She had been married nearly 50 years, having married in her teens. It was a very long and seemingly happy marriage.
One day her husband told her he had never loved her.
He left.
She was devastated.
The Impact of a Relationship Ending
It is unlikely what he said was true, but so often I hear one of a couple tell their partner the same thing. It is as if in the moment they don’t love the person any more so it becomes “I never loved you”.
This woman had worked hard all her adult life. She was approaching retirement. They had been planning all the things they would do. Now all that was over.
She was facing retirement and old age on her own without the man who had been part of her life for almost 50 years.
Relationship Ending Cause Grief Too
And there was the pain.
He didn’t part amicably. It was nasty and messy. He left and ignored her. The only contact was through lawyers.
The Pain of Rejection
How do you recover when someone you have spent all your adult life with is gone?
It is hard enough when they die. But when their departure is due to them not wanting to be with you anymore that is excruciatingly painful.
It is an incredible rejection.
She had moulded herself to be the other half of a couple. They had a lifetime of memories together. The children they shared, the places they had lived, the pets they had over the years. Everything was a tattered wreck.
How Counselling Helped Her
The woman who walked into my room was shattered. She was stripped of self confidence, self esteem, self worth and sense of self. She was deeply grieving the loss of her future, her plans, her dreams.
But she was resilient. After a few sessions where she was able to express all her anger, devastation, fear and the desire to get him back, she began to realise how resilient she was.
She determined to reclaim her life. And to reclaim it as it related to her. Not as half a couple but as an individual.
Retelling Your Life Story
To do this she decided to tell her life story. Prior to this point she had been telling it as half of a couple. Now she told it as a single person.
She told and retold and retold the story.
She kept telling it until she was able to develop a fresh sense of self.
Finding Who You Are in the Retelling
With that newfound sense of self she was able to hold a fresh perspective on her life. With this perspective and her renewed sense of self she was able to find purpose and meaning in her life to date and in her life moving forward.
This may sound extreme, but we all tell and retell our life stories. Every time you relate to someone else the hurtful things in your past, or the great things in your past, you are telling your story.
What this woman did was look at her life story from a different perspective. She looked at is from the perspective of being an individual.
You can do this too, not just with your stories of loss, but with anything in your life.
Can I Help?
When you are in the depths of grief and rejection, it can be hard to find your story to tell and retell from a new perspective. At those times it can be helpful to see a specialist grief counsellor.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your loss and rejection, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
Do you need other people to validate the things you do?
Do you need the approval of others?
Do you find it hard making decisions for yourself?
Do you find it hard feeling self-reliant?
Do you find it hard to regulate your emotions?
Are you really hard on yourself?
Do you feel you have little or no worth?
Do you do things to numb your emotional pain?
Are you frightened of rejection and abandonment?
Do you feel you are stuck in angry mode?
Do you find it hard to feel joy or peace?
Do you find it hard to get close to other people?
Do you feel lonely and seek out others to compensate for your loneliness?
Do you feel lost, misunderstood or that you don’t fit in and others are judging you for that?
Do you frequently feel anxious or depressed?
Are you frightened of social situations and fear being rejected.
Do you feel others judge you as not being good enough?
Do you feel empowered in your life?
How childhood experiences can impact you as an adult
Did you know that trauma in childhood has a significant impact on your self-worth?
If your sense of safety and belonging in childhood was damaged you are likely to have developed skills to keep you safe in that situation. As you grew up you may never have unlearned those skills, so they trap you in patterns that don’t serve you in adulthood.
Also, poor attachment between your parents and you puts you at risk of suffering from loneliness in adulthood.
Traumatic experiences in your childhood disrupt how you see your self as a person and affect your ability to regulate your emotions. All this impacts on the quality of the interpersonal relationships you have later in life.
My parents didn’t physically or sexually abuse me. I can’t have suffered trauma.
It can be hard to understand you have been traumatised in childhood. The usual picture of trauma is that of being hit or sexually abused. But trauma covers much more than just that. In fact, the worst traumas are emotional and psychological.
