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A Gentle Call to Conscious Living

In a world that often champions ease, comfort, and shortcuts, the reality is that life is inherently hard. Not in a punishing way, but in the sense that challenges are woven into the very fabric of the human experience. The powerful message in the graphic above offers a grounding reminder that while we cannot avoid difficulty, we do have a say in what kind of hard we are willing to face.

Let’s take a closer look at the truths it shares:

“Marriage is hard. Divorce is hard. Choose your hard.”

Every relationship worth having demands effort – communication, compromise, patience, and vulnerability. Yet so does ending a relationship – grieving, rebuilding, and redefining oneself. Both are challenging in their own right, and neither path is necessarily better than the other. The key is choosing the hard that aligns with your values and desired life outcomes.

“Obesity is hard. Being fit is hard. Choose your hard.”

Health doesn’t come without cost – time, discipline, sometimes discomfort. But neither does poor health. The emotional toll of body image concerns, medical complications, and reduced energy is very real. Again, both are hard. Which hard leads you to a more fulfilled life?

“Being in debt is hard. Being financially disciplined is hard. Choose your hard.”

Spending impulsively brings short-term relief but often long-term stress. Budgeting, planning, and saving are not glamorous, but they build security. Both involve sacrifice – one up front, the other later. Which are you willing to carry?

“Starting a business is hard. Working a 9 to 5 job is hard. Choose your hard.”

Entrepreneurship comes with risk, uncertainty, and often long hours. So does working in a job that doesn’t fulfil you. Security and freedom both have price tags – the question is what you are prepared to invest in.

Why This Message Matters

The statement “Choose your hard” is not an invitation to comparison or self-judgement – it’s a reminder that empowerment often lies in our choices. Life will never be completely smooth, but conscious decision-making allows us to direct our efforts towards a hard that’s meaningful.

Instead of wishing for ease, we can wish for clarity. Instead of avoiding discomfort, we can learn to embrace purposeful discomfort – the kind that moves us forward, shapes us, and brings us closer to the life we want to live.

So, What’s Your Hard?

Whatever you’re facing today – whether in relationships, health, finances, or work – know that your struggle is valid. But you are not powerless. Every decision is a step, and every step is a chance to shape your story.

Choose your hard. And choose wisely.

Did someone in your past hurt you – and is that why you are sometimes anxious, angry, or depressed?

Do you believe that someone in your past—your parents, caregivers, or an ex-lover, for example—is to blame for your current emotional pain?

Most of us have experienced some form of abandonment, neglect, rejection, or abuse in the past.

Maybe our parents couldn’t give us the attention and love we so craved when we were little. Maybe the way they spoke to us led us to believe we were bad or wrong in some way. Maybe they were just too busy or too distracted and we were left feeling that we weren’t important or worthy of their attention—even if they were good people with the best intentions. Or maybe they were verbally, physically, or sexually abusive which led us to feel deeply shamed.

Or, later in life, we fell in love with someone we thought was our soul mate, only to be deeply hurt when that person broke up with us without warning, or betrayed our trust in some way.

We’re all left with these “wounds” from our past that SEEM to play a big part in how we feel about circumstances today.

Are You Choosing To Be A Victim?

Do you believe your current painful emotional state is someone else’s fault, including people from your past, like your parents, caregivers, or ex-lovers?

If so, you may be inadvertently keeping yourself in VICTIM MODE. The truth is, YOU are the one causing your own pain because of the thoughts, feelings, and beliefs that you’re holding on to. You can learn how to take personal responsibility for your feelings, by setting a positive intent and taking loving care of yourself, so you can free yourself from victim mode and feel peaceful once and for all.

We may be afraid to open up to love, for fear of getting hurt again. We are anxious when we get too close to someone, especially if they show signs of being cold or distant.

We get angry when someone at work talks to us in the same way our parents spoke to us, and it causes us unnecessary distress. We want them to stop being a jerk!

We feel rejected and hurt when a friend doesn’t call us back, all because it subconsciously reminds us of when a caregiver didn’t respond to our needs when we were little. Can’t they see how rude and uncaring they’re being?

We may acknowledge that we’re a bit more sensitive about certain things because of our past, or we think our past experiences make us more aware of other’s inconsiderate or unloving behavior.

But how we’re feeling today isn’t anyone else’s fault – not even the people from our past who hurt us in the first place. Blaming others for our emotional pain is keeping us in victim mode and preventing us from ever fully healing from our past.

Here’s why:

Let’s say something happened in your past that made you feel unlovable and unworthy. Maybe your parents didn’t give you the attention and care you needed as a child, or were abusive to you. Or someone you loved in the past rejected you or betrayed your trust.

Now, in your current relationship, a pattern develops.

Something happens that “triggers” a subconscious memory of this past wounding. Maybe your partner flirts with an acquaintance at a party. You see this, and instantly you just about want to crawl out of your skin. It feels like history is repeating itself and the rug is being pulled out from under your feet.

You blame the emotional pain you’re feeling on what you experienced in the past AND on your current partner’s behaviour.

Doesn’t your partner understand how hurtful they’re being, especially in light of your past? It’s like they have picked this very action to stab you in the heart. You’re angry at your current partner and at your ex, for creating this pain in the first place.

But here’s why blaming others is keeping you in victim mode:

Whatever happened in the past created a lot of pain inside you and caused you to have false beliefs about yourself.

Your ex may have cheated on you, but that action led you to BELIEVE that you aren’t lovable. It led you to believe you aren’t good enough, or worthy of a partner’s commitment and devotion.

That belief is yours and yours alone. The person in your past didn’t “make you” believe that about yourself. YOU created that belief, all on your own. They just did what they did. YOU are the one that interpreted that behavior into these types of false beliefs:

“I’m not lovable.”

“I’m not worthy.”

“I’m not important.”

You’re now choosing to interpret current events through the lens of these false beliefs you created, which is why you’re feeling hurt, betrayed, angry or outraged.

When you see your partner flirting, you choose to interpret that as “I’m not lovable” or “I’m not worthy.” You have lost your ability to be impartial to your partner’s behaviour in this regard. You are taking their behaviour personally instead of knowing that their behaviour is about them.

Your partner may be flirting. Or they’re being friendly with someone. You can’t be objective in light of your internal beliefs.

THIS is why you’re hurt and angry. It’s not because of your partner’s actions, it’s because of your BELIEFS about their actions.

Therefore, since these are your false beliefs that you created, you are the only person who has the power to change those beliefs or do anything about your pain.

As long as your focus is on blaming your past, others, or God for your pain, you have no power to do anything about your pain. You will always be at the mercy of what other people do or don’t do for your happiness and peace of mind. As long as you continue to blame your parents, teachers, friends, caregivers, or ex-lovers and spouses for the pain you feel now, you cannot heal from your past.

Although your childhood or past may have caused you much pain and helped create your false beliefs and resulting behaviour, those beliefs are now YOURS. Your thoughts come from your beliefs and are what cause much of your current emotional state.

When you are stuck in the victim mode of anger, blame, depression, or numbness of your wounded self, you need to find a way that will take you into a different state: one of openness and learning.

The way to do this is by letting go of those false beliefs that you created in your mind about past events, then moving toward developing compassion for yourself and letting go of wanting to control others’ behaviour.

Therapy can assist you to learn how to be mindful of your feelings (instead of blaming them on others), how to compassionately talk with your core self, how to discover the truth about what’s causing your pain, and how to take the specific loving action that will help you heal the pain.

As part of therapy, you can learn how to:

• set healthy boundaries;
• speak up for yourself;
• reduce co-dependence;
• recover from infidelity;
• resolve control issues;
• feel more loved and understood;
• deal with partners who are resistant to change,

The moment you decide to take 100% responsibility for your feelings, is the moment when you can turn your entire life around. You’ll stop being a victim and you will be fully empowered to lead a happier, more joyful life because you’ll be free of the shackles of your past!

Experts are concerned that the incidence of domestic and family violence will increase due to the COVID-19 restrictions, but the statistic are already shocking.

In Australia, domestic and family violence is against the law. A person who commits these crimes, can go to jail, whether they are a man or a woman.

The Australian Institute of Health and Welfare’s report, “Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia 2018” shows that violence occurs across all ages and all socio-economic and demographic groups, but predominantly affects women and children. One in 4-6 women, since the age of 15, has experienced emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse by a current or former partner; while one in 6-20 men, since the age of 15, has experienced emotional, physical and/or sexual abuse by a current or former partner.

From 2012–13 to 2013–14, about 1 woman a week and 1 man a month were killed as a result of violence from a current or previous partner (Bryant & Bricknell 2017).

Some groups of people are at greater risk of family, domestic and sexual violence, particularly Indigenous women, young women, pregnant women, women separating from their partners, women with disability and women experiencing financial hardship. Women and men who experienced abuse or witnessed domestic violence as children (before the age of 15) are also at increased risk.

Nearly 2.1 million women and men witnessed violence towards their mother by a partner, and nearly 820,000 witnessed violence towards their father, before the age of 15. People who, as children, witnessed partner violence against their parents were 2–4 times as likely to experience partner violence themselves (as adults) as people who had not (Australian Bureau of Statistics 2017).

What is Domestic and Family Violence?

Domestic and family violence includes behaviour or threats that aim to control a male or female partner by causing fear or threatening their safety. Domestic and family violence can include:

• Hitting, slapping, being kicked, being hit with a fist or other item (weapon), being dragged by clothing or hair, for example;
• Pushing, shoving;
• having something thrown at you that could hurt you;
• being burnt on purpose (eg, with a cigarette, a lighter/matches, an iron, stove top);
• choking;
• sexual assault such as being forced to have intercourse when you didn’t want to or because you were afraid of what your partner would do if you said no, being forced to do something sexual that you found to be humiliating or degrading, being forced to watch pornography when you didn’t want to, being forced by your partner to have sex with someone else (other than your partner);
• threats to harm;
• denying essential money to the partner or family;
• isolating the partner from friends and family;
• insulting or constantly criticising the partner; and/or
• threatening children or pets.

Domestic and family violence is often cyclic and the well-known process is represented by the Cycle of Violence diagram below.

People who experience domestic and family violence can often identify this cycle within their relationship.

Children at Risk

The risk to children of domestic and family violence is significant.

People who abuse their partners are highly likely to also assault their children. Pagelow (1989) found that at least half of all violent partners (most often men) also assault their children. The more severe the abuse of the partner, the worse the child abuse (Bowker, Arbitell, and McFerron, 1988).

Bowker, Arbitell, and McFerron (1988) also found that abuse of children is also more likely when the relationship is dissolving or the couple has separated. This is especially the case where the abusive partner is highly committed to continued dominance of their former partner and children. It is well-known that the time following separation is often the most dangerous time for the partner and children.

This is due to the fact that the abuse is directed at subjugating, controlling, and isolating. When an abused partner has separated from their abuser and is seeking to establish autonomy and independence, the abuser’s struggle to control and dominate may increase and may turn to abuse and subjugation of the children as a tactic of dominance and control of their mother (Stark and Flitcraft, 1988; Bowker, Arbitell, and McFerron, 1988).

Abusers often harm children as a punishment for their former partner for daring to leave them. Abusive partners often use custodial access to the children as a tool to terrorize their former partners or to retaliate for separation. Custodial interference is one of the few abusive tactics available to an abuser after separation; thus, it is not surprising that it is used extensively.

Hilberman and Munson (1977-78), found that older children are frequently assaulted when they intervene to defend or protect their mothers, with daughters more likely than sons to become victims of the abusive husband (Dobash and Dobash, 1979).

Abuse of the female partner is also the context for sexual abuse of female children. Where the mother is assaulted by the father, daughters are exposed to a risk of sexual abuse 6.51 times greater than girls in non-abusive families (Bowker, Arbitell, and McFerron, 1988).

Where a male is the perpetrator of child abuse, one study demonstrated that there is a 70 percent chance that any injury to the child will be severe and 80 percent of child fatalities within the family are attributable to fathers or father surrogates, such as step-fathers or mother’s boyfriends or de facto partners. (Bergman, Larsen, and Mueller, 1986).

In her article, “Assessing Whether Batterers Will Kill” (1990), Hart outlined that the likelihood of homicide is greater where the following factors are present:

• Threats of homicide or suicide. The abuser who has threatened to kill himself, his partner, the children or her relatives must be considered extremely dangerous.
• Fantasies of homicide or suicide. The more the abuser has developed a fantasy about who, how, when, and/or where to kill, the more dangerous he may be. The abuser who has previously acted out part of a homicide or suicide fantasy may be invested in killing as a viable “solution” to his problems. As in suicide assessment, the more detailed the plan and the more available the method, the greater the risk.
• Weapons. Where an abuser possesses weapons and has used them or has threatened to use them in the past in his assaults on the abused woman, the children or himself, his access to those weapons increases his potential for lethal assault. The use of guns is a strong predictor of homicide. If an abuser has a history of arson or the threat of arson, fire should be considered a weapon.
• “Ownership” of the abused partner. The abuser who says “Death before Divorce!” or “You belong to me and will never belong to another!” may be stating his fundamental belief that the woman has no right to life separate from him. An abuser who believes he is absolutely entitled to his female partner, her services, her obedience and her loyalty, no matter what, is likely to be life-endangering.
• Centrality of the partner. A man who idolizes his female partner, or who depends heavily on her to organize and sustain his life, or who has isolated himself from all other community, may retaliate against a partner who decides to end the relationship. He rationalizes that her “betrayal” justifies his lethal retaliation.
• Separation Violence. When an abuser believes that he is about to lose his partner, if he can’t envision life without her or if the separation causes him great despair or rage, he may choose to kill.
• Depression. Where an abuser has been acutely depressed and sees little hope for moving beyond the depression, he may be a candidate for homicide and suicide. Research shows that many men who are hospitalized for depression have homicidal fantasies directed at family members.
• Access to the abused woman and/or to family members. If the abuser cannot find her, he cannot kill her. If he does not have access to the children, he cannot use them as a means of access to the abused woman. Careful safety planning and police assistance are required for those times when contact is required, e.g. court appearances and custody exchanges.
• Repeated outreach to law enforcement. Partner or spousal homicide almost always occurs in a context of historical violence. Prior calls to the police indicate elevated risk of life-threatening conduct. The more calls, the greater the potential danger.
• Escalation of abuser risk. A less obvious indicator of increasing danger may be the sharp escalation of personal risk undertaken by an abuser; when an abuser begins to act without regard to the legal or social consequences that previously constrained his violence, chances of lethal assault increase significantly.
• Hostage-taking. A hostage-taker is at high risk of inflicting homicide. Between 75% and 90% of all hostage takings are related to domestic violence situations.

Everyone has the right to live free from violence, in a happy relationship and community. People do not have to accept being treated badly or harmed.

References:

• Australian Bureau of Statistics (2017) Personal Safety Survey 2016. ABS cat. no. 4906.0. Canberra: ABS.
• Australian Institute of Health and Welfare (2018) Family, domestic and sexual violence in Australia 2018.
• Bergman, A., Larsen, R.M., and Mueller, B. (1986). “Changing spectrum of Serious Child Abuse.”
  Pediatrics, 77 (1).
• Bowker, L.H., Arbitell, M., & McFerron, J. R. (1988). “On the Relationship Between Wife Beating and Child Abuse.” In K. Yllo and M. Bograd (Eds.), Perspectives on Wife Abuse. Newbury
  Park, CA: Sage.
• Bryant & Bricknell (2017) Homicide in Australia 2012–13 to 2013–14: National Homicide Monitoring Program Report. Canberra: AIC.
• Department of Child Protection, Western Australia (2015) Fact Sheet 2: Indicators of family and domestic violence Retrieved 26-04-2020 from https://www.dcp.wa.gov.au/CrisisAndEmergency/FDV/Documents/2015/Factsheet2Indicatorsoffamilyanddomesticviolence.pdf
• Dobash, R. E. & Dobash, R. P. (1979). Violence Against Wives. New York: Free Press.
• Hart, Barbera J. (1992) “Children of Domestic Violence: Risks and Remedies” in Minnesota Centre Against Violence and Abuse, Barbera J. Hart’s Collected Writings Pp 12-17.
• Hart, Barbera J. (1990) “Assessing Whether Batterers Will Kill” in Minnesota Centre Against Violence and Abuse, Barbera J. Hart’s Collected Writings Pp 1-2.
• Hilberman, E. and Munson, K. (1977-78). “Sixty Battered Women.” Victimology: An International Journal, 2 (3-4).
• Jaffe, P., Wolfe, D.W., & Wilson, S. (1990). Children of Battered Women: Issues in Child Development and Intervention Planning. Newbury Park, CA: Sage.
• Pagelow, M. (1989). “The Forgotten Victims: Children of Domestic Violence.” Paper prepared for presentation at the Domestic Violence Seminar of the Los Angeles County Domestic Violence Council.
• Rosenbaum, A. and O’Leary, K.D. (1981). “Children: The Unintended Victims of Marital Violence.” American Journal of Orthopsychiatry, 5 (14).
• Stark, E. & Flitcraft, A. (1988). “Women and Children at Risk: A Feminist Perspective on Child Abuse.” International Journal of Health Services, 18, (1), 97-118.
• Walker, L. E. (1984). The Battered Woman Syndrome. Springer.
• Wallerstein, J.S. and Kelly, J.B. (1980). Surviving the Breakup: How Children and Parents Cope with Divorce. New York: Basic Books.

Understanding Gaslighting and Its Psychological Impact

Gaslighting is a subtle yet powerful form of psychological manipulation that can have devastating effects on an individual’s mental and emotional wellbeing. Coined from the 1944 film “Gaslight,” this term refers to a tactic used by manipulative individuals to distort someone’s reality, making them question their perceptions, memories, and sanity. In article, we will explore the concept of gaslighting, its techniques, and the profound impact it can have on victims. We will draw upon psychological research and expert opinions to shed light on this alarming phenomenon.

1. Defining Gaslighting:

Gaslighting involves a series of tactics employed by manipulators to undermine the victim’s confidence in their own thoughts, emotions, and experiences. It is a form of psychological abuse that often occurs within relationships, such as romantic partnerships, familial dynamics, or workplace environments. The aim is to exert control, power, and dominance over the victim.

2. Techniques of Gaslighting:

Gaslighters employ various strategies to achieve their goals. Some common techniques include:

• Denial and Contradiction: The gaslighter denies events or conversations took place, despite evidence to the contrary. They may also contradict the victim’s recollection or reinterpret events to suit their narrative.
• Diminishing and Invalidating: Gaslighters belittle the victim’s feelings, experiences, and perceptions. They may mock or trivialise their concerns, leading the victim to doubt their own emotions and judgment.
• Blame-Shifting: The gaslighter redirects blame onto the victim, making them feel responsible for the manipulator’s actions or behaviour. This tactic shifts focus away from the gaslighter’s actions, effectively manipulating the victim into assuming fault.
• Withholding Information: Gaslighters may selectively withhold crucial information, leading the victim to doubt their understanding of the situation. This control over information further disempowers the victim.

3. Impact on Victims:

Gaslighting can have severe psychological consequences for those who endure it. Victims often experience a range of emotional and cognitive effects, including:

• Self-Doubt and Confusion: The persistent manipulation and distortion of reality can leave victims feeling uncertain about their thoughts, memories, and perceptions. They may question their own sanity, leading to self-doubt and confusion.
• Anxiety and Depression: The continuous psychological abuse and erosion of self-esteem can lead to heightened anxiety and depression in victims. The gaslighter’s control over the victim’s reality can create a constant state of stress and emotional turmoil.
• Isolation and Dependence: Gaslighting often isolates victims from their support networks. The gaslighter aims to create dependence, making the victim rely solely on their validation and perspectives, further exacerbating the victim’s vulnerability.

4. Coping and Recovery:

Recovering from gaslighting requires recognition of the abuse and seeking support. Some steps victims can take include:

• Trust Your Own Reality: Rebuilding self-trust is crucial. Validate your experiences, emotions, and perceptions, and remind yourself that your reality is valid.
• Seek Support: Reach out to trusted friends, family, or professionals who can provide emotional support and help you regain perspective.
• Establish Boundaries: Set clear boundaries with the gaslighter, and consider limiting or severing contact if necessary. Self-care and self-preservation are essential in the healing process.

Conclusion:

Gaslighting is a harmful form of psychological manipulation that leaves victims questioning their own reality. Understanding its techniques and impact can empower individuals to recognise and address gaslighting in their lives. It is crucial to remember that you are not alone in your experiences, and seeking support is a crucial step towards healing and reclaiming your sense of self.

If you suspect you are a victim of gaslighting, trust your own reality and validate your experiences, emotions, and perceptions. Rebuilding self-trust is essential in breaking free from the cycle of manipulation. Reach out to trusted friends, family members, or professionals who can provide emotional support and help you regain perspective.

Setting clear boundaries with the gaslighter and considering limiting or severing contact if necessary is an act of self-care and self-preservation. Remember, your mental and emotional wellbeing should be a priority.

By shedding light on gaslighting and raising awareness about its destructive nature, we can work towards creating healthier relationships and environments where manipulation and abuse have no place. It is time to unveil the shadows and reclaim our own realities, free from the toxic grip of gaslighting.

A Hidden Form of Abuse

Coercive control is a form of domestic abuse that often goes unnoticed due to its non-physical nature. It involves a pattern of behaviours aimed at dominating and isolating the victim, leading to significant psychological harm.

What Is Coercive Control?

Coercive control refers to a deliberate pattern of abusive behaviours used to dominate, manipulate, and diminish the autonomy of another person. It encompasses various tactics, including emotional, psychological, and economic abuse, as well as isolation, intimidation, sexual coercion, and cyberstalking.

