Summer vacations are too often talked about as fleeting episodes of bliss, short-term fairy tales set against tropical beaches and mystic sunsets. Yet the idea that our vacation lifestyle is the product of fantasy and that, in the end, we must return to our “real lives” can actually be entirely backward. In fact, it is often when we are on vacation and “letting go” that we are our truest selves, existing outside the roles and regulations we adhere to in our daily lives.

Naturally, the freedom we feel from responsibility plays a big role in our ability to relax and take time to do what we most enjoy. This freedom further awards us openness to new experiences, new people and new ways of relating to our loved ones.

The trouble is not that when we come home we return to our daily responsibilities; it is that we put a stop to the ways of being that we allowed ourselves to enjoy on vacation in favor of a routine manner of living and relating to our partners.

So for those of us who’ve been under the impression that summer love is as likely to fade as a summer suntan, here are some tips for bringing the intoxicating intimacy we experience on vacation home with us.

1. Bring newfound interests home with you
When we go on vacation our interest is in trying new things and expanding our identity. In our day-to-day lives, we often do just the opposite by putting ourselves into boxes we believe to be practical, safe or sensible. Away from home, in a foreign location, we are open to new activities: sports, food, clothes and customs. So when we find an activity we connect to, there is no reason not to take this interest home with us.

True, one may not be able to scale the Swiss Alps in Kansas or scuba dive in Nevada, but we can seek ways to adapt our new interest to our everyday life. Plus, it isn’t necessarily the skiing or seafood that made our vacation an exhilarating experience, but our openness to new activities that ignited a spirit of adventure in us. When we keep up this curiosity and sense of discovery, we feel more alive to ourselves and to our partners.

After a vacation of stepping onto the dance floor, jumping into the ocean and saying “yes just because this may be our only chance,” it is all too easy to fall back into the trap of making the excuses of two left feet or a bad back or to say “no because there’s plenty of time to do that.” Remember spontaneity need not be seasonal. We should never assume that just because we have to go back home we have to go back to the same old habits that although familiar, make life boring to us. The expanded knowledge we gain of ourselves while on vacation is an education that ought to continue well beyond the moment we claim our baggage.

2. Don’t give up “vacation sex”
In the 90’s film The Story of Us, a married couple played by Bruce Willis and Michelle Pfeiffer return from a romantic vacation in Italy and lay in bed trying to prioritize whether to complete a letter or to have sex. In a moment of awkward frustration, the husband blurts out, ”I just don’t want us to get to the point where we can’t make love unless there’s a concierge downstairs.”

There’s a reason the term “vacation sex” was coined. On vacation we tend to be more open, free of routines and habitual ways of relating that have replaced real connecting in our relationship. This mode of imagined relating is what psychologist Robert W. Firestone, refers to as a “fantasy bond.” A fantasy bond represents a fused identity as a couple that replaces the initial excitement and mutual respect we once felt as two individuals who loved and cared for each other. When we give up our individuality for the security of imagining that we are part of a couple, we lose the attraction we once felt toward each other. By letting go of habitual ways that we relate to each other as well as our resentments and assumptions about each other, we are more vulnerable, attractive and attracted to our partners and more open to affection and physical intimacy.

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Lisa Firestone , PhD, is the Director of Research and Education for The Glendon Association. Since 1987, she has been involved in clinical training and applied research in suicide and violence. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Firestone, her studies resulted in the development of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts (FAVT). Dr. Firestone has published numerous professional articles, and most recently was the co-author of the books: Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships (APA Books, 2006), Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice(New Harbinger, 2002), and Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion: The Wisdom of Psychotherapy (APA Books, 2003).

Other Posts by This Author:
Living Life on Your Own Terms
Suicide: The Warning Signs
Preventing Teen Suicide
More–

My cynical 16-year-old face would grimace each and every time. My older sister’s gentle, yet insistent voice: “Just tell yourself, ‘It’s not me’ it’s my OCD.’”

“How corny,” I would think before retaliating with, “You don’t understand, it is me.” These were my real thoughts. Real fears. I had real reasons to wash my hands 10 times an hour, to open doorknobs with my elbows, to avoid contact with bed sheets and dollar bills, to fear the tiniest speck of red on any carpet, because it could be blood – yes, blood. Obsessive compulsive or not, these were my thoughts, and nothing it seemed could make them go away.

