Tag: pain
I recently came across this article on the American Psychology Association website that discussed the pain of rejection. In the article the author discussed research studies that have shown how painful rejection from certain groups and social classes are to people in general.
My response to the article is straight forward, rejection by itself is not painful. What makes rejection painful is our interpretations of rejection. If you are raised to believe that you must always be accepted by others, or that it is bad for others to reject you, then naturally you are going to experience emotional pain whenever you experience rejection because you believe something bad and terrible is happening to you.
What I have found with people who struggle with dealing with rejection is that they usually lack a healthy narrative regarding their sense of identity. Often, the worse the person’s fear of rejection is, the more scarce his or her sense of identity is.
So what do I mean by a sense of identity? A sense of identity can be described as a person’s concept of what beliefs and values he or she adheres to combined with his or her heritage. I have noticed that people who have a solid grasp of what their beliefs and values are have no issues accepting others rejection of them. People who don’t have a solid grasp or understanding of what their beliefs and values are, more likely to give into social pressure to conform to certain trends or fads.
The problem with societal trends, is that in other to fit into that particular group practicing the trend, you have to conform to certain attributes that are our of your control to change and are often based on vanity. So if you find yourself struggling to deal with rejection, there is a high likelihood that you have bought into an artificial narrative created by someones who did not have you in mind. You may have bought into this narrative because you admired the people who practiced the narrative, and there is nothing wrong with that, however in the absence of a solid sense of self, you find yourself dependent on others to define who you are. This is an impossible feat, because the only one who can define and accept you unconditionally is you. This means that in the absence of self acceptance is self rejection, and your experiences of rejection from others will only serve as a reminder of your rejection of self.
When we first come into the world, the first people we socialize with are our parents. Our parents and guardians are tasked with accepting us unconditionally, thereby role modeling for us unconditionally self acceptance, as you can imagine there are a number of things that could go wrong with this process. The reality is that parents who don’t have a strong and healthy sense of self, have very little to teach and pass on to their children in regards to the formation of a healthy identity. I have also noticed that parents who have not passed on a healthy narrative to their children, are often strong advocates for discouraging any and all types of rejection in society.
People who have been fortunate to have developed a healthy sense of identity in their younger years, their experiences of being rejected are not only few and far in between, but not painful. The reason for this is because of the phenomenon that there is someone for everyone. Even when faced as a minority in a certain environments, people who are genuinely accepting of themselves, often will establish relationships with like minded people.
For clients who have had little experience in living out a healthy narrative, I guide them through the formation of healthy narrative that embodies a dignified sense of identity. So what does a healthy narrative look like? In my next post I will discuss what a healthy narrative consists of.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
One of the things that makes cognitive behavioral therapy so rewarding is the numerous examples that one can draw from which lends more evidence to the power of believing.
There is a new drug, call zohydro and according to this article, it is the most important frightening potent drug recently approved by the FDA, when it comes to opiate drugs on the market today. Concerned advocacy groups indicate that once made available to the general population, that there will be high incidents of deaths due to the potency of the drug.
Times like this, members of the public have two choices, you can depend on others to fight your battles for you, or you can take the initiative to protect yourself.
Some years ago, I underwent emergency surgery to remove an appendix, after the surgery, I was offered by my doctor some vicodin, to which I refused. My doctor seemed surprised and repeatedly asked me if I was sure. I told him I would be fine. Out of what I determined to be genuine concern, he wrote me a prescription for tylenol, a prescription I never filled.
Yes, I was in pain, but it wasn’t crippling. I took an extra day off work for bed rest, and limited my movements. After about four days I had started to feel again like my old self. How was I able to pull this off? By practicing the art of mind over matter.
You see mind over matter is not the stereotypical machismo nonsense, you will hear in a movie line, or perhaps your local gym. From my experience most people who often use that phrase don’t understand the concept.
Instead mind over matter, refers to the a initial of readdressing our beliefs around certain circumstances we will typically find unpleasant, certain circumstances like pain for example.
While my doctor at the time had the best intentions, what he didn’t realize he was telling me was that I wasn’t not supposed to feel any pain after coming out of surgery, so therefore he had arranged for me to take some pain medication which would be helpful in reducing my pain.