Neglect
Neglect is a trauma that is often overlooked. With neglect the child’s physical and emotional needs are frequently overlooked. It may involve not receiving regular meals, not having clean clothes to wear, not having your emotional needs for comfort and support met. A parent who rarely interacts or shows an interest in you is also neglectful.
Neglectful parents are also unlikely to be there to teach you skills of emotional regulation. They may not teach you how to wash yourself, how often to change your clothes.
It is unlikely a neglectful parent will see you and spend time connecting to you. This is known as attunement. A child who is not seen is a child who is not safe. Not being safe is extremely traumatic.
The clear message in this situation is that you have no worth or value. After all, you are not worth having any time or attention given to you.
Narcissistic Parent
Narcissistic parents are also very destructive of a child’s sense of self-worth.
Such a parent depends on the child to make them feel good. The child gets positive attention when they do things that serve the parent. The trouble is, there are no clear guidelines as to what the child needs to do to serve the parent. Consequently, the child lives life second guessing the parent in order to feel that the parent will care for them and they will be safe.
Narcissistic parents will also often shame their children in front of others. They will expect their child to meet their needs, to do things to make them proud. They will never teach their child any skills that will equip them for adulthood and self-reliance.
Narcissistic parents will often hold the child close to serve their needs. They want the child to stay dependent on them because the child is there to serve their needs and that is why they had them.
One classic example is of a woman who would take her child to school. The child would happily run into the classroom and greet her friends. The mother would call her back and make a fuss of her, stating it was okay for mummy to leave now and she would be okay. The child would go back to her friends and be happily talking with them. Again, the mother would call her back. This would continue until the child’s resolve was broken and she would wail and beg her mother not to leave her.
A narcissistic parent is one of the most destructive types of parent and sentence their children to mental poor health and a dependence on validation from others in adulthood.
Complex PTSD and Borderline personality disorder
These conditions develop because of chronic trauma experienced in childhood. The type of trauma most associated with these conditions is emotional abuse and invalidation. It can happen if you are neglected or have a narcissistic parent. It can also happen from other types of abuse and invalidation.
Sometimes parents are not aware that their behaviour towards their children is invalidating and can be surprised when their child develops this disorder in adulthood.
When a parent is emotionally abusive or invalidating during a child’s early years it impacts on the child’s sense of self and the child can struggle to have a strong sense of self.
You may develop self-defeating attitudes and beliefs around yourself and the trustworthiness of the world.
When raised in such an environment it is also difficult to learn to regulate your emotions. This is often due to your parents being unable to regulate their emotions. How can you teach another person how to regulate their emotions if you can’t do it yourself.
For this reason, I encourage people who had difficult childhoods to seek counselling from a trauma trained professional before having children. Many parents who were emotionally abused as children are determined their own children will never have to go through that. But sometimes things your children do can trigger reactions in you that you can’t control and don’t like doing. If you find raising your children triggers behaviours you struggle to control then seek counselling. Seeking help makes you a good parent.
Unstable and intense relationships
If you find that any type of relationship you have with others tends to be intense and over time unstable then you may be experiencing the impacts of chronic trauma in childhood. Sometimes these relationships happen because you are uncomfortable being alone and seek out anyone who looks willing to be in a relationship with you. This can result in you unconsciously choosing the wrong type of person to have a relationship with.
Sometimes when you are in a relationship you can sabotage it by clinging to the person and unwittingly pushing them away.
I think you are the best, I hate you patterns
Another impact of childhood trauma can be seen in meeting someone new and idealising them. This continues for some time then you start devaluing them and finding things wrong with them.
You are too hard on yourself
One of the saddest impacts of childhood trauma is the lack of self-worth and lack of self-compassion.
It is not surprising that children develop these beliefs. When a parent is abusive, or expects you to jump over hoops to gain their approval, the natural response is to believe this is because you are a bad person. If your parent constantly tells you that you are bad then this belief is reinforced.