At that point, the low point, it didn’t matter that my hands were literally cracked from being scrubbed so many times a day or that I could barely leave my room for fear of what I’d come in contact with in the outside world. All that mattered were the thoughts, the ever-present internal alarm system that told me when and what to fear. “Don’t touch that!,” it would say about a computer keyboard or a car door. Yet, no matter what I did – or didn’t do – the voices kept getting louder, and with my system constantly on high alert, I was beginning to watch my “normal” life slip away.

The scariest thing about OCD is how real it feels when you’re experiencing it. Crazy as it may look to an outside observer watching you switch on and off a light several times or count to four before entering a room, these are things your brain is telling you to do, as if they are completely routine methods of behavior – as if there was no other way to turn on a light or enter a room.

This is not to say that those of us who’ve suffered with OCD are not conscious of the neurotic or unusual implications of our behavior. I was very much aware that no one else engaged in my odd rituals. Stopping them may have seemed easy to someone who’s never known OCD, but stopping them meant standing up to my own brain, which was screaming at me to comply.

If I didn’t listen to the obsessive-compulsive thoughts, I believed I would be overwhelmed by fear and anxiety. On top of that, the thoughts were tricky, because they often sounded more soothing than threatening. The instructions from my brain were not always, “Don’t do this or else…” They were more like, “Just do this one thing, and you’ll have nothing to worry about.” This made it much harder to resist actions like washing my hands and avoiding contact with “contaminated” objects.

The trouble, however, was that the promise that just taking this one little action would leave me worry-free was never fulfilled. Even if an action like opening the door with my elbow relieved me for a brief moment, another thought would pop into my head straight away telling me to do something else: inspect the knob for dirt, change out of the sweater that had touched the knob, clean the knob with sanitizer, then wash my hands to remove all remnants of the stressful incident – the “stressful incident” being something like entering my kitchen.

The more I gave in, the stronger the thoughts became. OCD is like a monster living inside you. The more you feed it, the bigger and stronger it grows. The more you starve it, the smaller and weaker it becomes. But when that monster is living in your head, starving it is tricky and often terrifying.

When I refused to see a therapist, my older sister, a psychologist who knew a lot about OCD and how to treat it, stepped in. She explained to me that there is a program I can do that can actually change my brain and train it not to be afraid. At the time, I just couldn’t believe her and felt that, even if she was right, it just wasn’t worth taking all the steps the program involved – too risky and too terrifying.

Put simply, what the program involved was listing all of my fears on a scale from 1-10 and each day taking an action that went against the corresponding fear, starting from the least scary and working up to the scariest. All of this was done with no hand washing and limited showering. I was sure I couldn’t do it, but on some level, I knew I had no choice.

A day after making my list (the easy part), the hard work began. Everyday I would have to meet with my sister and touch something that scared me. It didn’t start out too bad. Day One, I had to touch a couple door knobs in my house or an old purse I had abandoned due to “contamination” (objects that were ranked as level ones). By Day Five, I was in a war zone. I screamed at my sister as she softly convinced me that I wouldn’t get better unless I touched the dirty laundry she held out in front of her. To make matters worse, after I touched it, she would make me face my biggest fear: eating with my seemingly spotless (but in my eyes filthy) hands. The horror was unbearable. I behaved like a torture victim, blasting my enemy/older sister, as if she was trying to destroy me.

Many times the struggles would last for hours, but they would all end the same; I would do what my sister asked, as long as she, my younger sister or a close friend, who I trusted and considered pure, would do the same. While the support and participation of my family was fundamental to the process, I wasn’t allowed to obsessively seek reassurance from anyone, as it fed into my entranced, cyclical thinking. When I asked my sister if she thought I was gross for touching a stranger’s arm or if she believed the dust from the laundry machine could have gotten on me, I was weakening my own belief in the contrary of each scenario. I wasn’t building the strength I needed to counter these absurd associations.

