up or even a more distant one is still causing a good bit of discomfort. So how do we orient ourselves to toward healing?

We have to expect that it will hurt.  Break ups and loss are truly an inescapable part of life. The hurt, loneliness, grief and even agony need not be avoided, disavowed or resented.  People who are resilient are not without deep pain in their lives. They are not without loss.  They know that they are experiencing a normal human difficulty.

Allow the pain in and feel it.  Process it by writing about it, talking to a friend, seeing a therapist, reading books, moving through it - not around it;  and after a bit:

Choose to heal.  To heal the loss of a relationship we have to choose to value ourselves, choose to find help (many current endings will bring up unresolved losses from an earlier time, especially childhood, that may need attention from a therapist), choose to review what has been lost and why, choose to learn from it, and choose life rather than hiding from future connection.

Much of the unnecessary pain I see in my practice and in my own life has been caused by the things we do to AVOID pain.  Resiliency is increased when we expect that hurt will come; try our best to face our truth and the truth about others;  believe that loss is a process; and know that you won’t feel dreadful forever. Resilient people don’t make avoidant choices to end the pain of loss.  Accept what has happened and sit still with it and it will move you toward growth - if you let it.

 

Why Do I Keep Getting Hurt?

 

Do I Have an “Abuse Me" Sign on My Head?  

 (Please note: I was asked to write this for women dating men. Please insert your gender pronouns to suit your situation. Lesbian, gay, transgendered and all folks entering into intimacies need to know about abusive personalities as they come in any gender.)

Many clients have asked me that very question. And while I certainly cannot answer in the affirmative, as no one asks to be abused – there are indeed many ways that we “advertise” our susceptibility to being a good Target.

Let me first say that no one deserves to be used, abused or in any way taken advantage of by another.  And though we can not foresee the outcome of any relationship going in, there are things you can do that will reduce your chances of attracting the bad guys. This article is addressing the situations where relationships are really problematic. I am not talking here about simply poor matches, commonplace relational issues like differing life goals, drifting apart, of even situations where he stopped giving you the attention and love needed to sustain a healthy connection.

I am offering a perspective for women who are finding that they have had a couple or maybe many very bad relationships. These are situations where you have been harmed, lied to, taken advantage of, manipulated, intimidated, controlled, or physically, verbally or emotionally abused.

Along with having a career as a trauma therapist (child abuse, sexual abuse, and sexual assault mostly), I also have taught self defense classes for 19 years and have been a student of martial arts for 22 years. I have researched violence against women, and have listened intently to hundreds of stories of abusive experiences.  I have learned a lot about how women are chosen for attack physically, but also targeted for emotional abuse.  I have also worked with and listened to the perspective and intentions of perpetrators of violence, abuse, and other forms of harm. The tactics used by the guy with intent to date rape for instance, are very similar to the person who is looking for a target to scam money,  - or the guy who is looking for the next relationship within which he will lie, betray, manipulate or otherwise harm someone new.

Here is a quick summary of a common process used by harmful guys, that I call “Targeting and Testing”.  

1.     TARGETING: This means he observes you for signs he believes indicate that you will be a more malleable or passive person upon which to prey. Depending on his game, he will look for slightly different things. But know that if someone intends on using you, they usually watch early on for signs that you have weak boundaries, low self esteem, or are in some way needy for attention of some sort. (And aren’t we all at times?).

2.     Next, he will TEST: This means he will engage you and cross subtle and sometimes not so subtle boundaries…”Oh come on, don’t be rude - let me buy you another drink”... (After perhaps you already said ‘no thank you’ to the prior offer).

It’s after he has determined that you are a good candidate for whatever he is looking for, (and for the purposes of this article we are talking about men who want to become involved with a woman who will be easily manipulated, lied to, or in some way allow themselves to be treated with less than genuine good intentions) that he will move forward with next steps. (Like starting a relationship where he can get his needs met without regard for your well being).