These behaviours can be subtle yet insidious, gradually eroding a victim’s sense of self and freedom. For instance, the abuser may monitor the victim’s movements, control their finances, or isolate them from friends and family.

Recognising the Signs

Identifying coercive control can be challenging, as it often lacks visible signs. However, common indicators include:

• Isolation: Restricting access to friends, family, or support systems.
• Monitoring: Constantly checking on the victim’s whereabouts, communications, or activities.
• Financial Control: Limiting access to money or controlling financial decisions.
• Emotional Abuse: Undermining self-esteem through criticism, humiliation, or blame.
• Threats and Intimidation: Using threats to instil fear and compliance.

These tactics aim to create a sense of fear and dependency, making it difficult for the victim to leave the relationship.

Legal Developments in Queensland

In response to the growing recognition of coercive control’s impact, Queensland has introduced new legislation to criminalise such behaviour. Effective from 26 May 2025, the law defines coercive control as a course of conduct intended to control or coerce someone in a domestic relationship. This includes intimate relationships, family relationships, or informal care relationships.

The offence carries a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment, reflecting the serious nature of the abuse. This legislative change, known as “Hannah’s Law,” honours the memory of Hannah Clarke and her children, whose tragic deaths in 2020 highlighted the devastating consequences of non-physical abuse.

Seeking Help and Support

If you or someone you know is experiencing coercive control, it’s crucial to seek support. In Australia, resources are available:

• DV Connect: 1800 811 811
• 1800 RESPECT: 1800 737 732 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week)

These services offer confidential assistance and can guide individuals towards safety and recovery.

Understanding and recognising coercive control is vital in preventing abuse and supporting victims. By raising awareness and implementing legal measures, society can take significant steps towards eradicating this hidden form of abuse.

Understanding Coercive Control: Queensland’s Groundbreaking Legal Reform

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In a landmark move to combat domestic and family violence, Queensland is set to criminalise coercive control, with new legislation coming into effect on 26 May 2025. This initiative, known as “Hannah’s Law,” honours the memory of Hannah Clarke and her three children, whose tragic deaths in 2020 highlighted the devastating consequences of non-physical abuse.

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What Is Coercive Control?

Coercive control refers to a deliberate pattern of abusive behaviours aimed at dominating, manipulating, and diminishing the autonomy of another person. It encompasses various tactics, including emotional, psychological, and economic abuse, as well as isolation, intimidation, sexual coercion, and cyberstalking . These behaviours can be subtle yet insidious, gradually eroding a victim’s sense of self and freedom.

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For instance, Jade*, a Mardigan woman from Toowoomba, shared her experience of enduring years of coercive control without recognising it as abuse. Her partner’s possessiveness, control over her social interactions, and monitoring of her online activities were all forms of coercive control that eventually escalated into physical violence .

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Queensland’s Legislative Response

Recognising the profound impact of coercive control, the Queensland Parliament passed the Criminal Law (Coercive Control and Affirmative Consent) and Other Legislation Amendment Act 2024. This legislation introduces a standalone offence for coercive control, carrying a maximum penalty of 14 years’ imprisonment .

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The law applies to adults who use abusive behaviours towards current or former intimate partners, family members, or informal carers with the intent to control or coerce them. Importantly, it addresses both physical and non-physical forms of abuse, acknowledging the serious harm caused by patterns of controlling behaviour .

If you or someone you know is experiencing domestic or family violence, support is available. Contact DV Connect on 1800 811 811 or 1800 RESPECT on 1800 737 732 (24 hours a day, 7 days a week).

 

Learn more about the role that mindset plays in your journey to success.

For those of us who consider ourselves goal-oriented, the idea that we can achieve great things with the right mindset is a given.

 But what exactly is a mindset, and how do you “get” it?

 Well, while there’s no surefire way to make it happen overnight (as many promise!), understanding the underlying psychology can definitely get you on your way toward producing better outcomes in any area of life.

 Welcome to the first part of my series about mindset, where we’ll dive into the psychology behind attitudes.

 We will also focus on what makes up a successful mindset, and in the second part of this series, we will share some actionable strategies to help you reach your goals.

 So buckle up – we’ve got plenty of exciting ideas to explore!

Understanding The Concept Of Mindset

So much of how we think, feel, and behave is determined by our mindset.

 Understanding the concept of mindset is paramount to assessing why certain things transpire in our lives – from successes to job changes and everything else in between.

 Mindset refers to one’s attitude or outlook about something or even oneself, ultimately influencing our life as a whole.

 Depending on the circumstances, it could give someone an extra boost of confidence that can help during accomplishments, or it can severely hinder them if their thoughts tend toward the pessimistic.

 It’s vital to recognise when our mindsets may be taking hold of us and take the necessary steps to change our thought patterns if needed.

 It’s not always easy, but with practice and self-awareness, bettering our mindset can lead to progressively growing personal and professional success.

 So far, so good, but let’s dive even deeper into the types of mindsets we have.

What Are The Types Of Mindset?

As you might have guessed, you can hold more than one mindset.

 In fact, there are believed to be two main types.

Psychologist Carol Dweck first proposed the concept of having two mindsets – fixed and growth.

Fixed Mindset

A fixed mindset is when someone has a set idea about their capabilities and potential, believing that their talents and abilities are innate and thus they cannot develop these further.

 Failure is a very scary concept for people with fixed mindsets as it would just signify the end of this particular road.

 Having a fixed mindset means focusing on a given situation’s outcome rather than the steps taken to reach it.

Growth Mindset

On the other hand, those with a growth mindset view opportunities for improvement and development, regarding themselves as people who can always learn and advance.

 By opening ourselves to criticism, reframing our perspectives, and taking risks to explore what we can do, we can benefit from failures rather than shying away from them.

 Thus understanding which type of mindset we have, allows us to constructively manage our abilities and nurture them toward meeting our full potential.

How Does Mindset Affect You?

Growth and fixed mindsets can profoundly affect your overall attitude, motivation, and accomplishments.

 As already mentioned, a growth mindset involves believing that intelligence and skills are not set in stone but rather changeable through hard work and dedication.

 Adopting this mentality allows you to take risks and approach obstacles with positivity.

 You will be more likely to push yourself to reach your goals rather than become discouraged when faced with difficulties.

 Moreover, when faced with failure, people with growth mindsets are more likely to accept it and take it as a lesson.

 This is what learning from experience is, and being able to practice it will give you a massive push toward accomplishing your goals.

 On the other hand, a fixed mindset implies that you believe that your abilities are limited by genetics or other external sources beyond your control.

 This can lead to complacency and an unwillingness to attempt more challenging tasks due to fear of failure or criticism.

 You can imagine how limiting this mindset is, as it will ultimately make you stay in your comfort zone.

 Ultimately, having a growth mindset is essential to foster creativity and self-improvement.

Summing Up

In this first part of our series about mindset, we have looked closely into mindset and its two main types – fixed and growth.

 We think it’s safe to say that we all have a little bit of both fixed and growth mindsets in us.

 The challenge is recognising which one is driving our decisions and reactions and then working on cultivating the aspects of a growth mindset.

 It’s not easy – but it can be incredibly rewarding when we see ourselves growing and learning new things.

 So if you want to figure out which mindset is more prevalent in you and how you can change it to help your growth, look out for the next part of my mindset series.

 

Do you feel like it’s time for a change? Read this article to discover how you can transform your mindset to benefit your goals.

Do you feel like you’ve been stuck in a rut lately?

 Are you ready to make significant changes but need to know where to begin?

 If you are here, you have probably read the first part of our mindset series, covering the fixed and growth types of mindsets in depth.

 So, it might not surprise you, but it all starts with changing your mindset.

 Sometimes, the only thing standing between where we are now and our goal is our own way of thinking!

 Making this shift can be easier said than done, but it is possible if you arm yourself with the right strategies.

 In this blog post, we’ll outline the steps needed to completely transform how you think about success so that you can reach your goals in no time!

Figuring Out What Your Mindset Is

First, let’s try to figure out your mindset – after all, self-reflection is always essential.

 Some people tend to believe that their abilities and talents are pre–determined, leading them to be risk-averse and less likely to try new things.

 They don’t necessarily think hard work and practice can lead to improvement.

 Is this something you can relate to?

 Well, if your answer to the above question is affirmative, you are more likely to fall into the fixed mindset group of people.

 As we have already discussed in part 1 of this series, a fixed mindset is something that can sometimes act as a barrier between you and your goals.

A Necessary Change

Regardless of whether you believe that you hold a fixed or growth mindset, you should always welcome a positive change.

 And at the end of the day, people have different mindsets toward different things.

 This would mean that even if you think you are generally a growth mindset type, this might only be the case for some things.

 Therefore, there is always room for self-improvement, and luckily we have just the tips for you to try.

 Keep reading ahead if you want to learn what you can do to change how you perceive things.

 Who knows, this might be just what you need to move even closer to accomplishing your goals.

The Steps

 The first step to changing your mindset will probably be the most difficult.

 It will require you to face your attitudes head-on, and this is the tricky part.

 You will need to try to be as objective as possible in identifying the parts of your beliefs that correspond to the concept of the fixed mindset.

 These exact beliefs and attitudes are the ones that you will be working on.

 Now let’s break down some tips you can apply to your life to achieve the necessary change within yourself.

Appreciate The Process

Having the right attitude is key to effectively working towards a goal.

 When developing a growth mindset, it is essential to focus on the journey of achieving success rather than obsessing over the end result.

 Taking time to appreciate the process of learning and the hard work that goes into executing it can help to bring joy and fosters resilience to manage setbacks effectively.

 When seeing each moment for what it is, rather than obsessing over the final outcome, people can become motivated by their own level of performance, which will ultimately contribute towards overall achievement.

 Overall, admitting imperfections and taking pride in effort allows individuals to face challenges confidently while aiming toward desired outcomes.

Appreciate Failure

Changing your mindset can be intimidating, but with the right preparation, you can make progress.

 One of the most important elements to focus on is to accept that failure may come along the way.

 Allowing for lapses in your journey towards a healthier mindset and having acceptance for not achieving perfect results will help ensure you persevere even in times of difficulty.

 When preparing, it helps to have patience and treat yourself kindly, as all changes take time to become effective.

 Overall, accepting the possibility of experiencing failure during your journey is essential when working towards personal growth.

Appreciate Your Accomplishments

To help achieve your goals, it is essential to take the time to break them down into achievable chunks.

 This process is beneficial on many levels.

 It enables you to keep track of your progress to stay motivated and focused.

 Moreover, breaking down your goals can help you to develop a growth mindset.

 Taking the time to appreciate each step, regardless of how big or small, will give you greater insight and appreciation for the range of skills and accomplishments you have developed on your way to success.

Final Thoughts

Although it’s not always easy to let go of our old ways, sometimes change is necessary – especially regarding how we think about ourselves.

 With a growth mindset, we can open ourselves up to new and exciting opportunities to help us reach our full potential.

 So don’t be afraid to try something new (and maybe fail) – embrace change and see just how far you can go.

If you want to find out how to use Nudge Theory to your advantage, this article is just for you!

Are you intent on improving your creative skills and career prospects or learning a new hobby?

 Self-improvement goals can be fantastic motivators, but it can be challenging to keep pushing forward when the going gets tough.

 Don’t worry – if you feel yourself losing motivation, there’s an innovative way to get back on track: “nudging” yourself!

 In this post, we’ll explore the concept of nudging, how to use it properly for maximum results and why it is such a powerful tool in leading one toward their goals and ambitions.

 Read on and prepare to take practical steps toward achieving your dreams!

What Is Nudge Theory

So, you might wonder what we mean by “nudging” yourself.

 Well, the concept behind this method is simple and is based on Nudge Theory.

 Nudge Theory is a way of motivating people to change a particular behaviour through positive reinforcement and indirect suggestions.

 Developed by behavioral scientists Cass Sunstein and Richard Thaler, it suggests that small changes in a particular situation can produce significant results when influencing individual decisions.

 Nudge Theory operates by building habits or using subtle cues or incentives to persuade people to behave in ways that benefit themselves or others.

 This is all done through habit formation, incentivised choice architecture, or improved information framing.

 Simply said, Nudge Theory leaves room for choice as opposed to imposing strict rules, thus providing a more natural way of decision-making.

 So far, so good, but what are the benefits of Nudge Theory, and why is it becoming more and more widely used?

Why Is It Helpful

Nudge Theory has become an increasingly popular persuasion tool because it can influence decision-making without using incentives or restrictions.

 Instead, it relies on subtle cues and changing the context of a situation, allowing individuals to make voluntary choices that align with their own interests.

 Nudge Theory is especially relevant when the end goal is to influence behaviour without alienating people or violating their autonomy.

 Think about it, if you are presented with multiple choices, consciously picking the better option will solidify the positive behavioural change in yourself.

 With more and more organisations turning to Nudge Theory as a means of effective persuasion, its efficiency is evidenced in each success story.

 But the exciting thing is that besides applying Nudge Theory to influence someone else’s behaviour, you can just as easily use the same methods on yourself.

 Keep reading to discover the steps you can take to help you achieve your goals.

How To Apply It

So far, we have established Nudge Theory and why it is a helpful tool to use on your path to success.

 Here comes the fun part – applying the mechanisms to your life and choices.

 Let’s preface this by saying that, as with any other changes, nudging yourself might not come as easy, at least in the beginning.

 But the good news is that the theory is not meant to be as invasive and restricting as most persuasion techniques.

 Instead, the key lies in the small changes you can make to avoid making the “wrong” decision.

Strategical Positioning

Sometimes making a change is as simple as moving things around.

 For example, let’s say that your ultimate goal is to lose weight.

 In this case, you can take a healthy food alternative and place it right next to yourself, thus making it clear that it is an option.

 You can place the tempting not-so-healthy cookies far away to make this even more effective.

 Out of sight, out of mind, right?

Allowing Easy Access

This method is, in a sense, an alternative to strategically positioning things.

 It is all about making things that contribute to the bad behaviour you want to change harder to access.

 To build on the previous example: you want to start eating more healthily, so you put a password on the fast-food app that you like to order from.

 Then you would have created an obstacle between yourself and the “bad behaviour,” which might ultimately lead you to change your mind.

Reminders

Reminders as a concept on their own can be a powerful nudging mechanism.

 Whether we are talking about subtle cues or even written notes that you can position around yourself, these are all effective reminders.

 Sometimes, it might be helpful to express your intentions in detail to someone.

 When you talk about what you want to do and when and how you want to do it, you remind yourself further and hold yourself accountable in front of someone else.

Final Thoughts

 In conclusion, if you want to achieve your goals, start using the principles behind Nudge Theory on yourself.

 It may take a little bit of effort to get started, but soon enough, you’ll find that using these techniques comes naturally and helps you stay on track.

 And who knows? You may even enjoy applying nudges to help you reach your goals!

 What are some goals you’d like to accomplish?

According to Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), how you think affects how you feel, and how you feel influences your behaviour.

For example, if we think we that we’re sad or depressed, our shoulders may slump, our head goes down, our movements may slow down and we then behave like a sad or depressed person. (NB When I say depression here, I am referring to feeling down, not the much more serious mental illness, clinical depression or Major Depressive Disorder.)

On the flip side of the CBT coin is the notion that if you think realistic, helpful thoughts, your mood will be better and you will function better. This is a very simplistic explanation of CBT.

The below example of someone who fears public speaking (which is one of the most common fears people have) illustrates the interaction between thoughts, physical symptoms and behaviour.

Unhelpful Thought

“This is going to be a disaster. I’m hopeless at public speaking. I’ll blush and sweat, and everyone will see I’m anxious and think I’m an idiot.”

LEADS TO

Physical Symptoms

You start to sweat and your heart begins to pound.

LEADS TO

Unhelpful Thought

“I feel so anxious. I must look really nervous. I’ll make a total fool of myself.”

LEADS TO

Physical Symptoms

You sweat even more profusely, your chest feels like it’s about to explode.

LEADS TO

Unhelpful Thought

“I can’t do this. I’ve got to escape.”

LEADS TO

Behaviour

You leave the building and as you walk away, your anxiety subsides.

LEADS TO

Unhelpful Thought

“I’m a loser. Everyone else can do public speaking.”

Remember that I said that fear of public speaking in one of the most common fears that people all over the world have. Even people who speak in public often, can feel nervous and anxious before ‘performing’. This is normal. So how do these people do it well and seemingly easily? The short answer is that they manage their thoughts, thus managing their physical symptoms and consequently, their behaviour.

A therapist using CBT will ask what situations are anxiety-provoking for you. The therapist will then want to know what you usually think and do in these situations.

The therapist will help you to identify your unhelpful thoughts and beliefs; evaluate evidence for and against your thoughts and beliefs; create more realistic statements you can say to yourself when anticipating or confronting feared situations as these will decrease the degree of anxiety you experience; and devise a plan for gradually exposing yourself to your feared situations.

The therapist will also help you to identify your problematic behaviours (eg poor eye contact, fidgeting, mumbling) and help you to develop strategies to help you to cope with your physical symptoms of anxiety. Your therapist may also provide and/or recommend books, handouts, videos, apps etc, as part of your treatment.

Cognitive Behavioural Therapy includes the following components:

• Education about mental issues;
• Cognitive therapy;
• Exposure therapy (both imagined and ‘real life’ situations);
• Relaxation training (eg progressive muscle relaxation);
• Breathing techniques (eg diaphragmatic breathing).

CBT may also be used to work on other mental health issues such as social anxiety, low self-esteem and lack of assertiveness. Your therapist is also likely to recommend physical exercise and attention to nutrition and lifestyle issues; this is because our mental and physical health states are strongly interconnected.

Dialectical Behaviour Therapy (DBT) is a modified version of Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT) which was developed in the 1980’s by Marsha M. Linehan.

DBT emphasises the psycho-social aspects of treatment: the key differences between CBT and DBT are validation and relationships.

DBT teaches you that your experiences are real and it teaches you how to accept who you are, regardless of challenges or difficult experiences. Relationships are also very important in DBT, including the relationship between you and your therapist.

The theory behind the approach is that some people are prone to react in a more intense and out-of-the-ordinary manner toward certain emotional situations, primarily those found in romantic, family and friend relationships. DBT theory suggests that some people’s arousal levels in such situations can increase far more quickly than the average person’s, attain a higher level of emotional stimulation and take a significant amount of time to return to baseline arousal levels.

These individuals experience extreme swings in their emotions, see the world in black-and-white shades and seem to always be jumping from one crisis to another.

Because few people understand such reactions, most of all their own family (and a childhood that emphasised invalidation), they don’t have any methods for coping with these sudden, intense surges of emotion. DBT is a method for teaching skills that will help in this task.

The term “dialectical” means “working with opposites”. DBT uses seemingly opposing strategies of ‘acceptance’ and ‘change’. The therapist accepts you just as you are and also acknowledges the need for change in order for you to recover, move forward and reach your personal goals.

During a course of DBT, the therapist works with you to help you to move away from a chaotic life and towards a life that you find personally meaningful and fulfilling. DBT involves developing four skills sets: two sets of acceptance-oriented skills and two sets of change-oriented skills.

Acceptance-Oriented Skills

Mindfulness – Learning how to focus your awareness on the present moment and to acknowledge and accept your thoughts, feelings, behaviours and bodily sensations as they occur, without the need to control or manipulate them.

Distress Tolerance – Learning how to manage and cope during a crisis, and to tolerate distress when it is difficult or impossible to change a situation. Learning to accept any given situation just as it is, rather than how you think it should be, or want it to be. It involves learning new skills like distraction and self-soothing, for both coping with and improving distressing moments.

Change-Oriented Skills

Emotion Regulation – Learning how to effectively manage your emotional experience and not allow your emotions to manage you.

Some of these skills that can help people deal with their emotions include:

• identifying and labelling emotions;
• identifying obstacles to changing emotions;
• reducing vulnerability to “emotion mind”;
• increasing positive emotional events;
• increasing mindfulness to current emotions;
• taking the opposite action;
• and applying distress tolerance techniques.

Interpersonal Effectiveness – Learning assertiveness strategies to appropriately ask for what you want or need: how to say no, and how to manage interpersonal conflict in a way that maintains respect for yourself and others. These skills are intended to help people to function effectively when trying to change something (eg making a request) or in trying to resist changes (eg refusing a request). The intention is to aid the person in meeting their goals in each situation while avoiding any damage to the relationship or to the person’s self-respect.

Communication specialists, relationship counsellors, and other experts always tell us to “engage in active listening” to better connect with our partners, children, bosses, and just about anyone else.

But what is active listening, and how can we become better at it?

Active listening requires that the listener fully concentrate, understand, respond and then remember what is being said by another person. Here’s how to do it.

Let’s break it down into non verbal cues, verbal cues/behaviours, and strategies, as follows.

Non Verbal Cues

• Look interested;
• Maintain eye contact;
• Face the person directly;
• Sit upright, but be comfortable;
• Nod occasionally to indicate that you are listening;
• Try to put your feelings/reactions on hold until you hear the other person out;
• Monitor your facial expressions so that you don’t convey disagreement, irritation, or negative emotions until you hear the person out (you can react later).

Verbal Cues / Behaviours

• Ask questions:

1.  To clarify and to show that you are truly trying to understand; and
2. To summarise (“What I hear you saying is ________, is that correct?”).

• Don’t change the subject or stray off-topic.
• Focus on what the other person is saying (you will get your turn later).
• Summarise what you heard.