Throughout each horrific hurdle, my sister never grew impatient or sounded unkind, even as I attacked her with terrible insults. After completing each task, my face swollen and red with tears, I would feel sad but never as afraid as I felt in the anticipation. My sister would then help me with the most important follow-up step, distraction. To overcome obsessive compulsive disorder, you must not only resist the compulsions but stop the obsessing. To do this, my sister had me list things I enjoyed that calmed me down or demanded my attention. This being a rare instance where mind-numbing activities were actually encouraged and considered healthy, I did things like play video games, go shopping and eat foods I liked but rarely indulged in. Sure enough, I would always get distracted and tune out my previously tormented state.

By the end of each day, I would feel calmer and strangely relieved – with my biggest fears behind me. Feeling more like my old self, I would apologize to my sister for my outbursts and thank her for helping me. This would last until my next challenge, now bigger and scarier and closer to level 10. Still, by the end of one month, I successfully reached level 10. Ironically, at this point it was actually a little easier to do the tasks that had once scared me the most than some of the lower ranked ones I’d completed a few weeks prior.

Level 10 was soon complete, and I was on my way down the mountain. The world looked and felt different. Slowly, I was allowed more showers and rights to soap several times a day. As I readjusted to my old lifestyle, I was amazed by the new freedom I felt. I literally couldn’t believe the things that had once scared me.

Like any recovering addict, I knew not to take chances, knew that giving an inch could take a mile. When others acted grossed out by public restrooms or smelly foods, I knew not to turn my nose up and avoid what once terrified me. I knew that in my brain there was still a sticky switch – ready to turn on the minute I fed it power. But I also knew that I had the power to control this switch, that the rest of my brain could outsmart that small part that told me to think and rethink and question and speculate and worry. I finally knew what was me and what was my OCD, and I’ve never forgotten since.

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I awaited this time with dread. My family was going off to Europe without me, and I had visions of myself being home alone with my dialysis machine, (the reason I couldn’t travel) miserable and depressed. As it turns out, I’m actually feeling great, rediscovering what it is that I want to do with my time, and gaining some perspective on myself.

One big element in my feeling great emotionally is the fact that I’m finally feeling pretty well physically. After being clobbered by the vitality sucking effects of a chronic illness, I have started to regain some energy, the likes of which I haven’t experienced in years. With this, I have reached out to friends for socializing and dived into projects that have been neglected—gardening, painting, and random home improvements. I’m having fun and am savoring the sense of accomplishment. I love the feeling of setting out to do something and then doing it. These aren’t exotic adventures in far away lands, but I’m so happy to be able to enjoy life’s simple pleasures again.

For three years now, I have berated myself for being tired and not getting anything accomplished. I only now realize, with a newfound, mini-spring in my step, that I wasn’t being a lazy procrastinator (my frequent self-criticism), but rather, I simply physically could not muster the energy. There was no gas in my tank (in medical terms, extremely low hemoglobin levels). I feel sad that I have been so hard on myself and couldn’t see that I just needed to give myself a break. It feels better to have some compassion than to beat myself up.

This is a classic example of how we can be so turned against ourselves and not even know it. It’s a tricky thing. The negative inner voice in my head was not very “loud,” under the radar most of the time, I was barely aware of its presence.  I thought I was handling it by ignoring the critical thoughts or by telling myself that I was in fact sick. But now I can see what a huge impact the self-criticism has had on me, and since I am out of the forest with some energy I can see how real my limitations were, like physiological shackles, and how much I unnecessarily castigated myself.

While I may have turned a corner in terms of my increased energy, I’m sure this self-attack has not gone away for good. It’s clearly the tendency I have and it will need more attention. I’m just beginning to see where this condemning thought process comes from in my own personal history. Key for me was to ask, who is it I am identifying with when I hold this point of view about myself?” Interestingly, no one ever said anything of the sort to me. I never even heard anyone complain that this was their personal problem, so it didn’t come from any obvious role modeling. But as I dug a little deeper, I framed the question in a different way: Who am I identifying with by believing that I am powerless to accomplish anything? Then, it hit me.  The crux of the voice is “you are powerless.” I had no idea how intensely this notion ran through me. And I can see very clearly where this belief system came from and why. I internalized this belief about myself by being around that attitude growing up.

What is that nagging thing that you are constantly criticizing yourself for? What exactly are you saying to yourself? Where does it come from? Does having this point of view identify you with someone from your early life experiences? It’s a beneficial line of exploration and “becoming aware of the voice” is one of the most valuable contributions Dr. Robert Firestone, The Glendon Association and PsychAlive offer in helping us get right with ourselves.