However since I had just been cut open and a piece of organ had been removed from my body, it stands to reason that my body should experience pain as it healed itself. It was with this idea that I was able to accept the pain I was experiencing as a good thing. It meant that my nerves where functioning as they should and that my body was healing itself.
This is the kind of attitude through the practice of cognitive behavioral strategies I encourage people who suffer from addiction issues to take. Whether it’s pain, unresolved issues with abandonment and rejection, it doesn’t matter. What we choose to believe plays a role in influencing our ability to deal with psychological and physiological discomfort.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
Why are disappointments so difficult to bear for some people? One reason could be because some people place all their stock for being happy in one basket. Specifically in regards to setting goals and expectations for the future. I often see this with people who struggle with mild depression, and procrastination. If you ask them what they want to accomplish, they are quick to inform you about their dreams, but some where along the way they lost motivation once the going got tough. When this phenomenon occurs it is because there seems to be an expectation that happiness can only be achieved once certain desires, goals and expectations are met. For clarification, my definition of happiness in this post refers to feelings of prolonged content and acceptance , versus joy which is shorter lived.
Where does happiness begin and where does it end? If you read or listen between the lines, sometimes when people are discussing something they want to accomplish, it appears that their beliefs about happiness stem from hidden statements such as, “I can only be happy if..” or “I can only be happy when..”
Ambitions, desires, goals and accomplishments are all part of the wonderful attributes of the human experience, specifically they bring a sense of meaning and purposefulness to the experience of life. However, what happens when your narrative changes? What happens when a goal you set out to achieve with all your heart is not realized due to circumstances beyond your control?
Postponing your happiness today based your hopes and dreams for tomorrow is a recipe for a case for acute and prolonged depression. I have worked with people who were so caught off guard by a sudden and unexpected change in their fortunate situation that they spent more years depressed compared to the years when they were thriving. What If you could begin experiencing happiness today, inspite of what your current circumstances are? What would that look like?
From my perspective what happiness today would look like would be living your life from a place of gratitude. Recognizing what you have going on for you and seeing any challenge in your life as an adventure and an exciting part of your journey. So even if you are confronted with disappointment from not having realized a goal, it would be easier for you to grieve and transition with your experiences into your pursuit of another goal.
So instead of the hidden statements such as, “I can only be happy if…” or “I can only be happy when…” replace them with “I can experience happiness regardless of my circumstances.” This type of thinking leads you towards regarding your goals and ambitions with a different attitude. An attitude that leads you towards focusing on the process, rather than the outcome.
So when the going gets tough, you can always draw energy from your feelings of consent and happiness, because you understand that challenges are a natural and occurring phenomenon in our lives.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
A college student I worked with was experiencing difficulty in school, in regards to completing and turning in her class assignments. One day she mentioned to me that perhaps she suffered from attention deficit disorder . I responded by reminding her about how we had rescheduled our agreed upon appointment two weeks prior because she had to take an examination, which was three hours long. I further reminded her that during our most recent meeting, she had informed me that she had passed the examination.
“People with attention deficit disorder struggle to pull that off,” I added. As it turns out, her lack of motivation was caused by her not knowing what she wanted to study and that she was only pursuing the major of study she was enrolled in to impress her parents. This revelation came out after she came to realize that she was able to concentrate for hours at at time as evidenced by how well she had done on the three hour exam. The difference was that over the years she hadn’t been doing it on her own terms.
From time to time, I encounter people who become upset with me because I tell them they can get better, when they believe they can not. There is another story of a client who used the analogy of a blind man, he informed me that telling him that he could get past his depression was like telling a blind man that he could see again. I then informed him that while blind people certainly couldn’t see, they could still get around and function on par with their sighted fellow humans.
The human mind is neuroplastic, it has a remarkable ability of reorganizing itself to help us address our everyday issues in life and thrive, regardless of the trauma experienced and survived. What remains is for us to believe in our ability to adapt and change.
Your Brain is “Neuro-Plastic”—It’s Moldable & Changeable from Josh Kastleman on Vimeo.
Consider this study, involving hospitalized depressed men for the effectiveness of fluoxetine in treating depression. The men were divided into two groups, one group which received the actual treatment and the second group which received a placebo treatment. Both groups showed dramatic and significant improvement in their depressive symptoms, as evidenced by self reports and scanned images of changes in their brains’ glucose metabolism using positron emission tomography (PET). This is one of many studies that shows that power of simply believing, through the effects of placebo.
