Talking with Your Children About Divorce

When people get married, the last thing they're thinking of is divorce. When people are welcoming their beautiful children into the world, the last thing they're thinking about is divorce, but unfortunately, divorce happens. Despite everyone's best intentions and best efforts, sometimes people do grow apart and can't ever seem to find that common ground that brought them together initially. Here are a few tips for navigating this difficult process:

Tips for Helping Children Through Divorce
• Be as honest with them as possible.
• Acknowledge their feelings.
• Discuss upcoming changes with them.
• Give them reassurance and a sense of security.
• Be fair when discussing their other parent.
• Provide them as much stability as possible.
• Support and encourage their individual
interests.
• Trust their ability to adapt.
• Tell them both of their parents love them.

Christmas Holidays and STRESS

Did you have any stress related to your Christmas holiday this year? If you did, you're certainly not alone. All over the world, people get their hopes and expectations really high and imagine a "Norman Rockwell/Hallmark" kind of Christmas.

The media, in an attempt to sell lots of toys, food, clothes, cars and jewelry, portray happy, joyous families. Everyone is hugging, kissing and getting along beautifully. For folks who did or didn't have thiskind of Christmas growing up, people get their hope up that Christmas will be like this if they just buy the "right stuff."

By the time Christmas Day arrives, everyone is exhausted and stressed. Someone says something careless and suddenly people are shouting, crying or storming around. Unfortunately, sometimes violence erupts and people get hurt, emotionally if not physically.

What to do? If anyone is willing to make a move toward peace or apology, this can be a way to nip things in the bud. Acknowledging that you may have spoken harshly or too quickly can do miraculous work toward restoring a nice day. If no one is willing to make that move, then getting some physical space might help. Just separating the quarreling people into different areas of the house might help. If alcohol or drugs are involved, the impaired person needs to be removed to a quiet spot where they can sleep and begin to sober up.

Families really do want to get along down deep, but hurt feelings can be very toxic and painful. The adult/parent figures in the house really do need to set the example of dealing with hurt/angry feelings withot violence to retaliation. Of course, processing all of this with a therapist can be helpful too! Take care and I'll see you soon!

Coping with Financial Insecurity

Who isn't having financial concerns these days? I don't know of anyone who isn't tightening their belt and looking for ways to cut their expenses. But you've heard the expression "penny-wise and pound-foolish?" You know what that means and I urge you not to make any major financial decisions without giving it considerable thought and time and checking with a couple of people that are financially savvy. I always prefer to think of how I can make more rather than spend less on the basics of living. I wanted to share some highlights of an excellent financial article with you! Feel free to talk about financial concerns in your therapy session too!

First: Look at the Big Picture. Denial isn't healthy. So first of all, be honest with yourself and take stock of your financial life.
While there is math involved in this process, it need not be a sophisticated analysis: a back-of-the envelope approach is generally sufficient.
What is the amount of your net worth, your investment assets, earned income and annual expenses? Do you anticipate significant financial events in the future-selling a business, an inheritance or paying off significant debts?
Assume that future returns over longer time periods will be equal to long term averages of capital markets–say 10% for stocks and 5% for bonds–or 7.5% for a 50/50 portfolio. Now do you have enough to meet your financial goals? Can you live on 5% to 8% of your working assets?
This exercise can help by distinguishing a real financial problem from psychic poverty– i.e. feeling poor, even if you're not. It should also help by highlighting the magnitude of any projected shortfalls.
Problem-focused Coping: Consider Alternatives. Knowledge is power and we're most stressed when we don't have alternatives. So if you identify a true financial problem looming, look at your financial life and consider your options.
Increase Income. Look at whether you have alternatives for generating additional earned income. Delay retirement. Consider a career change. Think about part time work. Review payout options in your retirement plan and/or Social Security.
Cut your Expenses. It's a good exercise to tighten our belts occasionally. Review your spending habits and cut out those extras.
Bigger Changes. Are there more significant alternatives to consider? Sell a vacation home. Move to that smaller house. Think about a reverse mortgage on your primary residence.
Review your investments. As our primary business, this is a constant process for us with our clients. We believe that the asset allocation is an investor's most important decision. Once set, it should be changed as your situation changes, but not in response to market conditions.
It's important to set the right mix of assets to match your goals and risk tolerance. Is your equity exposure correct? Do you have sufficient diversification–both in your equity and fixed income segments?
Be sensitive to timing: you don't want to decide to be more conservative and sell your equities in a down market. So move gradually if you decide you want to shift your assets.
Emotion-focused Coping: Now Move On. This is the tough part. Once you've done your homework and addressed the things you can change, refocus your energy in other directions. Develop a sense of healthy optimism in the future, rather than dwelling on potential problems or market fluctuations. The fancy psychological terms are: acceptance and positive re-interpretation–but our mothers knew best when they told us to find the silver lining.
In a recent study, Psychologists Ginzburg, Solomon and Bleich found that patients who repressed traumatic events in their lives generally fared better in coping than those who exhibited "a specific combination of anxiety and defensiveness". So the power of positive thinking does seem to work.
Our most successfully coping clients seem to be those who don't deny financial reality, but who also don't agonize over investment losses or possible future money problems. Developing a sense of trust in one's own personal resourcefulness–and in the future, seems to be a behavioral quality which can be cultivated.
After doing what you can to address your financial plan, divert your energy to family, to hobbies, to other interests. Don't dwell on investment fluctuations you know you can't control but wait for better economic times to come

By Jim Martin, President, Arbor Investment Advisors

What is psychotherapy supposed to do?

Many things bring people into my office, but at the heart of it all is one big thing: emotional pain. Sound familiar? Yes, everyone has emotional pain from time to time but every now and then, an event such as a divorce, loss of a job, death in the family or an affair will suddenly catapult the level of emotional pain that a person feels. The following article answers a lot of the tough questions people have. Hope it helps. See you this week?

Alice
What’s the cure? What does psychotherapy do?
If my answers here seem arbitrary, I encourage you again to read the earlier pages in this website before looking at this one. (Think of how strange it might be to someone who knows nothing of the human nervous system if you try to explain to him that the pain in his leg -- sciatica -- is caused by disc problems in his back. "My leg hurts, and you want to examine my back? What kind of quack are you?")

The cure for psychological problems is increased awareness of the "other agendas" discussed in Why go. Psychotherapy is the process that accomplishes this. The less aware we are of our motives, feelings, thoughts, actions, perceptions, the more they control us and the more we stay stuck in old patterns that don’t work anymore. Relief from symptoms lies in discovering and incorporating into our constant, every-day consciousness that which is being masked, distracted from, or indirectly "acted out" in symptoms. (Take a look at the characters in Personality for examples of this process.) Virtually all psychotherapies work in this way, by expanding awareness (which is why the term "shrink" is so silly; psychotherapy is supposed to do the opposite). In fact, even when the focus of treatment is not symptom relief, when the goal is a general increase in contentment, power, freedom, happiness -- "self-actualization" it’s sometimes called -- the key is awareness.

Before you say, "But I know what I feel, do, believe": If we were perfectly aware, we would have no symptoms. [Jim, Ed, Ed - II, Evan] We would experience reasonable emotional reactions to the ups and downs of life instead of sinking into incomprehensible panic, anxiety, depression. We would behave rationally, putting our talents, intelligence, and energy towards gratifying ends. We would learn from our mistakes; we would not hurt the ones we love nor be drawn to those who hurt us. Again, if this idea is hard to swallow, take a look at the earlier pages, especially Why Psychotherapy.

Of what exactly do we need to become aware? No, not of some forgotten childhood memory; that’s too glib and rarely is the answer. Rather, we need to recontact the specific experiences -- wholly lived moments of perception and feeling, regardless of where they originated and even if not attached to specific events -- that are being both avoided and indirectly expressed via symptoms. The bully needs to become conscious not of who bullied him (if anyone did), but of his fears of humiliation and powerlessness. Only by such means can he cease the constant compensation for those fears -- the insistence on total control of people and situations, the self-imposed isolation when he isn’t assured of such control, even the phobias and panic attacks that such people can develop when they fear losing that control. The flincher, too, needs to recall that same original horror so he can stop fearing it around every corner. Think what this means: To get over his symptoms, a person must face exactly that which his defenses were created to protect him from; he must face his worst nightmare.

The good news is that this awareness is the one magic psychotherapy has to offer. I have seen it again and again, in all kinds of patients, in friends, in myself: When you feel whatever it is you spend your energy trying not to feel, you feel better and you function better.
from the site: http://www.aboutpsychotherapy.com/Tthecure.htm

Tune in to yourself this holiday

If you know a little of yourself, you will have realized that you are more than meets your eyes in the mirror in the morning.

What you see is not what you are.

You see the form not the content, the body not the soul, the matter not the mind. In quiet and profound moments, we innately know that is true. But we forget.

The world tells us and wants us to believe that we are what we see - and we take the easy way out. We believe.

That's why the awakening of spirit and the flowering of our spirituality (nothing to do with religion) means we have to keep reminding ourselves, a hundred times a day, I am a soul - not a body, I am an eternal spirit - not a perishable piece of meat. I am quality, not quantity. I am. Otherwise, freedom is not possible.

And if we are not free, in the deepest space inside our own being, we cannot be truly happy.

~~Today's Thought~~
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The purpose of life is a life of purpose. ~~Robert Byrne~~