Michelle Deen, M.A. is a marriage and family therapist specializing in human development and family relations. She is writing a book, Beyond Family Values Rhetoric, and is the author of the weblog Conventional Wizdumb.

Other Posts by This Author:
Where the Rubber Meets the Road
Open to Emotion
Gaining Awareness Through Loss
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Thursday, September 9, 2010
11:00 AM – 12:00 PM PDT

Family vacations have long been the subject of sitcoms and PG comedies, each following more or less the same predictable plotline: hopeful parents force resistant children into some mobile form of a bonding opportunity. They then undergo several slapstick disasters before everyone simultaneously recognizes the importance of family and enjoys a Brady Bunch-style, fun-in-the-sun finale.

We all wish the best for our family vacation, but often the stress of trying to make everyone happy and the pressure to make each moment perfect can lead to a less than wonderful excursion. The problems we hope will magically melt away when we finally have time to be with our loved ones unfortunately do not tend to jet in the face of jet lag. Coupled with the minor discomforts and distractions that can accompany travel, people may find themselves more stressed, irritable and less attuned to the wants and needs of those close to them.

So how do we avoid the typical pitfalls that take us away from the perfect family vacation we’ve always imagined? Here are some tips that can truly help us to slow down and enjoy every moment of our journey:

Lisa Firestone , PhD, is the Director of Research and Education for The Glendon Association. Since 1987, she has been involved in clinical training and applied research in suicide and violence. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Firestone, her studies resulted in the development of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts (FAVT). Dr. Firestone has published numerous professional articles, and most recently was the co-author of the books: Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships (APA Books, 2006), Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice(New Harbinger, 2002), and Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion: The Wisdom of Psychotherapy (APA Books, 2003).

Other Posts by This Author:
Living Life on Your Own Terms
Suicide: The Warning Signs
Preventing Teen Suicide
More–

Do you ever notice things feeling a bit off after seeing your family? Do the voices in your head second-guessing you get a little louder? Do you notice words coming out of your mouth that don’t even sound like you? If you answered yes to any of these questions, then you, like so many others, have experienced the downside of the family visit. Whether inviting your parents along for your summer vacation, spending a long weekend at your relatives’ or celebrating 4th of July with a family-reunion-style BBQ, you may be unaware that when you see your family you are risking exposure to much more than UVB rays.

This is not to say that the effects on one’s mental health of seeing one’s family are all negative or that there aren’t real joys that come with reconnecting with loved ones. But being around your parents or going back to the town in which you grew up can stir up implicit memories that automatically trigger feelings we felt in our past. Dr. Daniel Siegel, author of The Mindful Brain and Co-Director of the Mindful Awareness Research Center at UCLA wrote that “[A]crucial feature of implicit memory is that when we do retrieve an element of implicit memory into awareness we do not have the internal sensation that something is being accessed from a memory of the past. We just have the perceptual, emotional, somatosensory, or behavioral response without knowing that these are activations related to something we’ve experienced before.”

Click here to continue

Lisa Firestone , PhD, is the Director of Research and Education for The Glendon Association. Since 1987, she has been involved in clinical training and applied research in suicide and violence. In collaboration with Dr. Robert Firestone, her studies resulted in the development of the Firestone Assessment of Self-Destructive Thoughts (FAST) and the Firestone Assessment of Violent Thoughts (FAVT). Dr. Firestone has published numerous professional articles, and most recently was the co-author of the books: Sex and Love in Intimate Relationships (APA Books, 2006), Conquer Your Critical Inner Voice(New Harbinger, 2002), and Creating a Life of Meaning and Compassion: The Wisdom of Psychotherapy (APA Books, 2003).

Other Posts by This Author:
Living Life on Your Own Terms
Suicide: The Warning Signs
Preventing Teen Suicide
More–

Anyone who has indulged in romantic comedies like When Harry Met Sally, As Good as it Gets, Moonstruck or pretty much anything starring Sandra Bullock knows the theme of opposites attracting and enemies becoming lovers. This theme has been around since the beginning of time; We see it in Shakespeare’s Taming of the Shrew and Jane Austen’s Emma. Yet as much as many a film, novel or play would like us to believe it, we aren’t all that likely to fall in love with someone we initially cannot stand. But a new article begs the question, can we learn to fall in love with someone with whom we don’t initially feel that special “spark.”