The reality is that a child is just a child learning how to live life. There is no inherent badness in a child. Sadly a child doesn’t know that. Shame becomes a big part of the life of an abused child.
Ways to dull the pain
If you never learned how to regulate your emotions, and you believe you are a bad person, then you feel great pain that you don’t know how to soothe.
Many people turn to behaviours that numb the pain. These behaviours may be dangerous. A good example of this is children who steal cars then drive them dangerously at high speed. The risk and dangers inherent in this activity help to suppress their pain.
Other things people do include addictions such as substance abuse, smoking or vaping, gambling, compulsive shopping, sex addiction, exercise addiction and eating disorders.
I am lonely
If you don’t feel you are worth anything then you may not feel you are likeable. The result is that you may avoid getting close to others so that they can’t reject you.
Getting close to another person means exposing yourself to the rejection of your parents. If they rejected you, then other people will too.
When you do form relationships with others you may be frightened of expressing your needs or asking for help because your parents failed to meet those needs when you were a child. So you may feel even lonelier because you can’t turn to someone for help.
Many people who suffered trauma in childhood report feeling lonely.
Depression and Anxiety
It is very common for someone traumatised as a child to be anxious. Your childhood was an anxious time of never being sure when you would receive support, or whether you may be abused. Abusers are rarely predictable so hypervigilance was an essential part of childhood.
Hypervigilance leads to anxiety. There is the need to be constantly on your guard because you never know what is going to happen in the next minute. You never know when things will suddenly become dangerous and frightening.
When you grow up and things become safer the fear doesn’t go away because your brain has developed neural pathways that constantly scan for danger. This is why anxiety is a constant companion of the traumatised child.
Depression is another consequence of this type of childhood. Many people report feeling depressed from childhood. The sense of not being good enough, the lack of self-worth, being emotionally worn down with anxiety and fear, the rejection and abandonment of parents and the sense of never being safe all contribute to feeling overwhelmed and hopeless and lead into depression.
I constantly feel on edge
The environment of neglect and emotional abuse is a highly stressful environment. Children in this situation are being impacted regularly by the release of stress hormones in the body. This has an impact on the developing brain and will often result in an adult who is highly sensitive to stress hormones.
The result is that your brain is in a constant state of defending yourself. In other words the fight/flight/freeze response.
It is very difficult to cope with life if your brain is constantly seeing danger and you spend a lot of time with your brain taking over your life and deciding whether you are to fight, run away, or freeze.
When this defence mechanism takes over, your thinking brain switches off. You can’t control your reactions. Sadly, very few people understand this and you may find yourself judged when you get stuck in this defence response.
It is for this reason that it is important to seek counselling from a qualified trauma counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your childhood trauma, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
As you try to come to terms with your grief it can feel so hard to do. Being able to verbalise what you are feeling and experiencing can be so difficult to accomplish that many people never process their grief to that depth.
Grief is complex, overwhelming and unsettling.
The 5 stages of death belief
Back in the 70s it was thought that grief was processed in a straight line. There was a five stage process that you went through in that order. According to this theory you were supposed to experience the stages of:
Denial
Anger
Bargaining
Depression
Acceptance
Later an extra stage was added:
Meaning
This was a theory formed to describe the process of dying, not the process of grief.
So much harm was done to people who weren’t grieving according to the rigid stages structure. Even today, there are those who adhere to this long defunct theory.
The effects of grief are more complex than a simple linear theory.
The tasks of grieving
There have been many theories of death proposed since then. In many of the theories it was suggested there were “tasks” to be completed during the grieving process.
One of the most popular theories gives four tasks:
Accept the reality of the loss
Process the pain of grief
Adjust to a world without the one you lost
Find an enduring connection with the person in the midst of embarking on a new life.
The tasks in themselves aren’t wrong. But a rigid adherence to them is not helpful when you are grieving.