Now I don’t mean to frighten anyone. In fact, this knowledge is power. But it is estimated by many researchers that sociopathy and other severely maladaptive and pathological abusive personalities are more common than we think.  Estimates suggest that as many as 1 in 10 males have a pattern in their behaviors that put them in the “he will abuse me” category. The good news is that leaves about 9 out of 10 guys who are OK.

So your odds are very good that if you choose a guy to get to know, you are likely to choose someone who (while they may not be THE ONE) is unlikely to be abusive in any way. But if you are spending your time and energy with the yucky folks, you’ll be in the weeds. It won’t be easy to see the flowers. So let’s clear out some of the weeds. By the way, did you hear me say “you choose”? There is power in being the chooser. You are more likely to pick someone good than be picked by someone good. 

Knowing there are people who will target you for a relationship based on their belief that you will allow a certain level of abusive, manipulative or just plain cold behavior to occur without consequences – is your power. And let me be clear, I do not mean to say that if you have had a few or a string of “bad” relationships that this is your fault. Spotting someone who is controlling or dishonest or even abusive is not something we can do with complete accuracy. And it is not something many of us are ever taught to even think about.

I am also not saying that most poor outcomes or less than stellar relationships are the result of someone’s bad intentions. If you have had one or two relationships where you felt you weren’t treated well, it’s possible you were just a bad match for each other, the guy was just lacking in some relational skills, or other elements were present that mark a relationship for failure. Good people mess up. Relationships are complicated by both partner’s histories, and we play out some of our best and worst traits in the context of an intimate relationship.

What I am saying is that I have seen too many women who are repeatedly targeted by those with unkind or selfish intentions and I want to open lid on this phenomena and expose steps you can take to decrease your risks of attracting this sort of person. Be it romantic relationships, friendships, or even workplaces – we deserve to know more about how to spot an abuser. Watching for and observing boundary violations, disrespect, limit crossing or pushiness is your key to sorting through the weeds. Sometimes the boundary violations of an abusive person are subtle and stay that way for many months. Sometimes they are obvious and show up right away.  But if you are watching for boundary violations early and often, you are in a good place to make valuable judgments about who you allow to get closer to you.

And this is a key: Allow close in, only those people who treat you with fairness, honesty, authenticity, respect and good intentions – and you will know the life of good connections. This isn’t to say people don’t mess up, let you down, or sometimes act poorly. I am talking about a set of behaviors that indicate good intentions.

And it is behavior that counts! Promises do not count. Words only count if they are consistent with behaviors.  Abusive types will say one thing and do another. They will lie to you while looking you in the eye. They will deny what you know or feel in your gut to be true. They will leave you confused and bewildered and sometimes feeling like you are in a hall of mirrors.  But that is usually only if you are listening to what you want to hear rather than facing squarely what you see and feel through their behaviors.

OK -

What do you do to at least LIMIT the chances you will be a more welcoming target for bad guys?

1.     Know your boundaries.

2.     Practice your assertive body language. Look straight ahead and keep alert when you are walking;  stand up straight;  pay attention to your surroundings; look confident (even when you aren’t); make eye contact as needed; use an adult form of speech and voice tone.

3.     Do not feel the need to answer every question. Keep your privacy (especially with folks who haven’t earned your trust).

4.     Be willing to open your eyes to when people are testing you or crossing some limits (even if you haven’t verbalized them).

5.     Set limits. Use assertive communication to enforce a boundary: “I said no thank you” (to that 2^nd offer of a drink where you ridiculed me and called me rude for not accepting) “and you need not ask again.”

6.     Stop worrying so much about pleasing people who aren’t respectful. Stopping someone’s attempts to push you is not impolite. The pushing they are doing IS!

7.     Check in with what matters more: your safety and the possibility of better relationships in the future, or being called mean or bitchy.

8.     Know that having calm, self contained, assertive communication and using boundaries as needed is an excellent way of getting valuable and needed information about people.

9.     Your demeanor and assertiveness are your protective advertising. It is not foolproof but it is an excellent way to keep yourself safer, happier, and attracting better people.