Sure, attraction is necessary to starting any relationship, but how much do we depend on that initial attraction as a sign of lasting love? As a recent article by Dr. Robert Epstein puts it, “I don’t believe you can fall in love with absolutely anyone, but there are many people around us with whom we could very deliberately create lasting love.”

It may not seem that romantic: meeting someone, liking that person enough to give him or her a chance, then seeing whether strong feelings can develop toward that person. But Dr. Epstein’s article recommends we look at love a different way. In his interview with www.psychologies.co.uk, Dr. Epstein advises that we not be so passive in waiting for love to find us, to strike us with Cupid’s piercing arrow and overwhelm us with mental and physical attraction. Instead, he encourages people to be more open to love, more open to the flaws in our partners and less dependent on the notion that we have only one true  soulmate. Dr. Epstein goes on to warn us that the more we idealize a partner in the early stages of a relationship, the more disappointed we will be to eventually discover this person isn’t as perfect as we’d imagined.

So how can we make the best choice for ourselves? How can we learn to fall  in love and stay in love?

In the early stage of selecting a partner, it’s important to consider the ideal qualities we should look for in that partner that would lead to an ideal relationship. These qualities include maturity, non-defensiveness, honesty, empathy and a sense of humor (among others). When two people find these qualities in each other and make the choice to be together, they often possess strong feelings for each other that are very real to them: mutual respect, attraction and appreciation. By establishing that our partners possess these qualities, we can  feel confident that we have made a high-level choice for ourselves and can feel more comfortable sharing life closely with that person.

Once a relationship becomes more serious, it’s important to be wary of the ways we can become overly critical toward our partners. As much as we all say we want love, there are many defenses we possess that protect us from allowing ourselves to fully experience love and allow it to remain in our lives. Old hurts, memories and systems we once used to protect ourselves can unconsciously resurface when we get close to someone.

These defenses can take the shape of an internal enemy. This enemy is always there to put us down and threaten to sabotage our happiness. Think of all the times a voice inside your head told you not to ask out someone you like, not to be vulnerable to your partner, not to trust someone you love or not to believe that you are cared about. This same “critical inner voice” that turns on us can turn on our partners. Try to be wary of this voice and separate your real feelings from those you may be projecting from old defenses.

The more we act on our defenses, the more likely we are to replace the real love we once felt for our partners with a more routinized and dulled manner of relating. We may take the actions associated with being in love  like going out or moving in together, but as we do these things, we may not feel the same initial excitement we had toward our partners.

When we act on our defenses or listen to our critical inner voices, we are far less likely to remain vulnerable to those we love. We may protect ourselves with thoughts like: She never even thinks of me anymore, He’s not attracted to you, She’s going to leave you, so don’t get too close. Indulging in these thoughts can leave us distanced from our partners and our loving, attracted feelings. At the same time, we may not want to lose the security of being in a relationship, so we form what Dr. Robert Firestone refers to as a “fantasy bond.” The fantasy bond is an illusion of connection that allows us to maintain the form of a relationship, while losing our loving feelings toward our partners.

There are many ways to keep a relationship healthy and avoid the trappings of a fantasy bond. For one, we can have integrity in maintaining the ideal qualities in ourselves that support a healthy relationship. We can also be aware of the “critical inner voices” telling us to pull away from our loving feelings. Lastly, we can look for signs we are engaging in a fantasy bond and actively seek to interrupt these patterns.

Click here to read Dr. Epstein’s article “Can You Learn to Love Anyone?”

Related Articles:
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How do I Know if I Have a Fantasy Bond?
Seven Real Vows to make Your Marriage Last
The Inner Voice that Undermines Your Relationship
How to Make Love Last by Lisa Firestone, Ph.D.
Seven Qualities of an Ideal Partner

Watch psychologist Dr. Lisa Firestone discuss “The Qualities of an Ideal Relationship”:

Watch psychologist Dr. Lisa Firestone discuss “Why We Keep Making the Same Bad Choices”: