Search Results for: lisa firestone/feed/2009/11/fear-of-intimacy

Tao, Jenny Yip, Mindfulness, Cognitive-Based Therapy

The Tao: Mindfulness-Based Cognitive-Behavior Therapy

…ess of exposures. This exercise requires clients to write about their most feared situations. Exposures via writing require the highest level of cognitive functioning. Unlike visual or auditory processing which comes and goes, when we write, we make a concerted effort to mindfully process our thoughts before externalizing them onto paper. This is infinitely more effective. Even if a client exposes to a feared situation in vivo, s/he can avoid or e…

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How to Break the Cycle of Child Abuse

…become intimidating and lash out at our children, they teach their kids to fear them. This can create ruptures in their attachment style and damage their sense of well-being. 5. Repair. Because we are human, we are bound to make mistakes. We will not be perfect with our children 100 percent of the time. What we can do when we mess up is repair. Dr. Daniel Siegel, co-author of No-Drama Discipline, describes a process of rupture and repair, which es…

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Tantrums

…ly in public, all parents experience humiliation. They are embarrassed and fear that onlookers will regard them as faulty parents. However, do not let your self-consciousness or self-attacks affect your actions. Your focus should not be on worrying about how you are being seen, but on tending to the agony that your child is going through. When your kid is in this state, do not send her to her room. Isolation is not a constructive solution because…

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You Don’t Really Know Yourself

…alized negative self-concept. It is understandable that most people have a fear of change, uncertainty, and the unfamiliar. It takes a good deal of courage to live without our customary defenses and the certainty of knowing who we are, even if the definition is negative. However, we have found that people can become accustomed to continual change; in the process, they become more interested in finding themselves rather than defining themselves in…

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PTSD: Why Does It Happen? How Survivors Can Heal

…act at a sound like a balloon popping. They may dread making a mistake for fear something terrible will happen, even if part of them knows it isn’t rational. It is as if the body’s self-defense system cannot be turned off. During the “fight, flight or freeze” survival response, the “senses become hypersensitive to better smell, hear, see and taste the danger… in preparation for further assessment and response,” explains sensorimotor psychotherapis…

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Making Sense of Your Covid Story

…matters to me? Were there instances that caused me overwhelming sadness or fear? Were there experiences that connected me to feelings of awe or joy?” When we make sense of our past, we empower ourselves to peel away layers that no longer serve us and, therefore, have more awareness to shape our future. In this way, creating a coherent narrative can help strengthen our resilience rather than defaulting to defenses from our past. It can also help co…

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Tips for Coping with Coronavirus Stress

…to do the same. We will all have moments when we are more or less calm or fearful, and we can take turns leaning on one another for support. We should also try to have fun, play games. and joke around. Laughing and allowing ourselves to relax with friends in familiar ways is something we should assign a lot of value in tough times. 5. Engage Your Mind When a crisis occurs, it can be really hard to think of anything else. Yet, with each day passin…

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Facing Into the Rough Winds of a Challenging Time

…y worries. As the stories unfold, I hear about witnessing gang violence or fear of gun violence in her school. Kidnappings, rape and gun violence have been part of our society for a long time. The increased frequency and intensity of anxiety I am seeing in our children has led me to wonder about why they are so anxious, struggling to feel grounded and secure. Unwelcome events interject themselves into our lives and those of our children in insidio…

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Finding Purpose in a World “On Hold”

…ee time” allotted to us from the Coronavirus. The lack of personal agency, fear for personal health and that our friends, family, and neighbors, has created a new, ominous, feeling to this “free time;” it contradicts its usual connotation of relaxation. Anxiety and depression, among many other mental disorders, are legitimate hurdles in everyday life, and the remarkable state of the current world has only made coping with our forced “free-time” ex…

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parents losing identity lockdown

Parents: Are You Losing Your Identity During Lockdown?

…not alone in our suffering. We can feel for ourselves, our sadness and our fear without feeling victimized or like we are all alone in our pain. People who have lost loved ones to Covid-19 know that the steps we take to keep one another safe are worth any amount of sacrifice. Yet it’s still okay to acknowledge that the losses we face extend into many areas of our lives. The time we miss with our friends don’t just connect us to them but to a part…

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