Strategies

• Be fully attentive and other-focused (all too often listeners stop really listening and try to formulate what they are going to say instead);
• Imagine that you are an interviewer or journalist and you are trying to get all of the facts straight;
• Observe the speaker’s body language and facial expressions. Try to understand both what the other person is saying and how they are saying it. What emotions are they feeling and expressing (or trying to conceal)?

Active listening is not easy. It takes a great deal of practice and can sometimes be taxing.

What’s the Payoff?

Clearly, being a better listener improves your communication skills, builds high-quality relationships with others, and is a cornerstone of resolving problems.

There are several types of personality disorders that fall into different sub-categories.

Eccentric Personality Disorders

Individuals with these disorders often appear odd or peculiar to other people; eccentric personality disorders include:

• Paranoid Personality Disorder (PPD) – individuals with this type of disorder generally tend to interpret the actions of others as threatening; they’re preoccupied with suspiciousness/paranoia. They are stuck between their need for others and their mistrust of others.
• Schizoid Personality Disorder (SPD) – individuals with this type of disorder are generally detached from social relationships, and show a narrow range of emotional expression in various social settings; they may be perceived as being ’emotional zombies’ who stopped feeling due to trauma(s) and/or can’t feel due to organic depression.
• Schizotypal Personality Disorder (StPD) – individuals with this type of disorder are uncomfortable in close relationships, have thought or perceptual distortions, and peculiarities of behaviour; they’re preoccupied with seeing themselves and/or the world as strange/odd.

Dramatic Personality Disorders

Individuals with these disorders have intense, unstable emotions, distorted self-perception, and/or behavioural impulsiveness:

• Anti-social Personality Disorder (ASPD) – individuals with this type of disorder show a pervasive disregard for, and violation of, the rights of others; they’re preoccupied with disdain/contempt for others and often have a need for control/power over others.
• Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD) – individuals with this type of disorder show a generalised pattern of instability in interpersonal relationships, self-image, and observable emotions, and significant impulsiveness. Their core issue is an inability to regulate their emotions.
• Histrionic Personality Disorder (HPD) – individuals with this type of disorder often display excessive emotionality and attention seeking in various contexts. They tend to overreact to other people, and are often perceived as shallow and self-centered. Their core issue is attention addiction.
• Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD) – individuals with this type of disorder have a grandiose view of themselves, a need for admiration, and a lack of empathy that begins by early adulthood and is present in various situations. These individuals are very demanding in their relationships. Their core issue is entitlement.

Anxious Personality Disorders

Individuals with these disorders often appear anxious or fearful:

• Avoidant Personality Disorder (APD) – individuals with this type of disorder are socially inhibited, feel inadequate, and are oversensitive to criticism. Their core issue is an inability to resolve their co-dependent need for connection with their co-dependent fear of rejection and/or discomfort/anxiety around others.
• Dependent Personality Disorder (DPD) – individuals with this type of disorder show an extreme need to be taken care of that leads to fears of separation, and passive and clinging behaviour. Their core issue is the need to be parented by others (ie avoid growing up / becoming self-sufficient).
• Obsessive-Compulsive Personality Disorder (OCPD) – individuals with this type of disorder are preoccupied with orderliness, perfectionism, and control, at the expense of flexibility, openness, and efficiency. Their core issue is mental and behavioural rigidity/inflexibility.

Which Ones are the Cluster B Personality Disorders?

People with Cluster B personality disorders (ie NPD, BPD, ASPD and HPD) are classified as individuals with socially aggressive (and oftentimes violent) personality types.

All Cluster B personality types are ego-centric and lack varying degrees of empathy. Empathy, as a complex emotion, is one of the core emotions in neuro-typical (ie exhibiting typical neurological development) humans; people lacking the capacity to perceive external social stimuli in such a way that they are able to emote in a healthy pro-social and logical manner tend to suffer from personality disorders that stem from competitive (rather than collaborative) biological forms of thought processes.

People on the spectrum for Narcissistic Personality Disorder range from being mildly narcissistic Covert Abuse Enablers (prone to dishonesty and selfish thinking) to Malignant Narcissists (meaning people with extreme narcissistic tendencies).

Those with Borderline Personality Disorder are prone to having massive attention-seeking and abandonment issues. Known for using calculated temper tantrums to get their way and for suffering wild mood swings throughout the day that tend to resemble the long-term mood dysregulation disorders suffered by many people who experience bipolar disorder, the BPD person has an awareness of other people’s needs, but chooses not to take them into consideration.

People who have Histrionic personality types are typically the more over the top and grandiose people imaginable. The character played by actor Nathan Lane in the Robin Williams and Gene Hackman movie “The Birdcage” had what is known as Histrionic Personality Disorder.

People who suffer from Anti-Social Personality Disorder are quite unique as human beings. Some people develop the condition as a result of exposure to trauma, others to illness, pain, or medications, and others suffer from biological limitations that repress or retard their ability to perceive (let alone process) complex emotions.

People who have ASPD seem to fall into two different types of classification. Sociopaths tend to be methodical by nature, vertical thinkers, and socially aggressive. Those who have Psychopathy by nature tend to be prone to violent behaviour.

Both lack the ability to understand the complex emotional motivations of other people because they lack the ability to feel or intuit the physical sensation of having a healthy, fully developed, and rich array of complex emotions. Because they do not share the same core values as other human beings, they are oftentimes accused of behaving like monsters regardless of how intelligent they may otherwise seem to be.

While people with NPD strive to be the centre of attention at all times and expect everyone who encounters them to immediately and without cause to treat them with the same level of social respect one typically reserves for royalty, those with ASPD tend to seek to dominate others for pleasure (rather than to feed their grandiosity).

Many individuals who dish out emotional abuse or who physically and verbally assault others with alarming regularity tend to suffer from co-morbid personality disorder symptoms  — also known as co-morbid conditions or affectations.

The term co-morbid refers to having more than one personality disorder affecting a person’s psychology.

People with one personality disorder proclivity are predictable in specific ways; if they show signs of behaving like people with more than one disorder, their toxic thinking and social behaviours tend to be overt and extreme (even if they typically engage in abusing others the most when and if there are no witnesses other than the victim of their behaviours).

When we become upset about something, we need time to process the emotions we experience.

Even after the problem has gone away or an apology has been received, we may still have those same feelings (Peters, 2018a).

Learning to handle feelings, especially powerful ones such as anger, can be difficult, especially for young children. Learning to understand how they feel and improving emotional regulation techniques can help children respond to the emotions and environment around them with more control and skill (Snowden, 2018).

This article explores and shares tools, activities, and games to help children make sense of and manage their internal states and emotions.

Anger Management Therapy for Kids 101

Anger is a difficult feeling for children. It can make them want to destroy things or hurl comments that hurt others. With the right tools and techniques, even young children can be taught to see anger differently and maintain or regain control over how they feel (Snowden, 2018).

Many of the most helpful techniques in anger management therapy are ones that children can take to adulthood. The approaches that follow encourage healthy habits for life, where the child chooses what works best for them (Peters, 2018b).

Mastery of such techniques is important in childhood and crucial as children reach adolescence, where unchecked anger can have a “variety of maladaptive adolescent outcomes” (Ho, Carter, & Stephenson, 2010, p. 246).

Early anger management therapy relied on applied behavioural interventions, such as manipulating environmental stimuli, punishment, and reinforcement, and typically required individuals with challenging behaviour to receive ongoing support (Ho et al., 2010).

Cognitive-Behavioural approaches to anger management, on the other hand, empower the child. They involve the client and therapist working together to think through and practice new behavioural solutions, including (Ho et al., 2010):

• Problem solving
• Relaxation
• Self-control and coping strategies
• Cognitive restructuring (teaching alternate ways of thinking)
• Stress inoculation (gradually increasing exposure to triggers)

When compared with the traditional behavioural approach, developing self-control and coping skills leads to better maintenance and generalisation (Ho et al., 2010).

Despite the early onset of aggression in children, it needn’t develop into unstable personality traits in adulthood. Through effective interventions, at-risk children and adolescents can learn to deal with situations in non-aggressive ways and lead productive lives in adulthood (Nelson, Finch, & Ghee, 2012).

In anger management, kids are taught to recognise when anger is likely to show up, how it makes them feel, see behavioural patterns, and find healthy ways to remain or return to calm (Snowden, 2018).

3 Strategies to Teach Children

 In her book, Anger Management Workbook for Kids, Samantha Snowden (2018) offers three essential questions to consider when working with children.

Together they form valuable strategies to manage anger and better understand emotions and feelings (Snowden, 2018).

Each question can be explored and answered (in groups or one-to-one) to encourage children to understand their anger. The more open the adult is about their experiences, the more likely the child will feel safe and comfortable being vulnerable. They will recognise anger as an emotion common to everyone.

The three questions are (modified from Snowden, 2018):

1. Why do I feel angry?
2. What happens when I feel angry?
3. What should I do with my anger?

Why do I feel angry?

Sometimes it is difficult to recognise why we are angry. It can appear out of the blue and unexpectedly. When we know what triggers our anger (e.g., people, places, situations), we can anticipate it and react quickly to stop it from getting out of control (Snowden, 2018).

“Thinking about your anger will help you see patterns more clearly and find healthy ways to feel calm again” (Snowden, 2018, p. 1). Knowing why you feel angry and how you are impacting those around you will promote better choices when you are angry.

Exploring why a child feels anger – the triggers and situations – can provide early warning to help them remove themselves from the situation, stop their anger from escalating, and feel in control.

 What happens when I feel angry?

When anger appears, it can be fast, seemingly unavoidable, and yet unsurprising. Each of us is attempting to fulfil our own needs and live according to our goals. Inevitably, what we want or do may not always match the expectations or demands of those around us (Snowden, 2018).

When this happens, we can feel angry and upset.

Children must understand the causes of their anger, such as tiredness, anger, people breaking their ideas regarding fairness, or having to stop doing something they enjoy. It is also essential that children learn how anger is stopping them from getting what they need and want (Snowden, 2018).

Learning how to spot these triggers means we can avoid them and redirect our energies and attention elsewhere. It is an essential and logical step that forms part of a bigger strategy to regain control over anger.

 What should I do with my anger?

We all get angry at times. Recognising the emotion and learning to greet it with kindness can help you “host your difficult feelings, like you would welcome a visitor at home” (Snowden, 2018, p. 89).

Refocusing our attention on what is good in our lives is a powerful technique to create balance and gain control over our feelings. Being kind and patient with ourselves can create more healthy ways of being open with others about how we feel and what we need while remaining aware of others’ feelings.

Asserting control and knowing what to do when anger visits next time can restore the child’s self-belief and regain their trust in their own abilities to manage situations.

 Tools and techniques to teach kids anger management strategies

The activities that follow encourage children to approach their anger habits with openness and kindness. Once identified, they can adopt coping mechanisms to cultivate more pleasant, positive states of mind (Snowden, 2018).

 Top 3 Activities and Games for Kids

Children often learn best when they are playing. Games and activities promote self-learning and, when focused on emotions, help children identify their anger and associated triggers and behaviour (Peters, 2018b).

The following activities and games offer a fun and insightful way for children and their parents or teachers to understand the situations that lead to anger and how they can react differently (modified from Peters, 2018b; Snowden, 2018).

Role-play

Children sometimes have to do things they do not enjoy: completing homework, turning off the TV, or going to bed at night. The gap between what they want to do and what they must do can be a source of anger (Peters, 2018b).

Self-discipline is an essential skill for children to learn and helps them manage their more reactive and emotional side.

Role-play can be a valuable way for children and adults to explore particular anger triggers such as being told to stop doing something or perform an activity that does not factor in their plan despite being good for them.

For example, you could role-play that the child is asked to clean their room, but their emotional side takes over and starts acting up.

Peters (2018b) refers to our reactive, emotional side as our “chimp.” Encourage the child to practice saying ‘stop’ to their emotional chimp and talk through how they will get things done. It can help to have them speak out loud to their chimp, telling it not to argue, stop misbehaving, and be sensible so that everyone can be happy (Peters, 2018b).

Such self-discipline can be a valuable approach to preventing the onset of angry behaviour.

 Scenarios and their outcomes

Understanding the different options available to them can help children choose thinking and behaviour more appropriate to their own and others’ needs.

Work through several scenarios that typically lead to anger and discuss three possible responses for each one (Peters, 2018b).

• I have been blamed for something I didn’t do.
  a) I am going to get angry and behave badly.
  b) I am never going to do anything again.

Or, more helpfully,
c) I am going to explain that I am upset because I didn’t do it.

 

• I can’t do something new.
  a) I am going to cry and get angry.
  b) I am going to sulk and give up.

Or, more helpfully,
c) I am going to talk to someone and learn how to do it.

 

• My friend has borrowed something and hasn’t given it back.
  a) I am going to get angry with them and demand they give it back.
  b) I will never talk to my friend again.

 

Or, more helpfully,
c) I am going to explain that I am upset and would like to have it back. If that doesn’t work, then I will talk it through with an adult.

Encourage the child to explain why the two extremes (a and b) are not helpful or the best outcome for everyone involved. Then discuss why option c leads to a better result and less upset.

 

Who’s in the driver’s seat?

“Anger can change the way we see people and situations.”

Snowden, 2018, p. 80

Work with the child to help them understand and recognise the clues that indicate an angry or a calm mind.

A calm mind can enable us to:

• Consider the consequences of our actions
  How would the other person feel if I took away their toy?
• See different sides
  Perhaps it was an accident rather than something they did on purpose.
• Be understanding
  Perhaps they are just having a bad day.
• Hold back or walk away
  I need to calm myself before saying or doing something I will regret.
• See feelings more clearly
  I am sad, frustrated, or angry.

An angry mind is like this:

• Reactive
  I’ll do what I want.
• Does what it wants, when it wants
  I was hurt, so I should hurt them back.

Recognising each of the above signs can help prevent angry outbursts and improve the child’s self-awareness and empathy.

 For more personalised help with developing strategies to deal with your child’s emotions, make an appointment with me.

Domestic abuse is a deeply concerning issue that affects individuals of all genders, and while the majority of reported cases involve women as victims, it is important to acknowledge that men can also be victims of domestic abuse. This article aims to shed light on this under-discussed topic, explore the challenges men face in seeking help, and provide support resources for male victims. It is crucial to recognise that addressing domestic abuse requires a gender-inclusive approach, and male victims should not be overlooked or marginalised.

Understanding Domestic Abuse:

Domestic abuse encompasses various forms of physical, emotional, psychological, and sexual violence within intimate and family relationships. It is a complex issue that affects individuals across all socio-economic backgrounds, regardless of their gender. While statistical data on male victims of domestic abuse is limited due to under-reporting, emerging research suggests that a significant number of men experience abuse within their relationships.

Challenges Faced by Male Victims:

Society often perpetuates harmful stereotypes that assume men are always stronger, less vulnerable, or less likely to be victims of abuse. These stereotypes, coupled with societal expectations of masculinity, can deter male victims from reporting their experiences. Fear of disbelief, ridicule, and social stigmatisation can create barriers for men seeking support, making it difficult for them to break the silence and escape abusive situations.

Reporting and Support:

Studies have indicated that male victims of domestic abuse face unique challenges when reporting incidents or seeking assistance. Many fear that they will not be taken seriously or that their claims will be met with scepticism. Law enforcement agencies and support services need to provide gender-inclusive training to address the specific needs of male victims effectively.

Support resources specifically designed for male victims of domestic abuse are crucial. Helplines, support groups, and counselling services that acknowledge and address the experiences of male victims can help break down barriers and encourage men to seek help. The establishment of safe spaces where men can share their experiences without judgment is paramount to ensuring their well-being.

Conclusion:

Addressing domestic abuse requires a comprehensive understanding of its impact on all individuals, regardless of gender. Men can be victims of domestic abuse, and it is essential to break the silence surrounding their experiences. By promoting gender-inclusive support services, raising awareness, and fostering a supportive environment, we can empower male victims to seek help and support their journey towards healing and recovery. It is crucial that society recognises and addresses domestic abuse in all its forms, ensuring that the well-being and recovery of male victims are given the same importance as any other victim. Together, we can create a safer and more inclusive society for all.

References:

1. Cook, P. W. (2009). Abused men: The hidden side of domestic violence. ABC-CLIO.
   2. Hines, D. A., & Douglas, E. M. (2011). A closer look at men who sustain intimate terrorism by women. Partner Abuse, 2(1), 5-23.
   3. Stark, E. (2007). Coercive control: How men entrap women in personal life. Oxford University Press.
   4. Brownridge, D. A. (2006). Partner violence against men in Canada. Violence Against Women, 12(8), 891-920.
   5. Bates, E. A., & Graham-Kevan, N. (2007). Is domestic violence learned? The contribution of five forms of child maltreatment to men’s violence against women in intimate relationships. Violence and Victims, 22(6), 668-686.

If you have left a relationship with a narcissist, you will undoubtedly be in a maelstrom of drama.

A narcissist is completely self-serving and selfish. Any negotiations in relation to divorce, parenting, child support or property settlement, will create enormous conflict with the narcissist. The narcissist’s negative actions and response to the break up or divorce cause the reasonable partner to go into defensive mode, especially if there are children involved.

To those who do not know better, it looks like the reasonable spouse is fully engaged in creating conflict. But what is really happening is that the reasonable spouse is trying to protect themselves and their children from the narcissist who is using the legal system to bully them. Many do not recognise the characteristics of a narcissist, even during the marriage but, introduce divorce into the narcissist’s life and it can become quite evident that this person has a personality disorder, one that keeps them from being able to play fair when they feel backed into a corner.

That is why so few people find themselves emotionally equipped to survive while divorcing a narcissist. The reasonable spouse goes into the divorce process expecting the same level of consideration that they experienced during the marriage to only be met by an adversary who will stop at nothing to “win” what they perceive as a war being waged against them.

It is difficult to stay emotionally level-headed when what you thought would be a simple process turns into all-out war and everything you care about is at stake. Surviving a narcissist through the process of divorce requires the ability to quickly recognise who you are dealing with and the willingness to do battle, roll up your sleeves and go to war.

Characteristics of a Narcissist

First consider the characteristics of a narcissist:

• Has a need for admiration;
• A need to be right;
• A need to be seen as the good guy;
• A need to criticise when you do not meet their need;
• Is charismatic and successful;
• Lacks the ability to feel remorse;
• Has no conscience;
• Has a tremendous need to control you and the situation;
• Has values that are situational – eg if you believe infidelity is wrong, so do they, even if they do not, their need to impress you motivates them to hold the same beliefs;
• Uses a facade of caring and understanding to manipulate;
• Is emotionally unavailable;
• Nothing is ever their fault;
• Hangs onto resentment;
• Has a grandiose sense of self;
• Feels misunderstood;
• Is not interested in solving marital problems, it is their way or the highway;
• Is envious of other’s success.

When divorcing a narcissist, they completely dismiss any of your needs or all the years of devotion and mutual companionship that you had built together. Normal people remember the good from the past; it informs a sense of balance and fairness during a divorce (even through a betrayal).

You may be getting a divorce, but that does not mean that you do not have valuable memories and a life story together. For the narcissist, it is all gone; like it never happened. You will have to understand this if you are to deal effectively with him/her. The narcissist can undermine you with your friends, with your children and steal your money, all while looking sincere and generating goodwill among the community.

How to Protect Yourself when Divorcing a Narcissist

A narcissist finds it hard to accept that his/her influence in your life is over.

Whether they file for the divorce or you do, the narcissist will attempt to remain in control of their influence over your life. If you have children with this person, they will work over-time at attempting to control how child support is spent, how child visitation is handled and every other aspect of the co-parenting relationship.

How much emotional abuse, financial and sometimes domestic abuse the narcissist can inflict depends on how you respond to him/her. If you show the narcissist any sympathy, fear, weakness or confusion the narcissist will feed off this and continue his/her cycle of abusive behaviour.

Protecting yourself means showing no weakness, not buying into anything the narcissist says, researching as much as you can find about narcissism and having a lawyer on your side who is willing to pull out all the stops when it comes to protecting your legal rights.

Dealing with Divorce

Here are four tactics to help you deal with divorce:

1. Examine your role in the ongoing conflict

The healthier you are emotionally, the more success you will have in dealing with the narcissist. You are giving into the narcissist’s attempt to manipulate, every time you respond to him/her.

A narcissist is adept at causing confusion. When in an adversarial relationship such as divorce you begin to question whether the problem is with you or the narcissist. That is exactly where the narcissist wants you; confused and questioning yourself.

People often ask what they can do to change how someone responds to them. If you are attempting to do something that will make a difference in the way he/she behaves STOP. You cannot change the behaviours of others, but you can change the way you respond to their behaviour.

Your response to a narcissist should be measured. You should be aware that they are trying to push your buttons and want a negative response from you. The best advice is to realise that the things the narcissist does or says is not about you, it is about them. The narcissist is attempting to make themselves feel better by making you feel shame, fear or guilt.

The narcissist will project their own fears, shame, and guilt onto you by using the Family Court System to abuse. Not retaliating or challenging them puts the shame, fear, and guilt back onto them.

2. Deal with the reality of the situation

The world of the narcissist is made up of fantasy, nothing is real, all is an expression of their need to be someone they are not. It is imperative you see the narcissist for who he/she really is and not for whom you wish he/she were.

Regardless of how good you want the narcissist to be, the more you work at bringing goodness out, the more the narcissist will exploit your goodness.

The narcissist wants you to doubt your own value. The best defence during divorce against such a person is to appreciate your own self-worth and refuse to buy into their need to dismiss and belittle you and your needs.

3. Be willing to set firm boundaries

The narcissist believes their needs are more important than yours; they believe they are more intelligent than you and find it unacceptable that anyone would disagree with them. For this reason, they lack an understanding of boundaries and respecting the needs of others.