Oscillating between grief and life
More recently the Dual Process Model has become popular. In this theory you oscillate between loss oriented mode and restoration oriented mode. This model has great validity. You need to keep living so you do have to live in the real world and there are tasks of living you still need to do. Additionally you need to learn how to live in the world without the one you love. You also need to process the loss so you need to spend time and allow yourself to experience and accept the emotional pain of your loss.
But there is more to understanding grief than oscillating from loss and restoration.
Multidimensional Grief Theory
In 2023 a paper was released describing Multidimensional Grief Theory (MGT). This theory relates to children aged 7-18 who are grieving. According to the theory there are three dimensions of grief. They are:
• Separation Distress
• Existential/identity distress
• Circumstance-related distress
Although this is aimed at children, my reading of the theory is that it can be applied to adults as well.
Separation Distress
Separation distress is not just an emotional reaction. It also involves areas of the brain where attachments to other people form. When someone close dies, there is a time of that area of the brain removing and altering neural networks connected to that person.
The big issue with separation distress is finding a way to feel connected to the person you are grieving for, even when they are gone.
Existential and Identity exploration
Every time you lose a loved one, there is a period of redefining yourself. This happens because every person you are connected to helps you define who you are. When one person dies, especially if they were very important in your life, you have to redefine who you are.
Every loss is a challenge existentially. I have found this is greater when it is the first time you have encountered the death of someone you know.
The way they died
The last dimension of grief relates to the circumstances of that person’s death. How do you think and feel about the way they died? How do you learn to accept that?
These three dimensions of grief have a major impact on how well you process grief and incorporate it into your life.
The importance of understanding what is happening to you
You may wonder why I am giving you all this information.
It is important you understand what is happening to you. When people talk about you being in denial or anger you can understand this is an outmoded theory on dying that was misapplied to grief.
If someone talks to you about tasks you must complete you can understand what they are referring to.
You are more likely to hear about the dual process model if you visit me and I will explain how you sometimes are overwhelmed by grief and other times focused on daily tasks and learning to live after your loss.
As for MGT, I am also likely to discuss with you the impact on your brain of the separation from the one you love. I will also at some stage explore the existential and identity aspects of your loss. You may also want to talk about how your loved one died so I will most likely explore your perception of that with you.
To Summarise
Grief is a complicated journey. There is a lot to process and a lot of physical changes in your brain to be completed. You need to learn how to live in the world now they are gone. You need to learn who you are. You also need to process your feelings around the manner of their death. Sometimes you will want to talk, other times cry, and maybe other times process your feelings through expressive activities such as poetry, painting, sandplay, or journalling.
This journey takes time, so don’t rush it. Be okay for it to take as long as it needs to.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief journey, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
We all remember terrible incidents over our lifetimes when there are deaths of a large number of people. They are shocking. But nothing is as shocking to the world community than the death of a large number of children.
The horrifying number of children killed in American schools by mass shooters is distressing. So too are school bus crashes when multiple children are killed.
The Community Horror of Tragedy
A large part of what most people feel in the wake of such incidents is horror at what the parents are going through.
As a community we also feel the horror of those beautiful lives that have ended far too soon.
For the families of these children there is terrible grief, especially when more than one child has died. But I am not going to talk about that today.
What I am going to talk about is how we as a community grieve the loss of lives, especially those of children.
The Cost of The Loss of an Individual
How do you quantify the loss of a child?
When a child dies their physical body and presence on earth is lost. But there is more than that which is lost.
There is the potential that is lost. Who might that child have become? How will the future be impacted by their absence? What relationships will never form because they are not there? What contribution may they have made to the world? What might the descendants that will now never be born have contributed to the world? How will their death change the course of our lives?
What The Loss Means to Family and Community
How do you quantify what the loss of each child means to their family and friends?
How do you quantify what the loss of each child means to their community?
As each layer of society is affected by the loss of each child, the impacts radiate out into the next layer and the next layer. Very much like ripples in a pond.
How Individuals Are Impacted
As citizens of this earth, we are all impacted by these mass deaths.
We feel deeply for the families. Many of us will imagine how we would feel if it was our own child and we feel such grief for the parents. We feel their pain and it hurts. Many will cry over the pain of the parents.
As an individual in a community you will likely grieve for those lost lives. It may not consume you in the way it would if the child was a family member, but you will still feel the impact of their loss. Your brain will not be as impacted as you had no neural connection to the child, but you will feel the pain of caring for a fellow human who has suffered the unimaginable loss of a child.
As you absorb the horror of these losses, your own grief for those you have lost in the past may surface. And that is something you will need to attend to.
Secondary Trauma
The deaths of so many and the horror you feel is known as secondary trauma. You may not have personally been involved, but you can put yourself in the place of those who have been personally involved. When you do that, you can feel the horror they are feeling.
Don’t fear secondary trauma. It is a beautiful reminder of how interconnected we humans are. We are not isolated communities in separate countries. We are all citizens of the earth. One large interconnected mass of humanity.
We Live In A Connected World
It is hard, in this world of mass communication and heavy news coverage, to avoid being exposed to terrible tragedies. And would you want to live your life unaware of the need to show compassion for others?
From devastating house fires, school shootings, earthquakes, tsunamis, bushfires, floods and more you experience so much of the horror of the world. You may not hear of every tragedy, but the ones you hear about are difficult enough.
What Can I Do?
When something terrible happens on the other side of the world, or the other side of your community, what do you do? What can you do? It is hard to feel anything but helpless in these situations. What can you as an individual do?
When something terrible happens there is such sadness. You may not personally be involved but you still feel sad. Maybe you even feel guilty that you are enjoying life with your family in your home. You may well long to rush out to offer comfort to those who are hurting.
So often after terrible events the community draws together. The number of people who donate money to assist others caught up in disasters is one such instance. After floods, the people who turn up to help with the clean up is another instance. Communities draw together and offer support. In large disasters help comes from all around the world.
Community Healing
This drawing together of people is part of the healing of the community. Honouring the lives that were lost is another way of healing. Ensuring changes are made to reduce the likelihood of the incident happening again is another way of healing. As is setting up disaster protocols and teams to respond more effectively to any future incidents.
The pain of what happened will always remain, but the community will move forward with the sadness of what has happened.
The Power of Compassion
Importantly all will remember that compassion is a powerful tool to give to others. And you will do well to remember that you are a member of a community. It may seem you are alone, but in reality you are not.
If a tragedy leaves you feeling unable to cope. Don’t hesitate to reach out for help. That may involve talking to understanding friends, or seeing a counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you process these difficult events and your own grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
When stress levels are high you can feel that things are out of control. You can feel overwhelmed with tasks and feel unable to cope with your massive To Do list.
Here are 7 “C” suggestions of things to do to feel better able to manage that stress.
1.Control
When you feel overwhelmed with things to do you don’t feel in control of your life. It feels more like life is controlling you and you are drowning in the busyness of it all. It is really important to find some space to think. So take time out. Even a few hours. Review everything you have on.
• Is there anything you can pass on to someone else to do?
• Is there anything non urgent you can move to another day/week/month?
• Which tasks need to be done so that your life can continue to function? (such as clean clothes, food, clean dishes, caring for children if you have any.)
• Which tasks are “like to do” rather than “need to do” tasks?
Question: what can you do to feel more in control of your life?
2.Competence
When you feel capable of completing the tasks you have to do, the tasks are easier to do. That doesn’t mean they won’t take time. You do need to be realistic about the amount of time a task will take and the amount of time you have available to complete your tasks.
Question: what skills do you need to learn or improve so that you can feel more competent?
3.Confidence
If you are confident that you can manage the unexpected obstacles to completing a task you are likely to feel less stress around attending to tasks. Fear of things going wrong and not knowing what to do is a major contributor to stress.