10.  Start thinking about places in your current relationship (if you are concerned) that may need a dose of level headed, calm and assertive limit setting, or even self protection. (Think verbal, emotional, sexual, financial etc).

 

Good guys don’t test your limits. They have no agenda and do not need to scout out if you are a weak target. When your limits, even subtle ones, are being crossed – look very carefully at the person crossing them and do not let them closer to you (physically or emotionally), until you find out more about them, or maybe not at all.

I have said this before I my articles. Using your judgment and assertiveness does not reduce your connection to the world and people – it increases it. We are safe to be open when surrounded by caring people we attracted through our maintenance of self worth, as demonstrated using boundaries.

So this isn’t about acting like a “bad-ass”. It’s not about looking tough. It is about holding your demeanor, self awareness, and countenance in a place of self care. You can work at this even if it feels awkward. Think about what you would say, how you would communicate, and what you would allow in to your personal life space if you did value yourself more than any other thing in the world.

 

 

Help! I’m have started dating and I don’t know how much to disclose  (early on especially)... 

You believe in honesty. You want the men in your dating life to be honest with you, and you want to be an honest person as well. So where does honesty stop and become too much information? My clients and friends who are actively dating often ask, “How much do I share about my past, my sexual history, my family, my finances or my children on first dates and early on (in chatting or internet emails)?”  You might also be confused about how much to ask him early on in the process.  You certainly want to get to know him, as well as gather some information to help you assess your interest and next steps. You want to learn enough to begin to form opinions of his mental health, kindness, his attitude about and respect for women etc.

Along the way you have likely received lots of messages about all of this etiquette. Yet you still wonder what level of disclosure do you offer and when, and how does informal information gathering about him work?  It can be very confusing. 

For instance, you have probably heard that lies by omission are still lies. So do you wonder if that means you must disclose your address, where your children go to school,  your weight,  your sexual history, your financial statistics, or your favorite sexual position ?-  (total red flag by the way, of an inappropriate early date question. Get out!) But I digress. There is a difference between talking about your favorite author or the value you place on maintaining a healthy lifestyle on an early date, versus offering information or answering questions about your sexual history, how your past relationship ended or your yearly income.

When you are on that first, third or even 6^th date or “meetup”, you want to be relaxed and offer information about yourself, and you want to ask information from him – but how much and what topics are reasonable?  Being “too open” too early may have bitten you before or maybe being too “private” has lead to accusations of being closed off.  Then there are the “experts” on dating who advise women to remain “mysterious”. Advice is often contradictory.

Here are some things I suggest you begin to consider as you formulate your own dating disclosure approach:

1.      There is a difference between full disclosure and open communication.

2.      Being cautious about your privacy is not being dramatic, stingy, or closed off. It is simply self protective and appropriate. Until you have a very good sense that someone you are getting to know is kind, safe, emotionally consistent and stable – more information about you is more they can use to hurt or manipulate you. (Trust me I could fill a book with stories of just such atrocious behavior).  It is very important especially with internet dating, that you are very cautious about sharing too much important information about your life.

3.      Talking too much or too little is not attractive or useful. There should be some reasonable level of sharing and talking as well as listening. Chatting about how passionate you are about travel is an example of great starter conversation. Talking about how your ex treated you badly is not.

4.      Lies of omission are only lies (and therefore unethical) if your omission is designed and intended to make someone believe something that isn’t true, hide something they deserve to know (i.e. because they are your partner and you are hiding an affair), or allow them to have false assumptions so as to manipulate their feelings.

5.       That “mystery” element you may wish to cultivate isn’t about hiding, it’s about letting someone learn more about you over time, and according to how well the relationship is progressing. It isn’t about acting aloof - it is about having that air of self composure that suggests you are a deep person worth getting to know better.

6.      The first few dates should be about getting a sense of how the two of you relate, keeping it a bit on the light side and having fun. You are not closed off but you are also not telling your life story to someone you barely know.

7.      Our level of personal disclosure should be consistent with how well you know someone, and how well they respect your boundaries. For instance, it is appropriate to disclose you have herpes before you have sex with him, but it isn’t necessary to disclose you were sexually abused when you were a child to someone you only met a month ago.

8.      Privacy is not a lie. What level of personal information about your current or historical life is appropriate to disclose to a partner of 5 months is not the same as to someone you have met up with or hooked up with three times.

9.      Too much information too early and too often can get you hurt (emotionally, financially, physically, and sexually). Take the time to learn about your new guy as well. Watch for how he behaves, if he shows integrity and kindness toward you and the world, appropriately reciprocates information and vulnerabilities. You need to hold dear certain intimate sensitivities, slow down on the personal data and in general think about how you are experiencing this connection.

10.  Less is better. Slow is smarter. There is a lot you can talk about safely even on a first date that still leave the guy feeling like you were open, relaxed and fun to hang out with. It is easy to fill hours talking and sharing about yourself (and finding out about him) that don’t leave you vulnerable or feeling unsafe.  You can reveal values (like caring for animals), interests (like keeping up with global politics), passions (like music),  goals (like advancing in your career), or hobbies,  to fill many dates before you get into deeply private information or certain details about your history that you would not want shared with others.

So early dates, starting chat exchanges via internet dating, and the beginning of new connections should progress slowly in the area of self disclosure. You should think before telling something that feels personal. Is it something you would be OK being posted to your facebook for instance (because it could be). Until you have enough experience with him, don’t give away your soul, you deepest wounds or your secret and private life. With regard to safety, don’t give out very many stats either. Someone you barely know does not need to know your birth date, your address, names and ages of your children or your social security number! I say this to draw attention to how we all know we shouldn’t give out our SSN to unknown sources, but the same is true with personal dating disclosure.

It’s worth waiting and having boundaries rather than regretting later that you have ended with someone and now he has so much on you that you feel vulnerable. Also, listen well in those first many encounters. If there is something “off” about him, it will often show up if you have your limits, watch to see how well they are respected and  keep listening to him for clues about who he is and how he behaves.

 

Disclaimer: this is written by specific request for heterosexual women dating men. I have no intention of leaving out gay or transgendered relationships in my articles.

 

 

 

How can I become more connected and vulnerable and still feel safe in relationships?

This is a complicated topic with a web of feelings and issues interconnected. Among them are deep emotions and past experiences. When I talk to clients, friends and others I hear about self esteem, shame, courage, wisdom, boundaries, childhood wounds, relational experiences, as well as cultural expectations and messages.

Often I hear things that have a negative connotation attached to the definition of vulnerability. A colleague said, “Vulnerability feels like an open wound”. Someone else said, “I feel weak. It’s like I exposed too much of myself”. Why does vulnerability get wrapped up so much in feelings of weakness?

As I’ve worked on being a healthier person in relationships myself, I’ve come to view vulnerability quite differently from where I began as a young person. I’m suggesting the idea of vulnerability that is associated with high self esteem and confidence - the courage to be seen.  I propose a model of vulnerability as strength of emotional maturity. And that is what we need to love well and to be open to receiving some of life’s most connected relational gifts.

But what gets in our way? And why do women fear vulnerability in special ways that may be different than men’s fears? Because if you haven’t noticed, many men fear vulnerability and some go to great lengths to protect their “soft underbelly”.  Sadly this is what we largely teach men and boys to do. But that’s another story. Thing is, most of us are deeply confused about all of this.

We as women also fear seeming too “soft”.  So how can practicing something so open and as emotionally intimate as vulnerability be a strength?  Because when practiced with personal integrity and self respect, vulnerability is courage, it is compassion, it is wisdom, it can be nurturance and it is being human and real.

So the task is to parse out the difference between for lack of a better term, needy – and being vulnerable. When we are needy, it certainly is a vulnerable feeling. When we seek love for instance, from a place of fear that also makes us feel vulnerable and we are indeed in many way at risk of being taken advantage of, hurts or even exploited.  So we have to learn the form of connection and intimacy that comes from a place of self knowledge and strength. Practicing vulnerability in healthy ways is about sharing yourself and your passions. It is about allowing others to meet us where we are and seeing parts that may otherwise stay hidden. Doesn’t that sound courageous?