You cannot teach or expect the narcissist to ever respect your boundaries. You can, however, refuse to allow the narcissist to cross your boundaries and cause you undue stress during the divorce process. This is done by you controlling what behaviours you will and will not allow.

Do not make the mistake of believing that trying to control the behaviours of the narcissist is the answer to setting boundaries with him/her. Most believe that protecting themselves and setting boundaries means confronting and being assertive. This does not work with the narcissist. The more you confront and assert your position the more you play into their game.

When setting boundaries with the narcissist you need to refuse to communicate unless it can be done in a manner free of conflict, manipulation, and disrespect. You may need to insist that all communication is via email. You can let it be known that you will not respond to any communication that dismisses or belittles you and your needs.

You can expect the narcissist to push back against the boundaries you set. If you want to stop the cycle of abuse and disrespect you must be firm, stand your ground and refuse to allow him/her to push your buttons. Remember, you are trying to separate yourself from the narcissist. This is a threat to him/her so be on guard for efforts on their part to draw you back into the toxicity of the relationship.

4. Surround yourself with an understanding support system

During separation/divorce, we all go to family and friends for support and advice. Your situation is unique, though; friends and family will not understand and may even doubt your honesty when you relay what you are dealing with.

It is essential that you hire a divorce lawyer who understands narcissistic personality disorder and how to deal with it during the legal process of divorce. Also, find a therapist who can help you work through the feelings you will have during the divorce and after. A therapist can help you set boundaries and stick with them, as well as help you identify your role in the conflict and gain understanding about what is and is not “real.”

The people you choose to go to for help will play a huge role in how well you navigate divorce from a narcissist.

After leaving a narcissist, people often experience PTSD or post-traumatic stress disorder, much like soldiers do after returning home from the frontline.

It certainly makes sense after spending years living in a stressful and unpredictable environment, with lies and betrayal at every turn.

Symptoms include flashbacks, insomnia, depression, despondency and panic attacks, to name a few. Some psychologists have coined the phrase “post narcissist stress disorder” to describe the scars and allude to the recovery needed after being in a relationship with a narcissist.

The American Psychiatric Association describes post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) as a mental health disorder that can occur in people who have experienced or witnessed a traumatic event such as a natural disaster, a serious accident, a terrorist act, war/combat, rape or other violent personal assault. The condition may last months or years, with triggers that can bring back memories of the trauma accompanied by intense emotional and physical reactions. This is very similar to what victims of narcissistic abuse go through, namely Post Narcissist Stress Disorder (PNSD).

Symptoms of Post Narcissist Stress Disorder

Emotional reactions can be:

• Feeling intense amounts of pain – You may recall a violent outburst from the narcissist and feel like you are being yelled at all over again.
• Remembering and reliving traumatising events – Narcissists are skilled at doling out punishment. When, as a survivor, you remember that criticism or put-downs repeatedly, it can make you feel like you have traveled back in time and are reliving the experience.
• Feeling confused – Narcissists often alter the survivor’s sense of reality, so finally living in your reality can be confusing. It takes time to learn to define your own truth.
• Losing rational thinking – This loss of understanding the world around you comes into play while in the relationship. As a survivor, you become so broken down and distraught that you think you can’t survive without the narcissist or that there is no way out of the relationship.
• Feeling stress, agitation – Survivors learn to adapt to a higher stress level, day after day. The phrase “walking on eggshells” applies, because there is no predictability to the relationship. There is no safe place.

The physical manifestation of PTSD can be:

• Panic attacks – A panic attack is the abrupt onset of intense fear or discomfort that reaches a peak within minutes. Symptoms usually include at least four of the following: palpitations, pounding heart, or accelerated heart rate; sweating; trembling; shaking; sensations of shortness of breath or smothering also can occur.
• Insomnia – Insomnia makes it hard to fall asleep or stay asleep. This can make it difficult to tend to daily tasks the next day.
• Excessive fatigue – Often, fatigue goes hand in hand with insomnia. Survivors report staying up all night and sleeping all day. This extreme fatigue can also be due to the extraordinary amount of stress on the body that the body just needs to shut down to get away.
• Thyroid or adrenal problems – These glands excrete hormones needed for metabolism. Too much or not enough of these hormones can lead to lethargy or too much energy.
• Agitation – Survivors are typically in a constant state of being angry or on high alert due to the unpredictable, stressful environment of being around the narcissist.
• Feeling numb – Some survivors turn off emotions in order to avoid feeling any more pain.
• Abnormally high heart rate (tachycardia) – Stress can lead to a heart rate that is too fast.
• High cholesterol (we don’t eat healthily or smoke more) – It is easy to let go of healthy habits when faced with life-changes and stress.
• Suicidal thoughts – Some survivors have felt like death would be better than mentally reliving a relationship nightmare.
• Obsessive thinking – This is the inability to move on from dissecting an event or the relationship; or repeatedly thinking about the experiences.

The good news is that healing from Post Narcissist Stress Disorder is possible.

Healing from PNSD

First, if you want to heal and be free, you need to be physically free of the narcissist. Go no contact or limited contact (if you have children with the narcissist). For some people, even the narcissist’s handwriting can trigger bad memories for them. Cutting all ties will help you heal more quickly.

Secondly, find a therapist who understands narcissism and the trauma associated with toxic people. A skilled and trained counsellor can help you develop the best recovery plan for you. Some therapists believe in using different healing modalities, such as EMDR, which is eye movement desensitization and reprocessing or EFT, which is an emotional freedom technique. EFT is a tapping exercise that may also help some survivors.

It will also help to find a support group, a friend or a family member who understands. Sometimes we need someone to go with us to therapy and hold our hand in the car. Other times we need the person we can call in the middle of the night to dissect a painful memory.

Finally, give yourself grace. You’ve been through a lot. You can overcome this. Two steps forward and one step back is still forward movement.

Emotions are the glue that gives meaning to life, connecting us to other people.

They are the foundation of our ability to understand ourselves and relate to others. When we are aware and in control of our emotions, we can think clearly and creatively; manage stress and challenges; communicate well with others; and display trust, empathy, and confidence.

But lose control of our emotions, and we’ll spin into confusion, isolation, and negativity.

Emotional awareness is a skill—which means that with patience and practice, it can be learned. You develop your emotional awareness by learning how to get in touch with difficult emotions and manage uncomfortable feelings so you remain in control, rather than being overwhelmed.

Whether we’re aware of them or not, emotions are a constant presence in our lives, underlying and influencing everything we do.

Emotional awareness means knowing what you are feeling and why. It’s the ability to identify and express what you are feeling from moment to moment and to understand the connection between your feelings and your actions.

Emotional awareness also allows you to understand what others are feeling and to empathise with them.

Emotional awareness involves two basic abilities:

• The ability to recognise your moment-to-moment emotional experience;
• The ability to handle all of your emotions without becoming overwhelmed.

Why Emotional Awareness Matters

Have you ever felt like depression, anxiety, or anger was controlling you?

Do you often act impulsively, doing or saying things you know you shouldn’t, only to regret it later? Do you feel disconnected from your feelings or emotionally numb? Do you have a hard time communicating with others and forming meaningful connections? Do you feel like your life is an emotional roller coaster—all extremes and no balance?

All of these challenges are related to a breakdown in emotional awareness.

Our emotions drive our behaviour. Without an awareness of what you’re feeling, it’s impossible to fully understand your own behaviour, appropriately manage your emotions and actions, and accurately “read” the wants and needs of others.

Emotional awareness helps you:

• Recognise who you are: what you like, what you don’t like, and what you need;
• Understand and empathise with others;
• Communicate clearly and effectively;
• Make wise decisions based on the things that are most important to you;
• Get motivated and take action to meet goals;
• Build strong, healthy, and rewarding relationships.

How Developing Emotional Awareness can bring your Life into Balance

“My life is an emotional rollercoaster!” 

Life doesn’t have to be about high highs and low lows. Becoming more in touch with your emotions can help moderate the extreme up and down swings.

“I often regret what I say or do.” 

If you often wish you could press an “undo” button—or you simply have a short fuse—you can gain emotional awareness by learning to prolong patience during times of stress.

“I have no energy.” 

Got the blahs? When there is nothing physically wrong with you, and you still don’t have any ‘get up and go,’ you might be depressed. When you are more emotionally aware, you can tune into these feelings and make a change for the better.

“The people I’m interested in aren’t interested in me.” 

Relationships are hard, but you can have an easier time meeting people and creating lasting bonds when you become more emotionally aware.

“I can’t seem to get ahead, even though I’m smart and work hard.” 

Sometimes, getting ahead in your career requires more than book smarts and effort. Becoming more emotionally aware can help you communicate better and advance your position.

“They call me a robot.” 

There is such a thing as too much control over emotions. If you’ve reined yourself in so much that you show no emotion whatsoever, you might benefit from becoming more balanced with your feelings.

Evaluating your Emotional Awareness

Although emotional awareness is the basis of emotional health, good communication, and solid relationships, many people remain relatively unacquainted with their core emotional experience. It is surprising how few people can easily answer the question: “What are you experiencing emotionally?”

What is your level of emotional awareness?

• Can you tolerate strong feelings, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, and joy?
• Do you feel your emotions in your body? If you are sad or mad, do you experience physical sensations in places like your stomach and chest?
• Do you ever make decisions based on “gut feelings” or use your emotions to guide your decisions? When your body signals that something is wrong (stomach tightening, hair standing on end) do you trust it?
• Are you comfortable with all of your emotions? Do you allow yourself to feel anger, sadness, or fear without being judgmental or trying to suppress them?
• Do you pay attention to your ever-changing emotional experience? Do you notice a variety of emotions throughout the day or are you stuck in only one or two emotions?
• Are you comfortable talking about your emotions? Do you communicate your feelings honestly?
• Do you feel that, in general, others understand and empathise with your feelings? Are you comfortable with others knowing your emotions?
• Are you sensitive to the emotions of others? Is it relatively easy for you to pick up on what other people are feeling and put yourself in their shoes?

If you didn’t answer “usually” or even “sometimes” to most of these questions, you’re not alone.? Most people are not emotionally aware, but you can be, even if you have avoided some of your feelings for a long time.

By learning to recognise, manage, and deal with your emotions, you’ll enjoy greater happiness and health, as well as better relationships.

When we can’t manage stress, emotions may overwhelm us. You can’t manage emotions until you know how to manage stress. Emotions are unpredictable. We never know what will trigger an emotional response, and when stress strikes, we don’t always have the time or opportunity to get back into balance by going for a run, for example, or taking a hot bubble bath. What you need are tools that allow you to manage stress quickly and in the moment.

Emotional awareness depends on your ability to rapidly relieve stress. Emotional awareness requires the ability to manage stress as it’s happening. The ability to quickly reduce stress allows you to safely face strong emotions, confident in the knowledge that you’ll be able to stay calm and in control—even when something upsetting happens. Once you know how to calm yourself down when you start to feel overwhelmed, you can begin to explore the emotions that seem disagreeable or frightening.

Be a Stress-busting Detective

Emotion is a double-edged sword that is meant to help but can also hurt.

If you’re a person who doesn’t know how to manage your emotions, or have lived with such a person, feelings can seem frightening and overwhelming. Fear and helplessness may cause you to freeze, act out, or shut down—inhibiting your ability to think rationally and causing you to say and do things you later regret.

Common ways of controlling or avoiding uncomfortable emotions:

• Many addictive and inappropriate behaviours are rooted in the inability to take emotionally stressful situations in stride.
• Distracting yourself with obsessive thoughts, escapist fantasies, mindless entertainment, and addictive behaviors in order to avoid emotions you fear or dislike. Watching television for hours, playing computer games, and surfing the internet are common ways we avoid dealing with our feelings.
• Sticking with one emotional response that you feel comfortable with, no matter what the situation requires. For example, constantly joking around to cover up insecurities or getting angry all the time to avoid feeling frightened and sad.
• Shutting down or shutting out intense emotions. If you feel overwhelmed by your emotions, you may cope by numbing yourself. You may feel completely disconnected from your emotions, like you no longer have feelings at all.

The upside of unpleasant emotions:

• Anger can be both deadly and restorative. Out-of-control anger can run amok endangering others and ourselves. But anger can also protect and preserve life. Anger is an emotion with a lot of energy that can be used to save life by mobilising us and inspiring determination and creative action. Anger is a normal emotion just like all our other emotions. It’s how we deal with our anger that can be problematic.
• Sadness can lead to depression but also supports emotional healing. Sadness is a call to slow down, stop thinking and surrender to what we are experiencing emotionally. Sadness asks us to open up, trust, and allow ourselves to be vulnerable in order to heal and recover from loss.
• Fear that overwhelms us is debilitating but fear also triggers lifesaving reactions that protect us from harm. Fear is a deeply rooted emotion—often the cause of chronic anger or depression. Overwhelming fear can be a barrier that separates us from others, but fear also supports life by signaling danger and triggering life-preserving action.

Why Avoiding Unpleasant Emotions isn’t the Answer

We are all born with a capacity to freely experience the full range of human emotions—including joy, anger, sadness, and fear. Yet many people are disconnected from some or all of their feelings.

People who were traumatised in early life often disconnect from their emotions and the physical feelings they evoke. But when you try to avoid pain and discomfort, your emotions become distorted, displaced, and stifled. You lose touch with your emotions when you attempt to control or avoid them, rather than experience them.

The consequences of avoiding your emotions:

• You don’t know yourself. This is one of the most important consequences. It includes understanding why you react to different situations, how much or how little things mean to you, and the difference between what you think you want and what you really need.
• You lose the good, along with the bad. When you shut down negative feelings like anger, fear, or sadness, you also shut down your ability to experience positive feelings such as joy, love, and happiness.
• It’s exhausting. You can distort and numb emotions, but you can’t eliminate them entirely. It takes a lot of energy to avoid having an authentic emotional experience and keep your feelings suppressed. The effort leaves you stressed and drained.
• It damages your relationships. The more you distance yourself from your feelings, the more distant you become from others, as well as yourself. You lose the ability to build strong relationships and communicate effectively, both of which depend on being in touch with your emotions.

By avoiding emotions we dislike, we distance ourselves from delightful emotions.

When we disconnect from emotions we dislike – emotions that we find frightening and overwhelming – we automatically shut down intensely positive emotions like joy, laughter, and playfulness that sustain us in difficult and challenging times. We can overcome loss and great challenges, but only if we retain our ability to experience joy. These joyous, uplifting emotions remind us, in the worst of times, that life is worthwhile and can be wonderful as well as terrible.

Make Friends with All Your Emotions!

If you’ve never learned how to manage stress, the idea of reconnecting to unpleasant emotions may be frightening. But even traumatised people can heal by learning to safely navigate their emotional experiences. You can change the way you experience and respond to your emotions.

The process of raising emotional awareness involves reconnecting with all of the core emotions, including anger, sadness, fear, disgust, surprise, and joy via a process of self-healing. As you start this process, keep the following facts in mind:

• Emotions quickly come and go, if you let them.
• You may be worried that once you reconnect to the emotions you’ve been avoiding, you’ll be stuck with them forever, but that’s not so. When we don’t obsess about our emotions, even the most painful and difficult feelings subside and lose their power to control our attention.
• When our feelings are freed, the core emotions of anger, sadness, fear, and joy quickly come and go.?Throughout the day, you’ll see, read, or hear something that momentarily triggers a strong feeling of some sort. But if you don’t focus on the feeling, it won’t last, and a different emotion will soon take its place.

Your Body can Clue you in to your Emotions

Our emotions are closely aligned to physical sensations in our bodies.

When you experience a strong emotion, you probably also feel it somewhere in your body. By paying attention to these physical sensations, you can understand your emotions better. For example, if your stomach tightens up every time you spend time with a particular person, you can conclude that you feel uncomfortable in their presence.

With the exception of a headache, physical feelings are usually experienced somewhere?below the bridge of the nose. Examples include:

• Sensations in your stomach;
• Tension in your muscles;
• Subtle urges to move body parts;
• Flashes of insight or “gut feelings”.

You Don’t have to Choose between Thinking and Feeling

Emotional awareness functions like instinct. When it’s strongly developed, you’ll know what you are feeling without having to think about it—and you’ll be able to use these emotional signals to understand what is really going on in a situation and act accordingly. The goal is to find a balance between your intellect and your emotions. The fact is that emotional awareness will help you set healthy boundaries, communicate well with others, predict what others are going to do, and make better decisions.

Developing emotional awareness takes practice.  Like building muscles in the gym, the more you flex your emotions, the more “emotional muscle” you’ll build. You wouldn’t expect to be a bodybuilder after just five minutes. The more consistently you practice, the greater the changes you’ll experience in the way you feel, think, and behave.

How will you know when you’ve practiced enough? You’ll know when you feel in control of your emotions, rather than the other way around.

Navigating Life’s Challenges with Strength and Adaptability

In the face of adversity, individuals with strong resilience skills possess the ability to bounce back, adapt, and thrive. Resilience is a critical psychological skill that enables people to navigate through life’s challenges, setbacks, and stressors effectively. Cultivating resilience skills can empower individuals to maintain a positive outlook, cope with difficulties, and emerge stronger from adverse experiences. This article explores the importance of resilience skills and offers practical strategies to enhance one’s resilience, backed by scientific research.

Understanding Resilience:

Resilience is commonly defined as the capacity to withstand and recover from adversity. It involves the ability to bounce back, adapt, and grow despite facing significant life challenges, such as trauma, loss, or major life transitions. Resilient individuals possess an optimistic mindset, emotional intelligence, and a repertoire of coping strategies that enable them to effectively deal with stressful situations.

Key Resilience Skills:

1. Emotional Regulation: Resilient individuals have a high degree of emotional intelligence, allowing them to recognise, understand, and manage their emotions. This skill helps them maintain composure, make rational decisions, and respond constructively to stressors.
2. Positive Thinking: Maintaining a positive outlook, even in challenging circumstances, is a hallmark of resilience. Optimistic individuals focus on strengths, possibilities, and potential solutions, helping them reframe setbacks as opportunities for growth.
3. Problem-Solving Skills: Resilience involves the ability to find solutions and take decisive action. Cultivating effective problem-solving skills equips individuals with the confidence and competence to navigate obstacles and create positive change in their lives.
4. Social Support: Building and nurturing a strong support network is vital for resilience. Having meaningful connections with family, friends, or support groups provides emotional support, empathy, and practical assistance during tough times.

Strategies to Enhance Resilience:

1. Building Self-Awareness: Developing a deep understanding of one’s strengths, values, and emotions forms the foundation of resilience. Self-reflection, journaling, and seeking feedback from trusted individuals can aid in self-awareness.
2. Mindfulness and Stress Reduction: Practicing mindfulness techniques, such as meditation and deep breathing, enhances resilience by fostering present-moment awareness, reducing stress, and promoting emotional well-being.
3. Cognitive Restructuring: Challenging negative thought patterns and replacing them with more positive and realistic ones can help build resilience. Cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) techniques can be employed to reframe negative beliefs and promote a resilient mindset.
4. Seeking Support: Actively seeking social support from trusted individuals during difficult times can significantly bolster resilience. Sharing experiences, seeking advice, and receiving encouragement from others can foster a sense of belonging and enhance coping abilities.

Conclusion:

Resilience is a valuable skill that empowers individuals to thrive in the face of adversity. By developing resilience skills, individuals can effectively navigate life’s challenges, bounce back from setbacks, and foster personal growth. Through emotional regulation, positive thinking, problem-solving, and social support, resilience can be nurtured and strengthened. By incorporating the strategies mentioned above, individuals can cultivate their resilience skills and embrace the opportunities for personal growth and well-being that arise from life’s difficulties.

References:

1. Masten, A. S. (2018). Resilience Theory and Research on Children and Families: Past, Present, and Promise. Journal of Family Theory & Review, 10(1), 12–31. doi: 10.1111/jftr.12267
2. Southwick, S. M., & Charney, D. S. (2018). Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life’s Greatest Challenges. Cambridge University Press.
3. Fredrickson, B. L. (2001). The role of positive emotions in positive psychology: The broaden-and-build theory of positive emotions. American Psychologist, 56(3), 218-226. doi: 10.1037/0003-066X.56.3.218
4. Masten, A. S., & Narayan, A. J. (2012). Child development in the context of disaster, war, and terrorism: Pathways of risk and resilience. Annual Review of Psychology, 63, 227–257. doi: 10.1146/annurev-psych-120710-100356
5. Rutter, M. (2012). Resilience as a dynamic concept. Development and Psychopathology, 24(2), 335-344. doi: 10.1017/S0954579412000028

What are Psycho-social Stressors and how do we cope?

Stressful life events can play a significant role in the development of mental health symptoms, and the prevention of mental health issues can be partly achieved by controlling stress. People may have problems in a number of different areas, including family, work, health, finances and so on in general coping with psychosocial stressors. One important way of controlling stress is to develop skills in identifying and addressing problems that arise on a day-to-day basis.  

Cues of Psycho-social Stressors to Action   

Identifying and defining problems requires an awareness that problems exist. There are various internal and external cues that can be helpful for recognising problems as they occur. Internal cues include physical bodily changes, such as muscle tension, headaches, changes in breathing, tightness in the chest. These physical changes can act as signals of stress, and a cue that unresolved problems need attention. Emotional changes (e.g., feelings of hopelessness, anxiety, worry) can also act as a cue that problems exist. Other people’s behaviour is also a useful indicator that difficulties exist. Family members, friends, and significant others are often good observers, and may be able to identify problems earlier than the person concerned. Unfortunately, it can often be hard to welcome the observations and comments of other people, particularly if they are perceived as criticisms or complaints. Although comments from others may at times be unjustified, they are useful because they indicate that something might be wrong.  