The truth is that we are able to accomplish any feat we set our minds unto. So if you are experiencing difficulty in consistently accomplishing a task, or following through with agreed upon expectations, perhaps it has nothing to do with your ability but your willingness, influenced by other factors.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
If negativity is to water, then positivity is to the boat that keeps you afloat and takes you across.
The best way to explain this analogy is to substitute negativity as challenges and positivity as the courage to practice change in overcoming certain challenges.
From addictions to maladaptive behaviors, the key to emancipation from habits that weigh us down is practicing the courage to take risks. Imagine if you can, the look of disbelief when I tell a client who struggles with depression that he needs to go thirty days without using marijuana, or the look of horror registered on the face of the shy young adult who is given an assignment to ask someone out on a date.
These two examples have something in common and the commonality is people being asked to take the risk to practice change. For example, the client who uses marijuana, by quitting will be taking the risk of experiencing the inner turmoil and discomfort he has been using the drug to hide from. In his head, facing his fears is the worst thing that could ever happen to him even though it’s the best thing that could happen to him. The exact same thing could be said for the shy young man, afraid to approach females he finds attractive.
There are a number of research studies like this one on risk taking that seem to suggest that people are more willing to take risks when they feel happier or more optimistic. However, what if it works both ways? What if it is true that while happier people take more risks, that miserable people who practice risk taking also experience more happiness? More specifically, what if it turns out that people who are unhappy can experience more optimism if they take risks even when the outcome of their risk taking doesn’t yield success?
For example, what if a young man who is shy finally exercises the courage to begin approaching and making small conversations with women he finds attractive. What if he finally asks someone out and she says no? In my practice what I have witnessed is that even when turned down, young men who struggle with self confidence report feeling more optimistic, because being turned down wasn’t as horrible and as unbearable an ordeal as they had imagined.
Furthermore, risk is a term that’s often used to describe irrational decisions instead of everyday life in which it should be used. For example, driving your car is risky for obvious reasons, but gambling in a casino is irrational, as the odds are always in the favor of the house, which makes the probability of you winning any substantial amount of money slim to none.
People become adverse to the idea of risk taking when their definition of risk involves taking steps to improve their situation with a high likelihood of failure. This certainty of failure becomes so big in their minds that they become fearful of taking any steps to improve their situations. It is when I explain to clients how they take risks everyday in theirs lives that they become more willing to take the necessary steps to do things differently to improve their situations. When people start doing things more differently to improve their circumstances, they become more optimistic regardless of the outcome. They also begin taking about more opportunities that have come up for them as a result of practicing get the courage to change.
Happiness like any other feeling is feedback from the brain that tells you that you are either getting your needs met or in the process of getting your needs met. It is not something that occurs before the event or an action is initiated. For example, it would be equivalent to feeling wet outside on a dry day shortly before rain pours from the sky. We take risks everyday with no guarantees that things would go our way, and happiness is becoming more aware of this phenomenon and being at peace with it.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
Would you knowingly expose yourself to an infectious disease? If you are sound of mind, chances are that you will say no. Further, the reason you will most likely say no is because you have an appreciation for how vulnerable your physical self is.
Our awareness of our vulnerability as human beings, (on a physical level) alters the choices we make. Collectively, so few of us willingly take risks that puts our physical being in danger.
Bad idea #1: You lack intellect.
No two brains are the same, and everyone has the ability to gain awareness of truths in and out of their lives to solve their problems. When people buy into the idea that they are not intelligent, self fulfilling prophecy takes precedence. They lose interest in seeking the truth and live a life where they transition from one crisis to another where, due to their difficulty in making predictions, they would have been able to make if they possessed awareness of the truth.
Bad idea #3: You are worthless.
How to prevent yourself from buying into bad ideas.
Prevention method #1:
Prevention method #2:
Prevention method #3:
Ugo is a psychotherapist and life coach.
This Therapist’s Blog is changing names. The change means from here on forward, This Therapist’s Blog will become Road 2 Resolutions.
Change is this case is a good thing, and we plan on bringing you the same short but meaningful and insight provoking posts.
Also, the previous posts from This Therapist’s Blog will remain available on Road 2 Resolutions Blog.