Culturally women are often sent contradictory messages that place us in what feels like a double bind around this practice.  One message we get is that as women we should be accessible emotionally, lead the way toward openness and nurturance of others. But we also get messages that we must protect our softer and more feminine selves lest we be exploited in ways emotional, sexual and physical. What is missing in this dialogue (well there is a lot missing) is the factoring in of boundaries.

To be vulnerable in affirming and healthy ways, we need to be able to set boundaries, choose and create respectful relationships. With the basics of this life template, we become free to be open and to do so in appropriate ways with appropriate people and for the right reasons.

So here is my proposal: Connect the goal of healthy boundaries with the goal of empowered openness. This is hard work for most of us. And doing so often requires assistance, good resources, role models and lots of practice paying attention to what we fear and how to move past a need to please and focus on self care instead.

Check in on your motivations for sharing, intimacy, connection and attachment. Look closely at when, where, and with whom you seek to be seen and heard. Why do you want to reveal parts of yourself? Under what circumstances does disclosure feel great? With whom do you find it reciprocated?  Are you able to feel ok about yourself if it is not? What do you seek from different relationships and situations? What do you need to alter or who might you need to limit your exposure to in order to create more health in your life? Might you tell your stories of fear, passion, excitement, mistakes and accomplishments with courage?

Once we have become clear that we deserve respect, and we have become comfortable with our boundaries and willing to be honest and judge the responses of others, we can more easily determine who we allow into our close circles.  With this framework for our social and intimate lives, we will feel much more confident to be open, vulnerable and accessible with the good people we hold dear.

K

The Ties That Bind: How Trauma and Addiction Get Woven Together

 

                                             

When I was a new therapist, I was working at a sexual trauma treatment center in a major city. During that first year I often saw how traumas like rape and child abuse predisposed its survivors toward the soothing relief of drugs and alcohol.  At the same time, I was cautioned by other therapists that I could not treat trauma with a person who was still using. I felt trapped. How could I help people get better without paying some attention to the historical trauma that substances helped cover over?

I saw many substance abusing people (mostly women) come through our center.  Many of the folks I I saw had been through rehab centers had AA or NA experience or had been counseled by addictions specialists. Yet they weren’t getting better. Looking deeper I discovered that many of the women I met had traumatic histories. The specialists with whom they had worked had taken little account of their trauma history. In fact many had never been screened for a trauma experience.  Here were so many women who had spent years battling serious drug or alcohol abuse, but who could not break free from the demons in their mind.  Often those demons were intrusive memories of past abuse and a core feeling of worthlessness or shame. The legacy that childhood trauma left for these women included a life of addiction and lonely pain.

Without the hurt from past relational harm being addressed, many of these women were not beating back their dependence on alcohol and other drugs.  The substances helped them cope. What was needed was a therapist who understood addiction and also knew how to assess and treat trauma and PTSD. This is what I proceeded to do, against the recommendations of many in my therapeutic community. Luckily today, reputable addiction treatment assesses for trauma and past abuse and offers a chance to talk through those experiences. Unfortumnately for many though, the counselors who work with addiction are not trained in trauma and the therapists who understand PTSD may not understand the tricky terrain of addiction. 

When abuse and trauma are recognized and treated together, along with addiction treatment , years of dependence on substances can lift.   Without the trauma being considered, clients often experience treatment around the addiction that feels alienating and self blame and shame are re activated.  The deeper issues scream for attention. 

Certainly, not all folks struggling with addiction have a trauma or abusive past. And there are other childhood experiences that can be decisively harmful as well and often leave a person with a vulnerability to anything that will block the pain.  Among some of those factors are:  parents, who because of their own addiction,  did not provide their child with the attention they needed;  mentally ill caregivers whose struggles prevented attuned attachment; and  narcissistic or borderline personality disordered parents who confused, frightened and shamed their  child.  These are among the many types of experiences we can have as children that leave us hurting and looking for relief.  The warm buzz of alcohol or the deep alteration of a drug can mask our pain, for awhile.

Whether my client was sexually abused, neglected,  or pervasively shamed growing up  – treatment that helps make sense of these experiences, processes the feelings that were generated and offers new ways of understanding and coping can come to make the substance use less needed.  Of course, caution must be used so as not to overwhelm an already depleted internal  self  that has become locked in chemical abuse.

 Pacing and caution are used by skilled therapists to provide new supports that allow the difficult memories to be processed and contained.  Working with someone who is using is not the same as working with someone who is not…A more sensitive, slow paced and careful approach must be taken when dealing with a traumatic past and and addiction at the same time. But with proper understanding of the connection and the dynamics of both addiction and trauma,  healing of trauma and substance abuse recovery can  proceed together.

Are You as Assertive as You Want to be in Your Relationships?

Are You as Assertive as You Want to be in Your Relationships?

Do you sometimes feel uncomfortable, or just plain afraid to say “No”, or “That is something I am not willing to do” for instance?   Are you concerned that if you set a limit, disagree with your spouse’s decision or voice non-acceptance of a behavior at work that there will be unpleasant and hard to handle consequences? Are their certain people or situations where limit setting or speaking your truth is more difficult?  If so, this is a common experience.

I bet you would like to be able to set boundaries with ease and with an inner comfort from knowing that it is your right to do so.  Most of us do not spend very much time thinking about boundaries, what they mean to us or where out limits are being intruded upon.  We have even less experience or training around how they get communicated. But the problem is, if we ignore them for too long or too often, we get angry. Then we risk lashing out in ineffectual ways. We disappoint ourselves and feel shame. But the problem wasn’t with our boundary, it was with ignoring our feelings and then poorly reacting to the anger that ensued.  Being angry is useful if you can identify why you feel upset and find the communication necessary to respectfully address the issue at hand.

So assertive communication frees relationships to be healthy. And it actually allows you to be more calm and less resentful.  Because by attending to our own limits and needs while respecting the boundaries of others, we will be more apt to communicate appropriately and in a way where we can feel authentic and confident.  Passive aggressive behavior or reactive aggression is often the result of becoming overwhelmed with too many invasions of our time, energy, feelings or rights. 

We prosper emotionally, relationally, financially, and in innumerable ways from the ability to communicate assertively. Your values, concerns, ideas, needs and limits are important.

Women I counsel and speak with in my courses often confuse assertive communication with being rude, unkind, mean or selfish.  And who wants be seen that way? But this is largely an incorrect message we have received from our common culture. Assertive women are often judged as mean or self centered. This is incorrect. Being assertive is about respecting yourself and others. Whereas rudeness is about disrespecting the humanity and value of another person.  More often what I see is that in an attempt to avoid being viewed as “rude” or “bitchy”, we actually become rude to ourselves, by allowing others to treat us badly.  

This shows up in a myriad of ways. It effects our marriages, family relationships, friendships and professional life. Moreover, it lowers our self esteem. Our confidence and self worth is choked by repeatedly discounting our own rights. Becoming aware of limits and boundaries; physical, emotional, spiritual, and sexual - to name a few - is the beginning of improved well being.  

So first, start thinking and reading about boundaries. Make a list of areas where boundaries are really important. (It might be that allowing your partner to yell at you is no longer acceptable for instance.) Then start to practice what assertive communication of your boundaries sounds and feels like. Honor your fear. This is often a very hard skill to learn. It helps to read articles or books that give concrete examples of what assertive versus aggressive or passive communication sounds like. Start small. If you would normally say nothing if your chicken was served undercooked at a restaurant, try saying, “This chicken is undercooked, please take it back and bring me another, thank you.” No apologies. You weren’t being rude, so you needn’t apologize for asking for what you deserve.  

Keep up the effort. It takes time for these skills to feel natural. But you will be glad you honored yourself by taking the journey.

Aftermath of School Shooting: How to help our kids

I want to start a conversation about caring for ourselves and our children in the aftermath of the current shooting violence on Friday. As some of you might know I am a psychotherapist, and I once treated mostly children. I want to just share some of what I know from working with traumatized children, from being an anti violence educator for over 15 years and from my experiences when I was working with children, schools and families in Washington DC area  following the events of 911. I was at a trauma non profit at the time of 911.

I know the shooting in Connecticut is not the same as a national tragedy like 911. But there are lot of things we learned from that and other experiences of social violence and about how to help children cope, and how to cope as parents so that we can be the most accessible to our kids. I am focusing mainly in this post on the smallest children, toddlers to first graders and the issue of restricting information flow as much as possible and the value of being able to respond as need arises with as much peace and calm as possible.

That said, we are all going to have different emotional responses based on who we are, our family dynamics, the age of our children,  and our life experiences. I know some parents may be frightened about leaving their children at school. Some parents may feel quite secure with their children at school. And most of us will have conflicting feelings. Whatever your emotions, to the extent we manage ourselves and limit anxiety producing information getting through to our children, the better we all will be.

One of the first things we said to families after 911 was to TURN OFF THE TV (when our children are awake or near) and to be mindful of our own behaviors such as telephone conversations etc. As we all know our children are master detectives of our feelings and what we are up to and they hear all! So be mindful to where you are doing your “processing” and know that they should not hear your raw emotions or your telephone calls etc.  

Dr. Andrew J. Gerber, a child psychiatrist at Columbia, said that parents should come to terms with their own feelings about the massacre before talking to a child. They should "essentially metabolize the awfulness of the event so that what they pass on when they have a discussion with their children conveys a certain amount of thoughtfulness and understanding, rather than raw trauma,"…

In short, the less our small children know the better.   Ideally kindergarten and first graders should not be informed about this event at all. Our children need us to project a sense of calm And for small children, they need to be protected from the information as much as possible. Their little emotional selves are just not prepared to process such unimaginable and frightening data and no good comes from exposing them unnecessarily.

Of course many little ones have older siblings and other family members that may “leak” information about the tragedy. And the information is bombarding us everywhere. So if your child hears about the shooting or has already been exposed to some of the details, you’ll want to think about how to respond. Most experts agree to wait until they bring it up with you. And limit the details to what they already have heard. So when and if they do ask a question or otherwise project a fear, assess how much they have heard before you respond. Less is more. You can then validate their feelings AND assure them that they are safe. Something along the lines of, “I can see you are scared. You can talk to me about anything. I know it is scary when you hear of something you don’t understand or something where someone was hurt. “   And then “You have grown ups around you who love you and are making sure you are safe.”

This event is horrible. It reminds us of our deepest fears and that we live in an unpredictable world. This is true everywhere in the world. As we know many families must deal with the real possibility of violence befalling their children or their homes every day. As frequent as it seems that shootings in school have been, and there have been way too many, our communities remain relatively safe from these isolated events.  

But we cannot make our children’s world perfectly safe;  we can however  protect their innocence by assuring them that they are being protected by loving adults who will care for them. One way to care for them is to be captain of the ship regarding exposure to media.  We cannot indulge in random access to our car radio or TV left on as we have no knowledge of what material might pop up or how an issue will be framed.  We deal with this differently according to our children’s ages. Little ones need as much shielding as we can give. This is not the time to “toughen them up”. It is a time to draw near and create familiar safety. Resilience is built through loving and gentle closeness.

As parents we can get help for ourselves if our fears make it hard for us to project a secure, steady calm for them. They need to know we are there for them. They can ask questions and they can be silent. We will keep them close but not intrude and we will reassure them that we are doing all we can do together as a community to keep them safe. They are loved. Love heals.

More to come on the specific signs that a child may be distressed.

Also more about why. Why does this happen? Who can do these horrific things and why are they occurring