Identifying and Prioritising Problems  

Financial problems, for example, can lead to feelings of frustration, hopelessness, and being overwhelmed can make it seem impossible to address the difficulties, or even know where to begin. Having a clear procedure for identifying and addressing problems as they arise can help to minimise the sense of hopelessness and feeling of being overwhelmed. So, once it has been recognised that problems exist, it is useful to work through the following steps:

1. Prioritise the Problems

Often, people are faced with a number of difficulties and it is not clear which needs the most immediate attention. To begin the process of resolving problems, it is necessary to identify a few problems to work on, beginning with those of greatest urgency and importance. A useful way to do this is to make a list of all the issues that have consumed a lot of physical, emotional, and mental energy in recent times (e.g., over the past week). The next step is to order the items on the list according to the amount of energy that they have consumed. Then, prioritise the problems in terms of their importance or urgency. Ideally, the greatest amount of energy should be given to problems that are highest in priority and importance. If this is not happening, it may indicate that a lot of time and energy is being spent doing things that are less important or urgent, and would be better spent on high priority difficulties. The items that are ranked as highest in priority or urgency should be selected as the first difficulties to address.

2. Identify Coping Resources

Coping resources refer to aspects of yourself or the environment that can help in overcoming the difficulties you have identified. External resources include assistance from others, such as family, friends, therapists, and work colleagues. External resources can also include support services/agencies, financial assets, access to transport, and any other aspects of the environment that may help to overcome identified difficulties. Internal coping resources can include:

• Assertiveness  
• Intelligence 
• Sensitivity 
• A sense of humour 
• Time 
• Organisational ability 
• Resourcefulness 
• Energy 
• Creativity 
• Confidence 
• Ability to seek out and accept help from others 
• Perseverance 

3. Identify Barriers to Effective Coping

Several internal and external factors can interfere with successful coping, and it is important to recognise potential barriers to resolving problems, so that they can be minimised as much as possible. External barriers to effective problem solving can include a lack of information about the problem, lack of time, irregular schedules, deadlines, other demands, and insufficient resources (e.g., money, work). Internal barriers can include a lack of solutions for solving the problem, emotional distress, fearfulness, or unhelpful beliefs surrounding the problem and about your ability to solve the problem.

4. Address and Overcome Barriers to Effective Coping

Once you have identified your barriers to coping effectively, it is important that you address them and challenge any unhelpful thoughts or beliefs surrounding your circumstances. Remember that it is alright to ask for help or advice. 

Problem Solving  

Sometimes, it is not enough to just cope with the problems – they need to be solved. Most people engage in problem solving every day. It occurs automatically for many of the small decisions that need to be made on a daily basis. For example when making a decision about whether to get up now or sleep in for an extra 10 minutes, the possible choices and the relative risks and benefits of obeying the alarm clock or sleeping later come automatically to mind. Larger problems are addressed in a similar way. For example “I have tasks that need to be done by the end of the week. How am I going to get them all done on time?” After considering the possible strategies, one is chosen and implemented. If it proves to be ineffective, a different strategy is tried. People who can define problems, consider options, make choices, and implement a plan have all the basic skills required for effective problem solving. Sometimes following a step-by-step procedure for defining problems, generating solutions, and implementing solutions can make the process of problem solving seem less overwhelming. The following are step-by-step procedures for helping people to solve problems.  

1. Problem Identification and Definition

• State the problem as clearly as possible (e.g., I don’t have enough money to pay the bills)

• Be specific about the behaviour, situation, timing, and circumstances that make it a problem (eg, I need to pay the phone and gas bills, and I don’t have enough money to cover both this month)

  2. Generate Possible Solutions

• List all the possible solutions, don’t worry about the quality of the solutions at this stage

• Try to list at least 15 solutions, be creative and forget about the quality of the solution. If you allow yourself to be creative you may come up with some solutions that you would not otherwise have thought about

  3. Evaluate alternatives

• The next step is to go through and eliminate less desirable or unreasonable solutions

• Order the remaining solutions in order of preference

• Evaluate the remaining solutions in terms of their advantages and disadvantages

  4. Decide on a Solution

• Specify who will take action

• Specify how the solution will be implemented

• Specify when the solution will be implemented (e.g., tomorrow morning: phone the gas company and negotiate to pay the gas bill next month)

  5. Implement the Solution

• Implement the solution as planned

  6.Evaluate the Outcome

• Evaluate how effective the solution was

• Decide whether the existing plan needs to be revised, or whether a new plan is needed to better address the problem

• If so, return to step 2 to select a new solution or revise the existing solution, and repeat the remaining steps 

Counselling/therapy can assist you to develop the skills and strategies to cope with psycho-social stressors. 

Summary  

Stressful life events can play a significant role in the development of mental health issues
The prevention of mental health issues can be partly achieved by controlling stress
It is important to be aware of signals or cues that problems are occurring and to clearly identify and define them
Having a clear procedure for identifying and addressing problems as they arise can help to minimise the sense of hopelessness and feeling of being overwhelmed
The steps to better coping with psychosocial stressors are: prioritise the problems, identify coping resources, identify barriers to effective coping, address and overcome barriers to effective coping
Sometimes, it is not enough to just cope with the problems – they need to be solved
Problem-solving involves: identifying and defining the problem area or issue, generating potential solutions, evaluating alternatives, deciding on a solution, implementing the solution, and evaluating the outcome
As ups and downs are a fact of life, expect that you might have slip ups now and then. It will also help greatly for you to organise some social support for yourself through family members or friends so that you may have a good opportunity to be coping with psychosocial stressors.

An Effective Therapy for Healing Trauma

Eye Movement Desensitisation and Reprocessing (EMDR) is a psychotherapy approach that has gained significant recognition and popularity in recent years. Developed by Francine Shapiro in the late 1980s, EMDR has been extensively researched and utilised as a treatment method for various mental health conditions, particularly those associated with trauma. This article aims to provide an in-depth exploration of EMDR, including its theoretical foundations, therapeutic process, and the scientific evidence supporting its effectiveness.

Understanding EMDR:

EMDR is a comprehensive, integrative psychotherapy approach that combines elements from cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT), psychodynamic therapy, and bilateral stimulation techniques. The core principle of EMDR is that traumatic experiences can cause disruptions in the brain’s information processing system, leading to the development of distressing symptoms and negative beliefs. EMDR aims to reprocess these memories using bilateral stimulation, such as eye movements or tactile tapping, to facilitate adaptive resolution and alleviate symptoms.

The Therapeutic Process:

During an EMDR session, the therapist guides the client through a series of specific procedures. These include identifying the traumatic memories, negative beliefs, and associated emotions. The client then engages in bilateral stimulation, usually by following the therapist’s finger movements with their eyes, while simultaneously recalling the distressing memory. The bilateral stimulation is believed to facilitate the processing and integration of the memory, reducing its emotional impact and promoting psychological healing. The process may involve multiple sets of eye movements or other bilateral stimulation until the distress associated with the memory diminishes.

Effectiveness of EMDR:

Numerous studies have examined the effectiveness of EMDR as a treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), as well as other mental health conditions. One seminal meta-analysis conducted by Bisson and colleagues in 2013 reviewed 26 randomised controlled trials involving EMDR for PTSD treatment. The analysis demonstrated that EMDR was as effective as other well-established treatments, such as cognitive-behavioural therapies, in reducing PTSD symptoms.

Furthermore, a study by Rothbaum and colleagues in 2005 explored the long-term effects of EMDR in the treatment of PTSD. They found that participants who underwent EMDR showed sustained improvement in symptoms even at a one-year follow-up, suggesting the durability of its therapeutic effects.

Research Supporting EMDR:

EMDR has also been investigated in the context of other mental health conditions. A randomised controlled trial by Lee and colleagues in 2018 examined the efficacy of EMDR for panic disorder with agoraphobia. The results indicated that EMDR was effective in reducing panic symptoms, agoraphobic avoidance, and general anxiety compared to a waitlist control group.

Moreover, a systematic review by Cusack and colleagues in 2016 examined the use of EMDR for treating depression. While the number of studies was limited, the review suggested that EMDR may be a promising intervention for depression, particularly in conjunction with standard treatments.

Conclusion:

EMDR has emerged as a widely recognised and evidence-based treatment approach for various mental health conditions, especially those related to trauma. Its unique combination of cognitive restructuring, bilateral stimulation, and emotional processing techniques has shown promising results in reducing distressing symptoms and facilitating psychological healing. EMDR has demonstrated efficacy in treating PTSD, panic disorder, and holds potential for addressing depression. As more research is conducted, further insights will emerge, providing a clearer understanding of EMDR’s mechanisms and expanding its application to a broader range of mental health disorders.

References:

1. Bisson, J. I., Roberts, N. P., Andrew, M., Cooper, R., & Lewis, C. (2013). Psychological therapies for chronic post?traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) in adults. The Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews, (12), CD003388.
2. Rothbaum, B. O., Meadows, E. A., Resick, P., Foy, D. W., & Riggs, D. S. (2000). A randomised controlled trial of EMDR versus exposure and relaxation plus cognitive restructuring for chronic post-traumatic stress disorder. Journal of Consulting and Clinical Psychology, 68(5), 748–766.
3. Lee, C. W., Taylor, G., & Drummond, P. D. (2018). The efficacy of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) for post-traumatic stress disorder and depression among veterans: A randomised controlled trial. Military Medicine, 183(11-12), e731–e738.
4. Cusack, K., Jonas, D. E., Forneris, C. A., Wines, C., Sonis, J., Middleton, J. C., Feltner, C., Brownley, K. A., Olmsted, K. R., Greenblatt, A., & Weil, A. (2016). Psychological treatments for adults with post-traumatic stress disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis. Clinical Psychology Review, 43, 128–141.
5. Shapiro, F. (2014). The role of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR) therapy in medicine: Addressing the psychological and physical symptoms stemming from adverse life experiences. The Permanente Journal, 18(1), 71–77.
6. Shapiro, F. (2001). Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing: Basic principles, protocols, and procedures (2nd ed.). Guilford Press.
7. van der Kolk, B. A., Spinazzola, J., Blaustein, M. E., Hopper, J. W., Hopper, E. K., Korn, D. L., & Simpson, W. B. (2007). A randomised clinical trial of eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing (EMDR), fluoxetine, and pill placebo in the treatment of post-traumatic stress disorder: Treatment effects and long-term maintenance. Journal of Clinical Psychiatry, 68(1), 37–46.
8. Högberg, G., Pagani, M., Sundin, O., Soares, J., Aberg-Wistedt, A., Tärnell, B., & Hällström, T. (2007). On treatment with eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing of chronic post-traumatic stress disorder in public transportation workers—A randomised controlled study. Nordic Journal of Psychiatry, 61(1), 54–61.
9. Maxfield, L., & Hyer, L. (2002). The relationship between efficacy and methodology in studies investigating EMDR treatment of PTSD. Journal of Clinical Psychology, 58(1), 23–41.
10. Shapiro, F., & Solomon, R. (2018). Eye movement desensitisation and reprocessing: Past, present, and future. Springer Publishing Company.

 

Discover the importance of emotional intelligence and how boosting it can help you achieve your goals.

Are your emotions running the show instead of you?

 If so, it might be time to take some steps toward improving your emotional intelligence.

 While this won’t guarantee you that dream job, understanding and managing your emotions is crucial to leading a happy and healthy life.

 And what’s even better is that building this skill will also improve your interpersonal relationships.

 So, what are you waiting for?

 Join me as I discuss various strategies for getting a handle on those feelings and unlocking the power of emotional intelligence!

What Is Emotional Intelligence

Let’s begin with the basics – understanding the concept behind emotional intelligence.

 Emotional intelligence is the ability to comprehend and recognise emotions in oneself and others and then use this knowledge to inform better decision-making.

 It is essential for many areas of life, from work to personal relationships.

 An emotionally intelligent person will consider their own emotions in times of stress and those of others before making decisions.

 They will be aware of facial expressions and body language overheard during conversations, allowing them to read between the lines.

 Being able to communicate effectively also plays a role in emotional intelligence, allowing us to truly understand what someone may feel despite their words or behaviour.

 Furthermore, individuals who possess emotional intelligence can handle difficult conversations while managing their emotions with better skill.

 All these traits come together to form a crucial part of our daily lives – but why?

Why Emotional Intelligence Is Important

It is no surprise that emotional intelligence is a key factor in success, both professionally and personally.

 It provides the ability to identify, understand, use, and manage emotions to foster positive relationships and fulfill personal goals.

 Individuals with more developed emotional intelligence are more adept at understanding their own feelings as well as navigating interpersonal dynamics, and communicating effectively with others.

 This heightened self-awareness promotes better decision-making skills and the capacity to manage stressful situations with poise.

 People who have developed high levels of emotional intelligence are proven to be more capable leaders and team players.

 The reason behind this is emotional intelligence allows them to navigate better complex social and interpersonal relationships – all traits attributed to successful professionals.

 Ultimately, having this vital skill gives people a clear advantage in all facets of life.

Developing And Refining Emotional Intelligence

Do you feel like you’re in line with your emotions and have a perfect understanding of other people’s feelings?

 Well, the truth is that not everyone can confidently give a positive answer to this question.

 The good news is that emotional intelligence is not something you are born with but is something that can be developed and improved.

 And luckily for you, I have gathered some tips on how to do just that.

Becoming Self Aware

Developing a high degree of emotional intelligence starts with becoming self-aware.

 Self-awareness is the act of understanding one’s own strengths, weaknesses, values, and emotions.

 Taking time to get to know ourselves better – our motivations and triggers, our thought processes and habits – can make us more attuned to our internal states and those of others.

 Identifying areas we may need to improve upon to foster better relationships or take on more challenging tasks can help us recognise our potential.

 Overall, achieving greater self-awareness provides a strong foundation for building emotional intelligence.

Managing Your Emotions

With self-awareness comes the critical ability to manage your emotions and constructively apply them.

 For improving emotional intelligence, it’s essential to become aware of your feelings and recognise how they affect you and others.

 Once identified, take proactive steps to express, process, or change your emotion to align with a desired response or outcome.

 Managing emotions is a skill that can be intentionally utilised over time to lead to improved problem-solving capability and, ultimately, better decision-making.

Becoming Socially Aware

Developing social awareness is a fundamental component of increasing emotional intelligence.

 This can involve actively seeking new perspectives and being open to different ideas and thought processes.

 Being aware of the impact of your words and actions on other people’s emotions helps improve self-awareness, as well as understanding how people react in certain situations.

 Cultivating social awareness is an essential step in boosting emotional intelligence.

 It can help you build greater insight into what motivates people and gives you the knowledge of how to interact in different social situations.

Managing Your Social Skills

Strong social skills are increasingly becoming a crucial factor in society and are an essential piece of emotional intelligence.

 Working on improving social skills is a vital step towards further honing emotional intelligence.

 Putting effort into refining your abilities in this area can be beneficial in many areas – personally, interpersonally, and professionally.

 After all, there is more and more evidence to confirm that emotional intelligence can be the difference between performing at satisfactory levels and reaching the highest possible heights.

Final Thoughts

Now that you know a little more about emotional intelligence and how it can be improved, it’s time to put that knowledge into practice.

 So go out there and start being more self-aware, managing your emotions better, and improving your relationships.

 Your personal life and career will thank you for it!

 

Separation and divorce can put enormous pressure on families, especially families with young children. Parental alienation occurs when one parent attempts to eradicate the relationship between the children and the other parent, and it makes the difficulty of separation even worse. So, what is the impact of parental alienation on both the alienated parent and children involved, and how is this issue handled under Australian family law? 

Over my 35+ year professional experience, I have seen multiple cases of parental alienation perpetrated by both mothers and fathers. I also experienced parental alienation when my own parents separated when I was 8 years of age.

Parental separation in itself does not necessarily harm children. However, ongoing conflict between parents, including parental alienation activities, most assuredly does harm children. Offending parents often tell me that they are keeping their children safe from their other parent. In my experience, the motivations for such behaviour are generally much more to do with punishing or hurting their former partner or taking revenge on their former partner than protecting their children. Clearly, there are legitimate situations when children’s safety and well-being must be given priority. However, these situations are best dealt with through legal means.

What is Parental Alienation? 

Parental Alienation, or Parental Alienation Syndrome (PAS), is a term coined by Richard Gardner, an?American psychiatrist,?in 1985 and describes the act of one parent turning their child or children against the other parent. Tactics and strategies often used in this type of conduct include emotional manipulation, programming and brainwashing. 

What this ultimately leads to is a damaged relationship between the alienated parent and their children. Both the alienated parent and children are also at risk of suffering severe psychological trauma as a result of these malicious and false allegations. 

This term is widely used and accepted in?Australian family law?cases, especially when it comes to high-conflict custody and parenting disputes. 

What Are Some Examples of Parental Alienation? 

There are many examples of parental alienation, but some common examples that I have seen in my professional practice include: 

• Criticising or belittling the other parent in front of the child; 
• Sharing unnecessary details of the separation or divorce with the child; 
• Using the child to ‘spy’ or share information about the other parent; 
• Deliberately making the child unavailable to the other parent; 
• Suggesting the child has been abused or harassed by the other parent without any evidence, and; 
• Monitoring phone calls and other forms of communication between the child and the other parent. 

What is Parental Alienation Syndrome? 

Parental alienation syndrome (PAS) involves a child’s unwarranted rejection of one parent in response to the attitudes and actions of the other parent. This often causes children a great deal of emotional and psychological harm. They often feel guilty and torn by having to choose between loving both of their parents. 

PAS is often seen in high-conflict divorcing couples and parents who believe that the other parent has or will turn the children against them. PAS results in alienated children refusing to see a parent, adults who are still alienated from a parent, or elders who have “lost” their grandchildren to parental alienation. 

People may enter individual therapy presenting with anxiety, depression, or relationship problems and later reveal that they have been cut off from one parent by another parent during childhood. These people may be unaware of the meaning of the lost relationship and may even minimise its effect on their growth, development, and current mental health concerns. 

Children referred to a counsellor for acting out or experiencing academic problems may casually reveal that they have no contact with a “hated” parent. When questioned about the absent parent, these children may vehemently denounce the parent as “good riddance to bad rubbish.” The family of such a child may be manoeuvring behind the scenes to exclude the other parent from the child’s school life by mis-representing that parent’s intentions to school staff, withholding information from that parent to create the appearance of a lack of interest, and removing contact information from school records. 

Another consequence of PAS is people who enter therapy consumed with fear that the other parent is turning their children against them. Such parents will be desperate for advice and guidance about how to cope with the chronic provocation of the other parent. These parents live with anxiety, depression, and helplessness, as well as feelings of victimisation by the other parent, the child, and myriad systems (legal, mental health, school) that are not always responsive to the needs of targeted parents. 

In all these cases, one parent has engineered the child’s rejection of the other parent and poisoning the child’s relationship with the other parent generally in the absence of just cause. 

Parental alienation is a set of strategies that a parent uses to foster a child’s rejection of the other parent. Parental alienation syndrome develops in children who come to hate, fear, and reject the targeted parent as someone unworthy of having a relationship with them. Richard Gardner, PhD, described in “The Parental Alienation Syndrome: A Guide for Mental Health and Legal Professionals” that there are eight behavioural components that have been validated in a survey of targeted parents of severely alienated children (Baker & Darnall, 2007). 

Eight Manifestations of Parental Alienation Syndrome 

1. A Campaign of Denigration
   Alienated children are consumed with hatred of the targeted parent. They deny any positive past experiences and reject all contact and communication. Parents who were once loved and valued seemingly overnight become hated and feared.
2. Weak, Frivolous, and Absurd Rationalisations
   When alienated children are questioned about the reasons for their intense hostility toward the targeted parent, the explanations offered are not of the magnitude that typically would lead a child to reject a parent. These children may complain about the parent’s eating habits, food preparation, or appearance. They may also make wild accusations that could not possibly be true.
3. Lack of Ambivalence About the Alienating Parent
   Alienated children exhibit a lack of ambivalence about the alienating parent, demonstrating an automatic, reflexive, idealised support. That parent is perceived as perfect, while the other is perceived as wholly flawed. If an alienated child is asked to identify just one negative aspect of the alienating parent, he or she will probably draw a complete blank. This presentation is in contrast to the fact that most children have mixed feelings about even the best of parents and can usually talk about each parent as having both good and bad qualities. This is a normal state of affairs.
4. The “Independent Thinker” Phenomenon
   Even though alienated children appear to be unduly influenced by the alienating parent, they will adamantly insist that the decision to reject the targeted parent is theirs alone. They deny that their feelings about the targeted parent are in any way influenced by the alienating parent and often invoke the concept of free will to describe their decision.
5. Absence of Guilt About the Treatment of the Targeted Parent
   Alienated children typically appear rude, ungrateful, spiteful, and cold toward the targeted parent, and they appear to be impervious to feelings of guilt about their harsh treatment. Gratitude for gifts, favours, or child support provided by the targeted parent is non-existent. Children with parental alienation syndrome will often try to get whatever they can from that parent, declaring that it is owed to them.
6. Reflexive Support for the Alienating Parent in Parental Conflict
   Intact families, as well as recently separated and long-divorced couples, will have occasion for disagreement and conflict. In all cases, the alienated child will side with the alienating parent, regardless of how absurd or baseless that parent’s position may be. There is no willingness or attempt to be impartial when faced with inter-parental conflicts. Children with parental alienation syndrome have no interest in hearing the targeted parent’s point of view. Nothing the targeted parent could do or say makes any difference to these children.
7. Presence of Borrowed Scenarios
   Alienated children often make accusations toward the targeted parent that utilise phrases and ideas adopted from the alienating parent. Indications that a scenario is borrowed include the use of words or ideas that the child does not appear to understand, speaking in a scripted or robotic fashion, as well as making accusations that cannot be supported with detail.
8. Rejection of Extended Family
   Finally, the hatred of the targeted parent spreads to his or her extended family. Not only is the targeted parent denigrated, despised, and avoided but so are his or her extended family. Formerly beloved grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins are suddenly and completely avoided and rejected.

In a 2007 study (Baker & Darnall, 2007), targeted parents rated their children as experiencing these eight behavioural manifestations in a way that was generally consistent with Gardner’s theory. Parents reported that their children exhibited the eight behaviours with a high degree of frequency. One exception was alienated children being able to maintain a relationship with some members of the targeted parent’s extended family, which occurred in cases where that relative was actually aligned with the alienating parent.  

Emotional, Physical, and Sexual Abuse

Many alienated children report that the alienating parent had emotionally, physically, or sexually abused them. These data put to rest the prevailing notion that all children (in their naive wisdom) will ally themselves with the parent better able to attend to their needs. The people interviewed appeared to side with the parent on whom they had become dependent and whose approval they were most afraid of losing, not the parent who was most sensitive or capable. 

Cult Parallels

Cults offer a useful example for understanding parental alienation syndrome. Alienating parents appear to use many emotional manipulation and thought reform strategies that cult leaders use. Awareness of this analogy can help individuals who experienced parental alienation syndrome understand how they came to ally with a parent who was ultimately abusive and damaging. The analogy is also helpful for understanding the recovery and healing process. 

The research and clinical literature on recovery from cults offers useful ideas for adult children of parental alienation syndrome. For example, the way in which a person leaves a cult has ramifications for the recovery process. Cult members can walk away from a cult, be cast out of a cult, or be counselled out of a cult. Those who walk away (come to the realisation on their own that the cult is not healthy for them) and those who are counselled out (those who are exposed to a deliberate experience designed to instigate the desire to leave) tend to fare better than those who are cast out (those who are rejected from the cult for failing to meet its regulations and strictures) (Langone, 1994). 

Regardless of how the cult is abandoned, leaving represents only the beginning of the recovery process. Considerable time and effort is required (usually in therapy) to process the experience and undo the negative messages from the cult that have become incorporated into the self. The same may be true of adult children of parental alienation syndrome. 

Different Pathways to Realisation

There appear to be many different pathways to the realisation that one has been manipulated by a parent to unnecessarily reject the other parent. Eleven methods were described by research participants. This represents both good and bad news. The good news is that there are many different ways to evolve from alienation to realisation. The bad news is that there is no silver bullet or magic wand to spark that process. For some participants, it was a matter of time and gaining life experience. For others, it was the alienating parent turning on them and, for others, it was becoming a parent and being the target of parental alienation from their own children. For most, the process was just that—a process. 

There were a few epiphanies, but most experienced something like a slow chipping away of a long-held belief system, a slow awakening to a different truth and a more authentic self. Most gained self-respect and a connection to reality and were grateful to know “the truth.” At the same time, they acknowledged that this truth was hard won and quite painful. Once they were aware of the parental alienation, they had to come to terms with some painful truths, including that the alienating parent did not have their best interest at heart, that as children they had probably behaved very badly toward someone who did not deserve such treatment, and that they missed out on a relationship that may have had real value and benefit to them. 

Long-Term Negative Effects

Not surprisingly, many adult children with parental alienation syndrome believe that the experience had negative long-term consequences for them. Many speak of suffering from depression, turning to drugs and alcohol to numb the pain, failed relationships and multiple divorces and, most sadly, becoming alienated from their own children later in life. In this way, the inter-generational cycle of parental alienation syndrome is perpetuated. 

Wide Range of Alienation Tactics

The adult children with parental alienation syndrome described a range of alienating strategies, including constant bad-mouthing of the targeted parent, chronic interference with visitation and communication, and emotional manipulation to choose one parent over the other. These same strategies were confirmed in a subsequent study of targeted parents by Baker & Darnall in 2006.  

Working With Targeted Parents

In my work with parents who are facing parental alienation, I see the need to offer support, education, and guidance. My primary role is to help the person become educated about parental alienation (what are primary behaviours that turn a child against the other parent) and parental alienation syndrome (what are the behavioural manifestations of an alienated child) so the parent can determine whether this is in fact the problem. These parents must be encouraged to look at themselves and their relationship with their children prior to blaming the other parent for their difficulties. 

If the conclusion is that parental alienation is at work, the targeted parent can learn a series of responses to parental alienation that can allow the targeted parent to maintain the high road while not becoming overly passive or reactive. Such parents need ongoing validation and support in dealing with the pain and suffering associated with parental alienation. 

Working With Alienated Children

In working with older children who are currently alienated, I assist them to be self-reflective and aware so that they do not ally with the alienating parent against the targeted parent. A second concern is avoiding becoming intimidated or manipulated by the alienating parent. I assist the child to develop age-appropriate critical thinking skills in order to enhance his or her ability to resist the pressure to choose sides. The targeted parent and the child’s relationship with that parent must be validated for the child. I act as a role model who values and respects the targeted parent in order to counter the ongoing message that this parent is inadequate and someone to be discarded. 

Parental alienation is a complicated and painful issue. I aim to provide people with information, guidance and hope in my work with them. 

How Do the Courts Deal with Parental Alienation? 

While the courts can deal with cases of parental alienation under Australian family law in extreme cases, generally, your first approach should be to resolve the issue with dispute resolution mechanisms such as mediation or collaborative law. 

If these methods do not work, the alienated parent can take the issue to court. As with any?children’s matter, the court will always consider what is in the?best interests of the child. Under section 60CC of the?Family Law Act 1975, the primary considerations for this are: 

“(a) the benefit to the child of having a meaningful relationship with both of the child’s parents; and
(b) ?the need to protect the child from physical or psychological harm from being subjected to, or exposed to, abuse, neglect or family violence.” 

 

If it can be proven that there is evidence of family violence, including psychological harm, then the need to protect the child from physical and psychological harm will come first ahead of any other consideration. 

What You Should Do If You Experience Parental Alienation 

If you’re experiencing parental alienation and negotiating with your ex-spouse on your own accord has been unsuccessful, then you should consider mediation or collaborative law as a next step. The key differences between these two services is that?mediation?requires a neutral third party to remain impartial and offer no advice, whereas,?Collaborative Law?allows for both parties and their lawyers to work together to resolve the conflict. 

If these techniques do not work for your parental alienation situation, you should obtain legal assistance from an?experienced family lawyer?and seek an order through the Australian family law system. This court order allows the alienated parent to request a change in the child’s primary residence from one parent to the other. Remember, your child’s welfare should be your top priority when dealing with parental alienation. Make sure you do not over-share your opinions or concerns with your child during this process. 

References

Baker, A. J. L. (2007). Adult children of parental alienation syndrome: Breaking the ties that bind. New York: W. W. Norton. 

Baker, A. J. L. & Darnall, D. (2006). Behaviors and strategies employed in parental alienation: A survey of parental experiences. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 45 (1/2), 97-124. 

Baker, A. J. L. & Darnall, D. (2007). A construct study of the eight symptoms of severe parental alienation syndrome: A survey of parental experiences. Journal of Divorce & Remarriage, 47(1/2), 55-75. 

Gardner, R. (1998). The parental alienation syndrome: A guide for mental health and legal professionals. Cresskill, NJ: Creative Therapeutics, Inc. 

Langone, M. (ed) (1994). Recovery from cults: Help for victims of psychological and spiritual abuse. New York: W. W. Norton. 

Wallerstein, J., Lewis, J., & Blakeslee, S. (2001). The unexpected legacy of divorce: The 25-year landmark study. New York: Hyperion. 

Men’s Mental Health Week is a vital opportunity to shine a light on a topic that, for too long, has remained in the shadows. Despite increasing awareness about mental health across society, many men continue to struggle in silence. Suicide remains the leading cause of death for men under the age of 50 (Samaritans, 2023). It’s a stark reminder of the importance of encouraging men to prioritise their mental wellbeing.

The Pressure to Stay Silent

From a young age, boys are often socialised to believe that showing emotion is a sign of weakness. Expressions such as “man up” and “boys don’t cry” reflect deep-rooted societal expectations that equate masculinity with stoicism, self-reliance, and emotional suppression. This can lead many men to internalise distress, isolate themselves, or use harmful coping mechanisms such as substance misuse rather than seeking help (Robertson et al., 2018).

But the reality is this: everyone experiences emotional challenges. Seeking support isn’t a weakness – it’s a courageous and proactive step towards a healthier, more fulfilling life.

The Toll of Untreated Mental Health Issues

When mental health challenges go unaddressed, they can have serious consequences. Beyond the tragic loss of life to suicide, men are at increased risk of issues such as:

• Depression and anxiety
• Substance misuse
• Relationship breakdowns
• Work-related stress and burnout

Men are also less likely than women to access psychological therapies, with only 36% of referrals to talking therapies being male. This underlines the importance of making mental health services more approachable and tailored to men’s needs.

Redefining Strength: The Power of Speaking Up

Taking care of your mental health isn’t about abandoning strength – it’s about redefining it. Strength can mean reaching out, sharing your struggles with a mate, seeing a therapist, or simply taking the time to reflect and prioritise your wellbeing.

Campaigns like Movember and CALM (Campaign Against Living Miserably) have made great strides in encouraging men to speak openly about their mental health. But change also starts with the everyday conversations we have – with our friends, partners, sons, and colleagues.

Practical Steps for Supporting Men’s Mental Health

Here are a few simple yet powerful actions men can take to support their mental wellbeing:

1. Talk regularly – Whether it’s a close friend, GP, or counsellor, having someone to talk to can be life-changing.
2. Prioritise self-care – Regular exercise, healthy eating, sleep, and mindfulness all have proven benefits for mental health.
3. Limit alcohol and substance use – These are often used to mask emotional pain but can worsen mental health over time.
4. Know the signs – Irritability, fatigue, withdrawing socially, or losing interest in things once enjoyed can all be signs of depression or anxiety.
5. Normalise seeking help – Let the men in your life know it’s OK to not be OK.

Final Thoughts

Men’s Mental Health Week is a call to action: to break down stigma, open up conversations, and create a culture where men feel empowered to seek support. Everyone has mental health – and everyone deserves to have it cared for.

If you or someone you know is struggling, you’re not alone. Reach out. Talk. Listen. There is hope and there is help.

References

• NHS Digital. (2020). Psychological Therapies: Annual report on the use of IAPT services, England 2019–20.
• Robertson, S., Bagnall, A.-M., & Walker, M. (2018). Evidence for the effectiveness of approaches to promoting mental wellbeing, preventing mental ill-health and supporting people with mental health problems in the UK. Leeds Beckett University.
• Samaritans. (2023). Suicide Statistics Report. https://www.samaritans.org

 

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 At Your Total Wellbeing, I offer a safe, confidential, and supportive space to explore life’s challenges. Whether you’re feeling overwhelmed, navigating a major life transition, or simply seeking greater balance, you don’t have to do it alone.

 Take the first step today.

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Psychological Manipulation

Negative Talk: Constantly criticising or badmouthing the other parent in front of the child.

False Allegations: Making false claims of abuse or neglect to paint the other parent in a bad light.

Undermining Authority: Undermining the other parent’s rules and decisions to create a sense of chaos and distrust.

Guilt Induction: Making the child feel guilty for spending time with or showing affection toward the other parent.

Emotional Manipulation: Using the child’s love and loyalty as tools to turn them against the other parent.

Restricting Contact

Blocking Communication: Refusing to allow phone calls, emails, or other forms of communication between the child and the other parent.

Withholding Information: Not sharing important information about the child’s life, such as school events, medical appointments, or extracurricular activities.

Interfering with Visits: Scheduling activities or creating obstacles that prevent the child from spending time with the other parent.

Manipulation of Legal and Financial Systems

Manipulating Custody Arrangements: Consistently violating or manipulating custody agreements to reduce the other parent’s time with the child.

Abuse of Legal System: Filing frivolous legal actions to harass or burden the other parent.

False Reporting: Making false reports to authorities like Child Protective Services to create legal troubles for the other parent.

Systemic Abuse

Manipulation of the Child Support Agency: Providing false information or manipulating income details to unfairly alter child support obligations.

ATO Manipulation: Misreporting financial information to the Australian Taxation Office (ATO) to create financial difficulties for the other parent or to influence child support calculations.

Exploiting Welfare Systems: Misusing welfare benefits or public assistance programs to gain financial leverage over the other parent.

Social and Emotional Tactics

Isolation: Isolating the child from extended family and friends who are supportive of the other parent.

Controlling Social Media: Monitoring or restricting the child’s use of social media to prevent them from communicating with the other parent.

Inappropriate Confidant: Treating the child as a confidante and sharing inappropriate adult information about the other parent.

Psychological and Emotional Tactics

Creating Dependency: Making the child emotionally dependent on the alienating parent by fostering an unhealthy level of closeness and dependency.

Rewriting History: Distorting past events to create a false narrative about the other parent.

Forcing Loyalty: Forcing the child to choose sides, often under the threat of withdrawal of love or support.

Conclusion

These tactics can have severe and long-lasting effects on both the child and the alienated parent. Recognising these behaviours is the first step towards addressing and mitigating the impact of parental alienation.

Parental alienation is a heart-wrenching experience that can leave you feeling isolated, powerless, and deeply hurt. It’s a situation where a child becomes estranged from one parent due to the psychological manipulation by the other parent. This can result in a significant emotional toll on both the alienated parent and the child. However, there are ways to cope and navigate through this challenging period. Here are some strategies to help you survive and maintain your wellbeing.

Understand the Situation

The first step in dealing with parental alienation is to understand it. Recognise that this is a form of emotional abuse and manipulation, often stemming from the other parent’s unresolved issues. Knowledge is power, and understanding the dynamics at play can help you to approach the situation with clarity and resolve.

Your Composure

It’s natural to feel anger, frustration, and sadness, but maintaining your composure is crucial. Children are highly perceptive and can easily pick up on negative emotions. Strive to be a calm and stable presence in your child’s life. This doesn’t mean suppressing your feelings but managing them in a healthy way.

Seek Professional Help

Consider enlisting the help of a therapist or counsellor who specialises in parental alienation. They can provide you with coping strategies and emotional support. Therapy can also help your child if they are open to it, providing them with a safe space to express their feelings and work through their emotions.

Document Everything

Keep a detailed record of incidents that indicate parental alienation. This includes messages, emails, and notes about interactions and behaviours. This documentation can be essential if legal action becomes necessary. It also helps to keep a timeline of events to track patterns of behaviour.

Focus on Positive Interactions

When you do have contact with your child, focus on creating positive and meaningful experiences. Avoid discussing the alienation or speaking negatively about the other parent. Instead, engage in activities that your child enjoys and that strengthen your bond. This can help to rebuild trust and connection over time.

Communicate Effectively

If possible, maintain open and respectful communication with the other parent. This can be incredibly challenging, especially if they are the source of the alienation. However, demonstrating a willingness to co-operate and communicate can sometimes de-escalate conflicts and show your child that you are committed to their wellbeing.

Build a Support Network

Surround yourself with supportive friends, family members, and support groups. Sharing your experiences with others who understand can provide immense emotional relief and practical advice. Support groups, in particular, can offer a sense of community and solidarity.

Focus on Self-Care

Taking care of your own mental and physical health is vital. Engage in activities that bring you joy and relaxation. Exercise regularly, eat healthily, and ensure you get enough rest. Practices such as mindfulness and meditation can also help you manage stress and maintain emotional balance.

Educate Yourself

Read books, attend workshops, and seek out resources on parental alienation. The more you know, the better equipped you will be to handle the situation. Knowledge can empower you to take appropriate actions and make informed decisions.

Legal Action

If the alienation is severe and other methods have failed, it may be necessary to seek legal intervention. Consult with a family law solicitor who has experience in handling cases of parental alienation. They can guide you through the legal process and help protect your rights and your child’s best interests.

Conclusion

Coping with parental alienation is an emotionally exhausting and painful experience. However, by understanding the situation, maintaining composure, seeking professional help, and focusing on positive interactions, you can navigate this challenging terrain. Remember, you are not alone, and there are resources and support systems available to help you through this difficult time. Keep hope alive and continue to be a loving and stable presence in your child’s life, despite the obstacles.

The Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse is a metaphor depicting the end of times in the New Testament; the Four Horsemen of Relationships is used to describe communication styles that, according to research, can predict the end of a relationship.

The following four communication strategies (horsemen) predict the outcome of a relationship:

• Criticism
• Contempt
• Defensiveness
• Stonewalling

Through his extensive research, Dr John M Gottman (1976 & 2000) identified four negative behaviours that spell disaster for any relationship. Identifying if you and/or your partner use any of these communication strategies is the first step to eliminating them and replacing them with healthy, productive communication patterns.

The First Horseman: Criticism

Criticising your partner is different than offering a critique or voicing a complaint. The latter two are about specific issues, whereas the former is an attack on your partner at the core of their character. In effect, you are dismantling their whole being when you criticise. The important thing is to learn the difference between expressing a complaint and criticising:

• Complaint: “I was scared when you were running late and didn’t call me. I thought we had agreed that we would do that for each other.”
• Criticism: “You never think about how your behaviour is affecting other people. I don’t believe you are that forgetful, you’re just selfish. You never think of others! You never think of me!”

If you find that you and your partner are critical of each other, don’t assume your relationship is doomed to fail.

The problem with criticism is that, when it becomes pervasive, it paves the way for the other, far deadlier horsemen to follow. It makes the victim feel assaulted, rejected and hurt, and often causes the perpetrator and victim to fall into an escalating pattern where the first horseman reappears with greater and greater frequency and intensity, which eventually leads to contempt.

The Second Horseman: Contempt

When we communicate in this state, we are truly mean – we treat others with disrespect, mock them with sarcasm, ridicule, call them names and mimic or use body language such as eye-rolling or scoffing. The target of contempt is made to feel despised and worthless.

Contempt goes far beyond criticism. While criticism attacks your partner’s character, contempt assumes a position of moral superiority over them. For example, “You’re ‘tired’? Cry me a river. I’ve been with the kids all day, running around like mad to keep this house going and all you do when you come home from work is flop down on the lounge like a child and play those idiotic video games. I don’t have time to deal with another kid. Could you be any more pathetic?”

Research by Greta Hysi (2015) even shows that couples who are contemptuous of each other are more likely to suffer from infectious illness (colds, flu etc) than others due to weakened immune symptoms.

Contempt is fuelled by long-simmering negative thoughts about the partner which come to a head when the perpetrator attacks the accused from a position of relative superiority.

Most importantly, contempt is the single greatest predictor of divorce. If you want to avoid this outcome, it must be eliminated.

The Third Horseman: Defensiveness

The third horseman is defensiveness and it is typically a response to criticism. We’ve all been defensive at some point in our relationships and this horseman is nearly omnipresent when relationships are on the rocks. When we feel unjustly accused, we fish for excuses and play the innocent victim so that our partner will back off.

Unfortunately, this strategy is almost never successful. Our excuses just tell our partner that we don’t take their concerns seriously and that we won’t take responsibility for our mistakes. For example:

• Question: “Did you call Belinda and Steve to let them know that we’re not coming tonight as you promised you would this morning?”
• Defensive response: “I was just too busy today. You knew how busy my schedule was. Why didn’t you just do it?”

This partner not only responds defensively, they also reverse blame in an attempt to make it the other partner’s fault. Instead, a non-defensive response can express acceptance of responsibility, admission of fault and understanding of your partner’s perspective. For example: “Oh, I forgot. I should have asked you this morning to do it because I knew my day would be packed. That’s my fault. Let me call them right now.”

Although it is perfectly understandable to defend yourself if you’re stressed out and feeling attacked, this approach will not have the desired effect. Defensiveness will only escalate the conflict if the critical spouse does not back down or apologise. This is because defensiveness is really a way of blaming your partner and it won’t allow for healthy conflict management.

The Fourth Horseman: Stonewalling

Stonewalling usually develops as a response to contempt.

Stonewalling occurs when the listener withdraws from the interaction, shuts down and simply stops responding to their partner. Rather than confronting the issues with their partner, people who stonewall can make evasive manoeuvres such as tuning out, turning away, acting busy or engaging in obsessive or distracting behaviours.

It takes time for the negativity created by the first three horsemen to become overwhelming enough that stonewalling becomes an understandable “out”, however when it does, it frequently becomes a bad habit.

Unfortunately, stonewalling isn’t easy to stop. It is a result of feeling physiologically flooded which happens when our rational mind is flooded by our emotions and becomes disconnected – our nervous system is saturated and our pre-frontal cortex ceases to exercise its controlling function. When we stonewall, we may not even be in a physiological state where we can discuss things rationally.

If you feel like you’re stonewalling during a conflict, stop the discussion and ask your partner to take a break. For example: “Alright, I’m feeling too angry to keep talking about this now. Can we please take a break and come back to it in half an hour? It’ll be easier to work through this after I’ve calmed down.”

Then take those 30 minutes to do something alone that soothes you such as reading a book or magazine, taking a walk, going for a run. Just do anything that helps you to stop feeling flooded by your emotions and then return to the conversation once you feel ready.

Being able to identify the Four Horsemen in your conflict discussions is a necessary first step to eliminating them, however, this knowledge is not enough. To drive away destructive communication and conflict patterns, you must replace them with healthy, productive ones. Fortunately, each horseman has a proven positive behaviour that will counteract negativity.