Thanks for reading.
Ugo
Her analogy was simple, stress we hold unto for a short time, isn’t a bad thing. However stress we hold unto for a significant period of time weighs on the mind,and leads to cognitive issues accompanied by poor health.
“Reality exists in the mind before it is experienced.”
Over the years I have noticed a trend with people who struggle with anger management, they are usually people pleasers. They bend over backwards most of the time to please others, mostly because they are fearful of conflict. They desire to not ruffle any feathers, they prefer to get along for the sake of getting along with others even though, getting along with a specific group will cause them anguish.
That is, until the last straw breaks the camels back, then they explode. They then take on the label as angry people. It is only after they have internalized anger management skills that the passivity that’s to present itself. It then turns out that they suffer from codependency and that they need to learn self advocacy.
Self advocacy is the process where people learn to set healthy boundaries in their relationships. They learn to say no when they need to say no, and they learn to accept that other people are responsible for their own emotions, negative or positive.
Often, people who struggle with passivity, grew up with one or more abusive care givers, where as a child they learned to survive by predicting when a caregiver would become upset and using manipulative techniques to manage the emotions of that caregiver. Unfortunately that attitude carries over into their adult years, where they attempt to please people in their lives, for fear of being ostracized. Given that it is not possible to please anyone, they find themselves experiencing plenty of frustration in their personal relationships, with periodic episodes of restorting to poor anger management.
So how do these people develop self advocacy skills?
With self advocacy, there are two specific habits to practice, and these habits are getting into the habit of accepting when others are in a bad mood and setting healthy boundaries for self. The process of practicing these healthy boundaries involves the same skill set, with the practice of not being reactive to negative feelings.
So when a person who struggles with passivity or co dependency feels the urge to pacify an adult who is angry, they practice becoming mindful of this urge and doing nothing. When this same person is setting a healthy boundary with others, they will practice becoming aware of their fear of being rejected by the other person, leading to the urge to set no boundaries. They will then choose to set their boundaries regardless of their fears.
Being mindful and not being reactive to negative feelings, is something that can be practiced in imagined scenarios. I have found that when clients practice self advocacy in imagined scenarios, they become better prepared to practice self advocacy in unexpected real life scenarios.
Ugo is a psychotherapist and owner of Road 2 Resolutions PLLC.
In this post, I will use a fictitious question and answer scenario to describe what I do as a psychotherapist. This question and answer scenario is based on several exchanges I have had with people over the years who asked me what I do for a living.
“What do you do?”
“I am a psychotherapist, and I help people solve problems.”
“Really? Interesting, what type of problems do you help people solve?”
“I help people solve problems they unintentionally create for themselves. Often times when people by coincidence develop a pattern of unintentionally creating problems for themselves, it leads to the mental health suffering.”
“Hmm.. do you have an example?”
“Sure, let’s say you have a friend who happens to be in a physically abusive relationship. From your stance the solution is simple, you then advise her about this solution, which is to leave the relationship, right?”
“Yes.”
“But your friend doesn’t heed your advice and continues to be involved with her abusive partner. The reason for this is that your friend, most likely from her early life experience has come to embrace a set of beliefs accompanied with values which has led her to develop a set of priorities that put her at a disadvantage in personal relationships.”
“Maybe she felt neglected as a child by her caregivers and her response to the neglect was to place a high priority of staying in a relationship, no matter what. Perhaps because she has come to see herself as unlovable, and undeserving of a healthy relationship, even though it is what she truly wants. As a result her current beliefs and values creates a cognitive blindness towards her true worth and value as a human being, and just how easy it is for her to find a healthier relationship.”
“If I were to work with such a person, I would help her come to understand how irrational her current beliefs about relating to others are, and how her insistence in sticking it out with someone who abuses her only leads to her getting emotionally re-injured. Further, I can help her develop alternative beliefs and values that lead her to accepting herself unconditionally with genuine compassion. This mentality will then help her successfully seek out relationships where she is valued and respected.”
“Thank you Mr. Uche, that was very informative.”
“Thank you for your time, and you are welcome.”
Ugo is a psychotherapist and owner of Road 2 Resolutions PLLC
Youtube
Facebook
GooglePlus
StumbleUpon
LinkedIn
Twitter