References: 

• Gottman, John M. (1976) A Couple’s Guide to Communication, Research Press
• Gottman, John M. and Silver, Nan (2000) The Seven Principles for Making Marriage Work: A Practical Guide, Harmony Ink Press
• Hysi, Greta (2015) Conflict resolution styles and health outcomes in married couples: A systematic literature review, Research and Education “Challenges towards the future” Vol 2

We all know about the importance of listening in our relationship – and yet we still don’t listen when we should!

When we intellectually know something is both necessary and important, but we still choose to not pay much attention to it, that means there’s not enough perceived benefit to do it differently.

That’s human nature. Doing something because we “should” do it rarely works.

In our relationships, here’s what that looks like:

We know we “should” listen better to our partners … but we don’t.

It’s just easier to talk over our partners, tune them out or ignore what they’re trying to express if it doesn’t align with what we want to hear in that particular moment.

The distance between the partners widens over the course of years until one partner has one foot out the door … or worse.

Here’s an example:

I spoke with a woman recently who had placed 400 calls to her emotional affair partner in another state. Her husband was shocked until she explained how each one of those calls was a missed opportunity:

• She came to her husband when her father died.
• She came to her husband when their teenage daughter was in, what she felt, was a destructive relationship.
• She came to her husband when she wanted to go back to study to follow her dreams.

The list goes on and although the topics changed, her husband wasn’t interested.

Now the other partner is motivated. He wants to listen to her, stay up late talking to her, hang on her every word.

Now it might just be too late to save the marriage.

I’ve seen it at least a thousand times over in my professional life.

Why Listen? Because it Works!

Don’t listen because it’s the good, right and noble thing to do.

Don’t listen to your partner because every research study tells you that your relationship is at risk if you don’t.

Don’t do it because you “should”. Should is never compelling enough.

Instead, here’s how getting better at listening to your partner, is of great benefit:

• When you listen, you learn something about your partner.
• When you ignore or speak over them, you learn nothing.
• When you listen to your partner, you learn what’s important to him or her and what really matters to them.
• It gives you the opportunity to be their “go-to” person.
• It creates deeper connection and understanding.

Don’t do it because you should.

Do it because it’s the smart thing to do if you want your relationship to last and feel good.

Do it because it works.

The alternative is separation and divorce!

It is normal to be anxious from time to time.

Whether it’s something such as waiting to go into a job interview or an undefined fear about something unknown coming around the corner, anxious thoughts and feelings are a predictable and appropriate response.

However, what if your anxiety becomes relentless or overwhelming, or doesn’t seem to have a cause? In cases like these, when anxiety no longer seems like a reasonable response and your well-being is at risk, you need to take action.

What is Anxiety?

Anxiety is a mixture of uneasy feelings, including nervousness, worry and fear, about yourself or others.

It can be caused by specific situations such as sending your child to school for the first time, or realising that you’re lost in an unfamiliar location.

It can also be a response to your thoughts about things that have already happened or are yet to happen. You might find yourself worrying about whether you upset someone days ago, or feeling anxious about giving a big presentation at work that’s still weeks away.

Physical symptoms of anxiety include:

• Sweating
• Shaking
• Feeling sick
• Being unable to sleep

Mental effects are also wide-ranging and include:

• Clouded thinking
• Difficulty concentrating
• Over-active imagination
• Hyper-alertness

For some people, anxiety is also accompanied by misplaced feelings of embarrassment or shame.

Anxiety can range in intensity from a mild sense of uneasiness, to severe, even paralysing, distress. It can also vary in duration, from momentary to prolonged, and in some extreme cases, constant.

Anxiety is a common problem. The World Health Organisation (WHO) put the number of people suffering from problematic anxiety worldwide in 2017, at more than 300 million.

Why are we so Anxious?

There are many reasons why anxiety is so widespread. Although many of the physical threats our ancestors faced have been reduced or ruled out, more abstract threats have replaced them. These include worries about the economy, social standing and professional success.

Many aspects of modern life could also be to blame. For example, research has highlighted the damaging impact of social media use on anxiety and a study in the British Medical Journal drew a link between increased air pollution and raised anxiety.

Signs of Anxiety

Anxiety is a natural reaction to stress or threat. It is a hard-wired safety response, part of the “fight, flight, freeze” instinct.

When we or someone we care about is at risk, our brain prioritises the danger and focusses its energy on beating it. Complex thinking processes are shut down to allow us to concentrate on the danger at hand. Meanwhile, signals go out to our body to prepare for action. Adrenaline and cortisol (our major stress hormone) flood our bodies. Our breathing quickens, our heart starts pumping faster to send more blood to our muscles as we prepare to fight or run away. Both our mind and body adapt in order to give us the best chance of surviving until the danger passes.

The same responses can be triggered when there is no immediate physical danger. Just thinking about a threat, past or future, can be enough to activate intense anxiety. This can mean that there’s no clear end point to the threat, so all these anxious feelings can persist. In these circumstances, anxiety can evolve into something that’s problematic. When the perceived danger is constant, our body remains flooded with adrenaline and cortisol which is also not good for our physical health, especially our hearts.

Feeling a little anxious before a big exam, for example, might focus your mind and energise you to give your best performance on the day. However, if it becomes too much, it could make you feel sick, prevent you from sleeping properly and leave you with a shaky hand and a wandering or blank mind when the exam begins.

In more extreme cases, anxiety can become a recognised disorder. Anxiety disorders can cause severe health problems; so if anxiety impacts any aspect of your well-being, seek professional help.

Six Types of Anxiety Disorders

The six most common types of anxiety disorders are:

• Obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) – OCD causes people to have obsessive thoughts and compulsive behaviours. They feel anxious until they’ve responded in a particular way and often need to carry out complex physical or mental routines to do so. Family history, personality traits and differences in the brain are all believed to be causes of OCD. In some cases, it can be triggered by a particularly stressful life event.
• Panic disorder – You might have a panic disorder if you experience panic attacks (also called anxiety attacks). These can seem to come from nowhere and can last for several minutes. Classic symptoms of a panic attack include a sense of doom, sweating, dizziness, chest pain, heart palpitations and shortness of breath. People can feel as though they are having a heart attack or are dying.
• Post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) – This is a serious condition that commonly occurs when you’ve witnessed or experienced a disaster or traumatic event, or you’ve been in a situation where your life or health was threatened. People with PTSD often experience flashbacks and can also have trouble sleeping. They may find it hard to concentrate or feel constantly alert and on edge.
• Social anxiety disorder – This is more than extreme shyness, but a deep fear or concern of being judged by others, of performing or embarrassing yourself.
• Specific phobias – Suffering from a phobia is also a form of anxiety disorder. You have a phobia when you’re excessively frightened or anxious about a specific object, place or situation and you go out of your way to avoid it.
• Generalised anxiety disorder (GAD) – If you’ve experienced anxiety regularly for six months or more, you may have GAD. People with this condition consistently expect the worst to happen, even when there’s little or no reason to be concerned. They’re particularly susceptible to common worries such as those about family, work and money. Even when something is resolved, a new worry can quickly fill its place. People with GAD often struggle to recall the last time they didn’t feel anxious.

Tips for Dealing with Anxiety

Each of the anxiety disorders above has its own range of therapies and coping strategies.

Many forms of anxiety can be successfully treated with psychological therapies such as Cognitive Behavioural Therapy (CBT), cognitive restructuring and/or medication.

There are also various techniques for managing some of the common symptoms of anxiety. These can be helpful when you’re going through worrying times, at home or work, or facing particular challenges that make you anxious. Here are six strategies that you can try:

• Identify sources of stress – Stress, particularly long-term stress, is strongly linked to anxiety. A good place to start is the Homes and Rahe Stress Scale (https://www.mindtools.com/community/pages/article/newTCS_82.php?route=pages/article/newTCS_82.php). This tool allows you to analyse the sources of stress in your life. Another approach is to start keeping a stress diary. Every day write down the stresses that you experience and record any anxious thoughts that you have. After a few days, read your diary and explore possible causes and triggers.
  Once you’ve identified specific sources of stress and anxiety, you can take steps to avoid them, or at least to manage your feelings toward them. Knowing the triggers should also help you to discuss them with others and seek support when required.
• Exercise more – Studies show that regular exercise can help to reduce anxiety and build tolerance for stress. Look for opportunities to fit exercise into your day, as even small amounts of exercise can have a positive effect on anxious thoughts and feelings.
  Yoga can be especially useful for managing anxiety, since it helps to slow and focus your breathing and can give you more control over your body and mind.
• Watch what you eat – You can often lessen your anxiety by reducing or avoiding certain foods and drinks. For example, consider limiting your intake of caffeine, alcohol, soft drinks, energy drinks and chocolate. Watching what you eat also means eating a healthy, balanced diet, not skipping meals and staying hydrated throughout the day.
• Use relaxation techniques – You can use deep breathing exercises to control your stress and anxiety. Deep breathing is especially effective for managing short-term anxiety. If you begin to feel anxious, try taking 10 or 20 slow, deep breaths to calm down. Breathe in as deeply as you can, hold the air in your lungs for several seconds and let each breath out slowly. Other effective relaxation techniques include meditation, mindfulness and grounding.
• Think positively – Often, anxious episodes are preceded by self-sabotaging thoughts or behaviours. Before leading a meeting, for example, you might start imagining it getting out of control and worrying that you’re going to look bad in front of your team.
  To help with this, write down any negative thoughts as soon as they arise. Then, note down the exact opposites of those thoughts. For example, before your meeting, you could write, “I’m a confident and organised leader and the people I work with respect me”.
  As you write out these positive affirmations, start to visualise successful outcomes, both what you hope to happen and how you want to feel. Mentally rehearsing your meeting like this should relax your mind and body and help to keep your anxiety under control.
• Get more organised – Poor organisation can be a serious source of stress and anxiety. If this is the case with you, you’ll likely benefit from learning good time-management skills. Make sure that you manage your daily tasks and responsibilities effectively. Consider using a simple time-management technique such as a To-Do List or explore more in-depth tools such as Action Programs.
  A calm and organised working environment should also help you to feel more in control.

Anxiety during COVID-19 & other Triggering Times

During a time of crisis such as the coronavirus pandemic and the looming economic recession, it’s particularly important to manage your anxiety.

While it’s reasonable to be more concerned than usual about safety, you also need to ensure that your anxious thoughts don’t themselves become damaging. The term “coronanxiety” has been coined for this particular situation where anxiety has become more widespread, but anxious feelings can also extend beyond the dangers at hand.

In addition to all the techniques mentioned above, there are three more worth trying during difficult times:

• Limit your exposure to information – It’s important to stay informed, however, do you need a constant flow of information? Giving yourself some news-free periods can curb the urge to panic and help you to keep things in perspective.
• Focus on the things you can control – Anxiety may get out of hand when you can’t let go of issues that are simply too big or complex for you to solve. Instead, try to focus on the things that you can influence. Stick to routines and maintain your regular support network as much as possible. Aim to do things that make a positive impact but that also have an end point. For example, rather than worrying constantly about a neighbour, check in on them, do something practical to help and then draw a line under that particular worry for a while.
• Prioritise your wellbeing – During times like this, it’s more important than ever to eat well, take appropriate exercise, get good sleep and find time to relax. Try to do more of the things that make you feel calm and in control.

Sex and gender are always present: They are important aspects of who we are, yet they’re rarely discussed in a thoughtful way.

The following definitions are intended to provide a framework for discussion about gender – physical sex, assigned sex, gender identity, gender role, gender presentation and perceived gender.

Definitions to Help with Understanding Gender Diversity

• Physical sex is often identified simplistically in terms of the genitals we have, but physical sex is much more than that.

Just as human beings come in many shapes, sizes and colours, we also come in many varieties of physical sex, based on our own unique combination of chromosomes, hormones and physical characteristics. Inspecting a newborn’s genitals to determine whether the baby is a boy or a girl can be inconclusive or misleading.

Experts have estimated that approximately one percent of babies are born with bodies that differ in some way from what is considered standard for males or females. Some babies have physical characteristics that lead to confusion about whether they’re male or female. Other atypical aspects of physical, genetic and brain sex are invisible to the eye but may become apparent later, perhaps at puberty, or become apparent only if genetic tests are performed.

• Assigned sex is what people declare a baby to be at birth. Assignment is the answer to the question, “Is it a girl or a boy?”. Most of us don’t realise that sex was assigned to us, and we take for granted that we are the male or female that we were originally said to be.

However, sometimes sex is ambiguous (eg some babies are born with indeterminant genitalia) but even when a baby’s genitals look the way we expect them to, sex assignment on that basis alone isn’t necessarily accurate. For example, a baby born with a girl’s body, externally, was found to have a slight bulge in her groin when she was about four years of age. After bloods were taken and an ultrasound was undertaken, it was learned that she had male chromosomes (XY) and testes rather than ovaries.

Still other people have unambiguous genitals, but have a profound sense that their assigned sex was wrong and they’re deeply troubled by the bind in which they find themselves.

• Gender identity is a person’s internal understanding of their own true gender. Most people never question or contradict their assigned sex. They were declared to be a boy or girl at birth and that suits them completely.

Some children, however, know from a very young age that their assigned gender and apparent physical sex are wrong for them and that they are really the other gender. For some people, neither male nor female fits their understanding of themselves.

• Gender role is what society says is appropriate for males and females, including attire, behaviour and other activities such as using a particular public toilet.

When children encounter gender role restrictions that don’t make sense to them, they often conclude that they have a problem and begin monitoring themselves to make sure they don’t step outside the gender role considered appropriate for their assigned sex. For example, you’ve probably known an intelligent girl who played dumb to try to become more popular or a boy who held back tears at his beloved grandfather’s funeral because boys aren’t supposed to cry. We often forget how culturally specific gender roles are and that what is acceptable in one culture is completely unacceptable in another. For example, in Australia, women are permitted to drive; in some countries, it is forbidden. In some countries, men express their affection for each other freely, in Australia, doing so can be dangerous.

• Gender presentation is the way people express their gender or gender role outwardly, including the clothing and jewellery they choose; their mannerisms; the way they walk and use their hands; their hairstyle; the interests they express; and their speech.

• Perceived gender is how someone appears to others. Think about how you ‘know’ whether someone is male or female. We usually see people’s clothes, so we perceive gender based on gender presentation and how they fit society’s gender roles. We may think that we can tell whether someone is male or female, but what we perceive can be inaccurate.

What Does All This Mean?

Take a moment to think about the distinctions made above between physical sex, assigned sex, gender identity, gender role, gender presentation, and perceived gender. You probably can’t remember how you learned about your own gender, your physical sex or the sex you were assigned. We learn these things before we learn to talk. Most of us take them for granted and assume that everyone else does too.

However, you may be able to recall some of the ways you learned about what was considered appropriate for boys and girls.

You probably learned these things as a very young child by watching your family and friends. You may remember instances when you unknowingly crossed a gender line and were corrected, ridiculed or punished. Of course, if you objected to the rules, they were probably rigidly enforced. For example, if you were a girl who didn’t want to wear dresses, or a boy who did, you were probably not given a choice but made to conform.

Notice that we haven’t mentioned sexual orientation. Many people confuse gender and sexual orientation, and although they are related, they’re quite separate issues.

There are many different words and labels that people use to describe their sex or gender characteristics and identities. Here are some of the most common ones:

• Cisgender is a word that describes people whose gender agrees with their physical sex or assigned sex.
• Trans and gender diverse are general words for people whose gender is different from their physical sex, including transgender people.
• Transgender describes a person whose gender identity or gender expression does not conform to that typically associated with their sex assigned at birth.
• Genderqueer/non-binary describes any gender identity that sits within, outside of, across or between the spectrum of the male and female binary. A non-binary person might identify as gender fluid, trans masculine, trans feminine, agender, bigender etc.
• Intersex people are born with reproductive organs, hormone levels and/or sex chromosomes that aren’t exclusively male or female. There are many different states of being intersex and they are not always obvious on the outside or even diagnosed.

There are many other words and terms used to describe sex and gender diversity.

Consider the following scenario:

Jo and Tina are sitting on the lounge watching a movie, when they have the following conversation:

Jo: Hey sis, I have something to tell you. I’m Trans.

Tina: Oh, so that’s why you cut your hair and asked Mum to buy you boy’s clothes?

Jo: Yeah, those things help me express my gender and make me feel good.

Tina: Huh? I like my hair short too. It’s easier and shorts are way more comfortable.

Jo: Yeah but that’s not the same. I’m a boy inside, that’s my identity. Hairstyles and clothes show my gender expression.

Tina: Ah, I get it! Identity and gender expression are different. Since you’re a boy, should I start calling you my brother?

Jo: That would be awesome. Can you use he, him and his pronouns too? I’d really like you to call me Ben as well.

Tina: Ben…cool…I can do that. Would you like me to help you talk to Mum and Dad about this?

Ben (Jo): Yeah, I think I’m ready. Let’s go.

Later that day …

Ben: Mum, Dad, I’m worried about telling you something important because it might come as a surprise … I’m a boy. I’ve been thinking about this for a while.

Mum: Oh, you mean you’re trans? Thank you for telling us.

Dad: I don’t understand. What do you mean?

Tina: He’s a boy on the inside Dad. That’s why he cut his hair and wears boy’s clothes now. He said it makes him feel good.

Dad: I don’t understand this yet but I will find out more information about being trans. I love you and want to support you.

Ben: Thanks, Dad and Mum. You’ve made it much easier for me to talk to you about how I’m feeling. Thanks, Sis for your support, too. I love you all so very much.

Gender Identity: How You Feel on the Inside

As stated above, gender identity is how you feel on the inside, which might be different to your sex assigned at birth.

How family and friends respond to a loved one’s disclosure about their gender identity plays a major role in that individual’s wellbeing.

One of the issues which can arise for some people is gender dysphoria, which is the distress that can arise from the incongruence between a person’s gender identity and the gender assigned at birth.

Other issues people may face include negative family responses, bullying, discrimination and social exclusion which can all contribute to psychological distress.

Some trans and gender diverse individuals express gender diverse behaviour from a young age, while others do not express a trans or gender diverse identity until adolescence or adulthood.

Remember, there are no set rules for people with different gender identities. Every person is unique and that’s ok.

When a Relationship is tested … what next?

Life has many ways of testing a person’s will, either by having nothing happen at all or by having everything happen all at once.” Paulo Coelho

A worldwide pandemic …

A child struggling …

An affair discovered …

Words spoken that we can’t take back …

Words that should have been spoken, but never were…

These tests are giving us important information about where a relationship is vulnerable and where it needs some attention. The questions are: Will we listen? and, What will we hear?

One of my clients, who I’ll refer to as Janet, woke up when she found out about her husband’s affair. She realised all the ways she had been pushing her husband away since the kids were born. She realised she had stopped appreciating him and making deposits into the relationship – choosing instead to pour all of her energy and attention into the children. There was a lot of deep work involved, but their relationship today, is stronger than it’s been in a decade.

Another client, who I’ll refer to as Susan, had been struggling in her relationship for years. No longer able to distract from and deny the issues in these uncertain times, she’s seeing how far she and her husband have drifted apart over the years and she’s not certain that distance can ever be bridged (and she’s not sure she wants to try). They’ve been living as co-parents and roommates for a long time. She’s coming to the realisation that her relationship is ending.

Sometimes when a relationship is tested, it motivates the couple to heal what’s broken and make the relationship stronger.

Sometimes when a relationship is tested, it is the ‘final straw’ that marks the end.

But always, always, those tests point us to what’s not working in the relationship. They point us to where the relationship is vulnerable (and likely has been for a long time). They point us to what needs our attention.

So, if you feel like your relationship is being tested right now, look closely at what is needing your attention. Maybe you’re being called to grow in some way beyond where you are today as a couple, or maybe it’s time to tell the truth to yourself and your partner about what’s on your heart and mind.

If your relationship is being tested – it’s either the end or a new beginning.

Either way, it means change. As human beings we avoid change and detest uncertainty.

When we have no choice, however, we’d really prefer that the change and uncertainty take place in small increments so that the discomfort can be as comfortable and controlled as possible. That would be lovely. But unfortunately, it doesn’t always work that way.

Massive change requires massive changes.

Sometimes, you have to burn something (an identity, an idea, a way of being) to the ground in very dramatic fashion in order to create the kind of massive change that is needed.

And sometimes massive changes come in the form of massive destruction, a burning to the ground so-to-speak (either literally or metaphorically). This includes the ways in which we think about things. Our thoughts create our feelings and drive our behaviour. The good news is that we can change our thoughts and ways of thinking to alter how we feel and how we behave.

Many current models of emotions state that emotions are associated with urges to act in particular ways; these urges have been referred to as action tendencies (Frijda, 1986; Frijda, Kuipers, & Schure, 1989; Tooby & Cosmides, 1990). For instance, anger can create the urge to attack, fear can lead to the urge to avoid or escape, disgust can be associated with the urge to expel, and so on. It is important to note that action tendencies depend on the situation (Barrett, 2006). For instance, fear may create the urge to flee and the urge to take the car and race to the hospital after hearing that a friend had an accident. Likewise, anger may result in a strong urge to shout but may also increase the desire to turn away silently. Although people do not necessarily act upon these urges, they have ideas about possible courses of action when these specific urges are present. When people follow these urges, we speak of impulsive behaviour before consciously deciding to do so. In these cases, the behaviour is the immediate result of the emotion, not the individual’s deliberate choice (Strack & Deutsch, 2004). Impulsive behaviour can be regarded as the opposite of autonomous, self-regulated behaviour in which the individual consciously makes choices and takes responsibility for his or her actions. Impulsive, emotion-driven actions underlie a wide range of problems, including eating difficulties, violence, and addiction. Given the negative consequences of many impulsive actions, it is important to learn how to manage them. Research findings suggest that becoming more aware of the action tendencies generated by an emotional state can be an effective way to reduce impulsive acting (Fetterman, Robinson, Ode, & Gordon, 2010; Peters, Erisman, Upton, Baer & Roemer, 2011). This following tool was designed to make people aware of things that can easily trigger negative emotions and result in impulsive reactions to these emotions.

We all have “hot buttons,” things that trigger us and cause us to act in impulsive and unhelpful ways. This workbook is about becoming aware of our hot buttons and learning how to respond to them more effectively.

Step 1. Identify Hot Buttons

Grab some writing paper and a pen.

Consider what triggers, upsets or ticks you off. Maybe you dislike being interrupted, or perhaps you get upset when you arrive home to find the kitchen is a mess. These triggers are your personal “hot buttons.” On your piece of paper, write down all your hot buttons. The following unfinished sentences may help you to identify your hot buttons:

■ It makes me angry when…

■ I do not like it when people…

■ I feel offended when…

■ I think it is rude to…

■ At work, I wish people would…

■ At home, I think it would be better if family members would…

 

Step 2. Understand personal reactions to hot buttons

Now think about what you experience when a hot button has been pushed:

■ What happens in your body? Do you feel heat anywhere? Jittery? Sweaty? Does your heart beat faster?

■ What emotions usually show up? Do you notice anger? Frustration? Annoyance?

■ What thoughts go through your mind? “How inconsiderate!” “I am so over this!” “How rude.”

Make a note of these reactions.

 

Step 3. Identify coping strategies

Now we will explore how you deal with your buttons being pushed in everyday life. What do you tend to do when your hot button has been pushed? How do you deal with it?

Write down every coping strategy you use, regardless of whether it is a helpful strategy. For instance, you might say, “I walk away” or “I put my headphones on and ignore the person for the rest of the day” or “I express my feelings.”

 

Step 4. Highlight the effectiveness of coping strategies

Consider the effectiveness of each coping strategy you identified in the previous step; ask yourself how well the strategy helps solve the issue. What happens to both you and those around you as a result of coping in this way? For instance, if you tend to walk away, do you end up feeling lonely and isolated? If you tend to yell in frustration, do you later regret acting this way, and does this rupture the relationship between you and the other person? Focus on one coping strategy at a time and rate its effectiveness in reducing your reaction to the button being triggered on a 10-point scale such as the one below:

1     Not at all effective

2

3

4

5     Somewhat effective

6

7

8

9

10     Extremely effective

 

Step 5. Understand effective coping strategies

Consider the most effective coping strategies you tend to use (i.e., rated 6 or higher). Consider what makes these strategies useful, compared to those that are less effective. Can you think of other strategies that may be more effective? Write down your thoughts.

 

Step 6. Reflection

■ How was it doing this exercise?

■ What did you learn?

■ Could you be using more effective strategies?

■ What effective coping strategy resonates with you? Have you tried this before?

■ What steps can you take to prevent your and other people’s hot buttons from being pushed?

■ How might you be willing to use what you’ve identified in your life? How might you choose to do things differently?

“There is no secret to a long marriage – it’s hard work … it’s serious business, and certainly not for cowards.”

Ossie Davis

Relationship needs maintenance. Think about your car or the lawn mower of any other appliance, what happens if you don’t maintain them? They break down! It’s the same with relationships. Do the work and your reward is a happy, healthy, nurturing and long-lasting relationship.

Why do men and women struggle so much in their relationships? Our differences are at the core of what makes relationsips so difficult.

Here’s one big difference:

• Women speak to connect.
• Men listen for how to solve the problem.

Women mostly use communication as a point of connection, as means for understanding one another. We like the back and forth banter and sharing of ideas. It creates a sense of closeness and intimacy, connection and community.

Because men are the providers and problem solvers, they listen to understand the problem so that they can provide a solution. This discrepancy has been around forever and yet, we continue to struggle here.

What to Do Differently:

• For men: Ask, “How do you want me to listen to this?”. Be open to the idea that she is using this as a way to connect with you more deeply. Listen closely, share your perspectives, ask questions …
• For women: If you want him to connect with you – rather than solve your problem – you need to tell him so. Be specific. Tell him what you need.

Our differences are the reason we struggle so much in our most intimate relationships. But once we understand and acknowledge those differences (rather than push against them), maybe we can understand one another a little better and even feel a little closer to one another.

Marriage becomes hard work once you have poured the entirety of your life’s expectations for happiness into the hands of one mere person. Keeping that going is hard work.”  Elizabeth Gilbert

There are many differences between men and women. If we accept and seek to understand one another better, we can use that to create more fulfilling relationships.

Here’s another one of our differences:

• Men don’t recognise their need until it is urgent.
• Women recognise their need early on but easily get distracted and put that need on hold (or subjugate the need entirely).

To illustrate, let’s use an easy example:

A man will go most of the day without ever stopping to think, “Should I eat?” or “Am I hungry?”. But when he’s famished or feels a hunger-headache coming on, everything needs to stop so that he can eat.

A woman, on the other hand, will get a sense that she’s getting hungry and will think about going to the kitchen and grabbing something to eat … “right after I do this one more thing … and then this other one thing …”. It might be several hours later before she will go get her hunger need met.

Sound familiar?

So, as women we will often put our needs on the back-burner and then wonder why our needs never get met.

We have also learned that we should put others’ needs before our own. This often leads to us never getting our needs met and teaching those around us that we either: (1) have no needs, or that (2) our needs are unimportant.

And because we will put others’ needs before our own, we assume when our partner doesn’t put our needs before theirs – they are being selfish. Nope. Men were not taught that they “should” subjugate their needs or that it’s the “right thing to do.” (And in reality … it’s not really working out that well for us, ladies).

What to do differently:

First, notice when your partner is getting his needs met (or attempting to get his needs met) that he treats those needs as urgent. Stop short of judging that he should behave differently.

Second, and most importantly, stop overlooking your own needs and making them unimportant – to yourself and those around you.

We know how that works out and we cannot resent our needs not being met, when we’re the ones pushing them aside. Remember that we teach others how to treat us!

“Men are not hairy women.”  Alison Armstrong

Ladies, have you ever noticed how it feels almost effortless to hang out with a female friend?

The conversation just flows; the laughs come easily; you understand one another.

Have you ever wondered why communicating with your husband feels well, not so effortless?

That’s because he’s not your girlfriend and never will be.

He has different ways of communicating. He relates differently to his needs (and yours by the way). He has different strengths and different motivations.

When we stop trying to get him to be who we need him to be so that it can feel easy, we might be able to see, accept and experience him as he actually is. This is why we need other women in our lives, Ladies.

(And yes, the same is true from the man’s perspective as well. We’re not just a dude in a dress.)

This is the way we move forward together, with far more success and a lot less suffering. We gain a better understanding of one another and rather than fight against the centuries of gender-specific programming, judging and trying to change each other, we begin from a place of acceptance and adjust our approach so that we can create the kind of loving, connected relationships we desire.

Did you know: Your relationship with yourself sets the tone for every other relationship you have!

So what sort of relationship do you have with yourself?

Our self-esteem is what we think about ourselves.

When it’s positive, we have confidence and self-respect. We’re content with ourselves and our abilities, in who we are and our competence. Self-esteem is relatively stable, though it can fluctuate. Healthy self-esteem makes us resilient and hopeful about life.

Self-esteem affects not only what we think but also how we feel and behave. It has significant ramifications for our happiness and enjoyment of life. It considerably affects events in our life, including our relationships, our work and goals, and how we care for ourselves and our children.

The Impact of Impaired Self-Esteem

Impaired self-esteem can affect anyone. Even the most outwardly confident and successful person can experience a crippling poor self-esteem.

Although difficult events, such as a break-up, illness or loss of income may in the short term, impact on our self-esteem, those with a healthy self-esteem will soon rebound to think positively about themselves and their future.

Even when we fail, it doesn’t diminish our self-esteem. People with healthy self-esteem credit themselves when things go right – and when they don’t, they consider external causes and also honestly evaluate their mistakes and shortcomings. Then they improve upon them. They don’t blame others for their own mistakes or choices.

I prefer the terms healthy and impaired self-esteem rather than high and low, because narcissists and conceited individuals who appear to have high self-esteem actually don’t. Theirs is inflated, compensates for shame and insecurity, and is often unrelated to reality. Boasting is an example of impaired self-esteem, because it indicates that the person is dependent on others’ opinion of them. Healthy self-esteem requires that we’re able to honestly and realistically assess our strengths and weaknesses. We’re not too concerned about others’ opinions of us. When we accept our flaws without judgement, our self-acceptance goes beyond self-esteem.

Impaired self-esteem negatively impacts our ability to manage adversity and life’s disappointments. All of our relationships are affected, including our relationship with ourselves.

When our self-esteem is impaired, we feel insecure, compare ourselves to others, and doubt and criticise ourselves. We neither recognise our worth nor honour and express our needs and wants.

Instead, we may self-sacrifice, defer to others or try to control them and/or their feelings towards us to feel better about ourselves. For example, we might people-please, manipulate or devalue them, provoke jealousy or restrict their association with others. Consciously or unconsciously, we devalue ourselves, including our positive skills and attributes, making us hypersensitive to criticism.

We may also be afraid to try new things because we might fail. We might tell ourselves things like, “If I try and fail, I’ll look like an idiot and people will make fun of me.” Women, especially those who are mothers, very often exhibit impaired self-esteem through their behaviours and choices.

The following lists symptoms that reflect healthy vs. impaired self-esteem. Self-esteem varies on a continuum. It’s not black and white. You may relate to some but not all:

 When you have a healthy self-esteem, you:

Know you’re ok

Know you have value and that you matter

Feel competent and confident

Like yourself

Exhibit honesty and integrity

Trust yourself

Accept praise

Accept attention

Are self-responsible and honour yourself

Have an internal locus of control

Have self-efficacy to pursue goals

Have self-respect

Have self-compassion

Are happy for others’ good fortune

Have acceptance of others

Are satisfied in your relationships

Are assertive

Are optimistic

Welcome feedback

When you have an impaired self-esteem, you:

Feel that you are not enough

Lack self-worth and value, feel unimportant

Doubt yourself, feel incompetent and afraid to take a risk

Judge and dislike yourself

Please and agree with others

Are indecisive and ask others’ opinions

Deflect or distrust praise

Avoid/dislike attention

Discount your own feelings, wants or needs

Need others’ guidance or approval

Are afraid to start and do things

Allow abuse from others and put others first

Have self-judgement and self-loathing

Envy and compare yourself to others

Judge others

Are unhappy in your relationships

Defer to others, are indirect and afraid to express yourself

Feel anxious and pessimistic

Are defensive of real or perceived criticism

What causes Impaired Self-Esteem?

Our self-esteem begins developing as children. Growing up in a dysfunctional family can lead to a weakened self-esteem as an adult. Commonly in such families, as a child, you don’t have a voice; your opinions and desires aren’t taken seriously.

Parents in these families usually have impaired self-esteem and are unhappy with each other. They themselves neither have nor model good relationship skills, including co-operation, healthy boundaries, respect for others, assertiveness and conflict resolution. They may be abusive, controlling, interfering, manipulative, indifferent, inconsistent or just preoccupied. Directly or indirectly, they may shame their children’s feelings, personal traits and needs.

Children in these families learn that it’s not safe to be, to trust or to express themselves. They feel insecure, anxious and/or angry. They feel emotionally abandoned and conclude that they are at fault, they are not good enough to be acceptable to either or both their parents. However, they might still believe that they are loved. Eventually, these children don’t like themselves and feel inferior or inadequate. They grow up with impaired self-esteem and learn to hide their feelings, walk on eggshells, withdraw and try to please, or become aggressive. This reflects how toxic shame becomes internalised.

Toxic Shame

Shame runs deeper than self-esteem. It’s a profoundly painful emotion rather than a mental evaluation. Underlying toxic shame can lead to impaired self-esteem and other negative thoughts and feelings. It’s not just that we lack confidence, rather we might believe that we’re bad, worthless, inferior or unlovable. It creates feelings of false guilt, fear and hopelessness, and at times, feeling irredeemable. Shame is a major cause of depression and can lead to self-destructive behaviour, eating disorders, addiction and aggression.

Shame causes shame anxiety about anticipating shame in the future, usually in the form of rejection or judgement by other people. Shame anxiety makes it difficult to try new things, have intimate relationships, be spontaneous or take risks.

Sometimes we don’t realise that it’s not others’ judgements or rejection that we fear, but our failure to meet our own unrealistic standards, such as being able to do something perfectly the very first time we do it. We judge ourselves harshly for mistakes that others would also make. This pattern is very self-destructive for perfectionistic people. Our self-judgement can paralyse us so that we’re indecisive, because our internal critic will judge us no matter what we decide.

How Does our Self-Esteem Affect our Relationships?

Our relationship with ourselves provides a template for our relationships with others. It impacts our relationship happiness.

This is because self-esteem determines our communication style, boundaries and our ability to be intimate. Research indicates that a partner with healthy self-esteem can positively influence his or her partner’s self-esteem, but it also shows that impaired self-esteem portends a negative outcome for the relationship. This can become a self-reinforcing cycle of abandonment lowering self-esteem.

Impaired self-esteem hinders our ability to speak up about our wants and needs and share vulnerable feelings. This compromises honesty and intimacy. As a result of insecurity, shame and impaired self-esteem as children, we may have developed an attachment style that, to varying degrees, is anxious or avoidant and makes intimacy challenging. We pursue or distance ourselves from our partner and are usually attracted to someone who also has an insecure attachment style.

Generally, we allow others to treat us in the manner that we believe we deserve. When we don’t respect and honour ourselves, we won’t expect to be treated with respect and might accept abuse or withholding behaviour. Similarly, we may give more than we receive in our relationships and overdo at work.

Our inner critic can be judgemental of others, too. When we’re critical of our partner or highly defensive, it makes it difficult to problem-solve. Impaired self-esteem can also make us suspicious, needy or demanding of our partner.

Build a Better Relationship with Yourself

Self-esteem is generally determined by our teenage years; some of us struggle all our lives with impaired self-esteem and even the resulting depression.

However, we can change and build healthy self-esteem. Raising self-esteem means getting to know and love yourself – building a relationship, as you would with a friend – and becoming your own best friend. This takes attentive listening, quiet time, reflection and commitment.

The alternative is to be lost at sea, continually trying to prove yourself or win someone’s love, while never feeling truly lovable or enough – like something is missing. It’s difficult to get outside our own thoughts and beliefs to see ourselves from another perspective. Therapy can help us change how we think, act and what we believe.

WRAP stands for Wellness Recovery Action Plan. WRAP is a self-management and recovery system developed by a group of people who had mental health difficulties and who were struggling to incorporate wellness tools and strategies into their lives.” (Copeland, 2005)

A Wellness Recovery Action Plan or WRAP is a personal mental health recovery plan designed to:

• Decrease and prevent intrusive or troubling feelings and behaviours;
• Increase personal empowerment;
• Improve quality of life; and
• Assist people in achieving their own life goals and dreams.

It is a structured system to monitor uncomfortable and distressing symptoms, so that you can reduce, modify or eliminate those symptoms by using planned responses. This includes plans for how you want others to respond when symptoms have made it impossible for you to continue to make decisions, take care of yourself or keep yourself safe.

The person who experiences symptoms is the one who develops their personal WRAP, although they may choose to have supporters and health care professionals help them with this process.

The WRAP system was developed by people who have been dealing with a variety of psychiatric symptoms for many years, and who are working hard to feel better and get on with their lives.

Putting Your WRAP together

The first part of your WRAP is about developing a personal Wellness Toolbox. This might include things like contacting friends and supporters; peer counsellors; focussing exercises; relaxation and stress reduction exercises; journalling; creative, fun and affirming activities; exercise; diet; and getting a good night’s sleep.

Section 1:

Section 1 of your WRAP is the Daily Maintenance Plan. It has three parts:

1. A description of yourself when you are well;
2. Those Wellness Tools that you know you must use every day to maintain your wellness; and
3. A list of things you might need on any day.

Section 2:

The second part of your WRAP identifies those events or triggers that might make you feel worse, if they should happen (eg having a fight with a friend or getting a big bill). You then use your Wellness Tools to develop an Action Plan to help you get through the difficult time.

Section 3:

Section 3 of your personal WRAP identifies your Early Warning Signs, those subtle signs that let you know that you are beginning to feel worse (eg not being able to sleep, or feelings of nervousness).

Again, you use your Wellness Tools to develop an Action Plan for responding to these signs so you feel better quickly and prevent a possible difficult time.

Section 4: 

This component of your WRAP is used to list those signs that let you know that you are feeling much worse (eg you are feeling very sad all the time, or you have started hearing voices). Use your Wellness Tools to develop a powerful action plan that will help you feel better as quickly as possible and prevent an even more difficult time.

Section 5:

This section involves creating a Crisis Plan or Advance Directive, where you identify those signs that let others know they need to take over the responsibility for your care and decision-making. You decide who these people are; who you want to support you through this time; your preferred health care treatment; a plan for staying at home during this time; as well as things others can do that would help, and things they might do that would not be helpful. This section keeps you in control even when things seem out of control.

Section 6:

The final part of your WRAP is a post-crisis plan. You might want to write some of this section in advance of a crisis, or you may want to write most of it as you are recovering from the crisis, when you have a clearer picture of what you need to do for yourself to get well.

Once you have developed your own personal Wellness Recovery Action Plan, you will spend 15 or 20 minutes a day to review the document. As you become more familiar with your symptoms and your plan, it will take less time to review your WRAP.

You can get started on developing your own WRAP mental health recovery program, here.

Infidelity can be one of the most devastating events a couple can face. It shatters trust, creates deep emotional wounds, and can leave both partners questioning the future of the relationship. Yet, for some couples, infidelity does not mark the end. With commitment, compassion, and conscious effort, it is possible not only to recover but also to build a stronger, healthier relationship than before.

 Here’s how couples can navigate the complex journey of staying together after betrayal.

Understanding the Depth of the Hurt

 The partner who was unfaithful must first come to terms with the depth of pain they have caused. Infidelity is not just a breach of trust; it can trigger feelings of worthlessness, abandonment, and emotional trauma in the betrayed partner.

 To begin healing:

• Take full responsibility for the choice to stray, without minimising or making excuses.
• Listen empathetically and allow the hurt partner to express their feelings – as many times as needed.
• Avoid defensiveness and instead validate their pain with compassion and patience.

Creating Space for the Expression of Pain

 The partner who was betrayed needs space to grieve, rage, and process the emotional fallout. Their pain is real and valid, and it must be acknowledged without being rushed or silenced.

 Healing is aided when the hurt partner can:

• Speak openly about what they’re feeling, including doubts, fears, and insecurities.
• Ask questions about the betrayal, if needed, to make sense of what happened.
• Feel safe in their emotional expression, knowing they will be met with honesty rather than evasion.

Releasing Hurt and Resentment

 While expressing pain is important, remaining stuck in it can prevent progress. At some point, both partners must commit to the process of letting go – not forgetting, but releasing resentment in order to move forward.

 This involves:

• Naming emotions such as anger, sadness, and fear, and working through them constructively.
• Engaging in personal healing, which may include therapy, journalling, or self-care practices.
• Making a conscious choice to work towards forgiveness, even if it takes time.

Rebuilding Trust, Brick by Brick

 Trust is not rebuilt overnight. It requires consistent, transparent actions over time. The unfaithful partner must become dependable in new ways, and the betrayed partner must gradually become open to trusting again.

 Key actions include:

• Being transparent about whereabouts, phone access, or any other reassurance that promotes safety (without controlling the other person).
• Following through on promises, big or small – consistency builds credibility.
• Setting healthy boundaries together to protect the relationship from further harm.

Creating a New Foundation

 The old relationship may be gone – but in its place, a new relationship can be formed, one that is more honest, conscious, and connected. Both partners need to invest in creating this new chapter.

 This might look like:

• Attending couples therapy, where an impartial professional can guide difficult conversations and foster new understanding.
• Establishing new rituals of connection, such as regular date nights, shared hobbies, or gratitude practices.
• Reassessing relationship values, and aligning on mutual goals for the future.

Nurturing Emotional Intimacy

 Affairs often thrive in emotional distance. Rebuilding means learning to reconnect emotionally and prioritising intimacy in all its forms.

 To foster closeness:

• Share vulnerabilities and listen with curiosity rather than judgement.
• Be affectionate and kind, even when it feels difficult.
• Celebrate progress, however small, and acknowledge each other’s efforts.

Final Thoughts

 Recovering from infidelity is one of the most difficult paths a couple can walk. It requires bravery, humility, honesty, and immense emotional labour from both partners. But for those willing to do the work, healing is possible – not just as individuals, but as a couple.

 A healthy relationship after infidelity is not about going back to the way things were. It’s about co-creating something new, grounded in mutual respect, emotional honesty, and a deeper commitment to one another.

 If you and your partner are navigating this journey, consider seeking professional support. With guidance, understanding, and time, you can transform pain into growth – and betrayal into a foundation for a more fulfilling connection. You can read about this in more detail in my ebook “Healing Hearts – Rebuilding Trust After Betrayal” in my shop at https://your-total-wellbeing.net/shop/ 

To explore this further in person in a safe and supportive space, you’re welcome to book a session with me at https://www.halaxy.com/profile/ms-merryl-gee/social-worker/776291?clinic=1096691