Question: how confident do you feel? Describe that level of confidence. What can you do to increase your confidence?
4.Connection
One of the best buffers against high stress levels are healthy relationships with other people. It is not so much about having great friends, but more about feeling you have a community around you that you belong to.
It is about having a network of people you can turn to for help when you need assistance, advice or other resources to complete your tasks.
Questions: Who are the people in your life you can go to for support or belonging? How might you make connections in the community? Do you have strong connection with family, friends, and your community?
5.Character
This may seem odd, but it is important the tasks you have to complete align with your values. Doing something you feel uncomfortable about is going to make you feel stressed and going to make the task a hard one to complete. That then leaves you with a To Do list with uncompleted tasks. That is a recipe for high stress.
Things to consider in this situation are:
• Who has assigned this task to you? Is it work related? Has a friend/family member asked you to do something? Is this something you feel you have to do because you don’t know of any other options?
• What is it about this task that you feel uncomfortable about?
• Which of your values does this task not align with?
• What other options are there for you to consider regarding this task?
• Do you have to do this task?
Questions: What are your values? What things you do make you feel uncomfortable? What is it about them that is uncomfortable?
6.Coping
There are myriad ways of coping. Some of those ways are helpful and some are unhelpful. Many people turn to alcohol or drugs to cope, but these are unhelpful because they never allow you to resolve the problem. It just becomes buried and that causes more problems. It is better to see a counsellor to learn coping techniques than resort to substances and behaviours that bury the problem. Some ways to cope are:
• Self care – take time out to do the things you love to do. Maybe you like a massage, or a visit to a float tank. Maybe you love seeing family or friends. Maybe you love walking in the bush or walking along the beach. Maybe movies are your self care.
• Relaxation – learn how to meditate. Guided meditations can be really great for that. Mindfulness is also a good meditation to do. Yoga or Qigong are also great for relaxation. Or you can find activities that are relaxing such as going to the beach, hugging a tree, a bush walk, jogging, walking, going to the gym and many more.
• Spending time on a relaxing hobby.
Questions: What do you usually do to cope when you are feeling stressed and overwhelmed? Is it helpful or unhelpful? What is something more helpful you could try?
7.Contribution
This one refers to the contribution you make to the community in which you live. It is about volunteering to help others. It may involve dropping in to say hello to an elderly neighbour. It may involve volunteering at a Homeless Shelter. It may be as simple as giving a family member a lift somewhere.
Contributing is part of connection. When you contribute to your local community you feel more connected and invested in your local community. Research has also found that people who are willing to help others are more likely to reach out for help when they need it.
Part of Contribution is allowing others to contribute to the needs in your life.
Questions: What can you do to contribute to your community? What can others do to help you?
Putting the 7 “C’s” into practice
Here are some important things to consider when managing high stress levels:
• Have healthy boundaries. Learn to say “no”. Learn to be okay to ask for help, but also to not be involved in something you don’t want to do. Learn how to stop people encroaching on your boundaries. This is an aspect of control in your life and also coping.
• Accept who you are. You are like anyone else and that is wonderful. You are unique. There are things you are good at, and things you are not as good at. There are things you know how to do, and things you have yet to learn how to do. Know your limitations and accept them. Learn the things you need to learn and accept it will take time to be competent. Know also when it is time to stop because you have realised you will never be able to do something competently. This is an aspect of control, competence, confidence and character.
• Practice a healthy lifestyle. Make sure you get enough sleep. Eat a diet that is well balanced and low in junk and high sugar foods. Move and exercise. This doesn’t mean you have to go to the Gym. It may mean you take a walk on the beach, go dancing with friends or dancing in your own living room. This is an aspect of control and coping.
• Ensure your routine includes time to attend to essential tasks and allows time for play. This is a big part of self care. If you don’t spend time relaxing and recharging your batteries you will not be able to complete those essential tasks. This is an aspect of coping and control.
• Embrace mistakes and failures. They are a normal part of life. They are also opportunities to learn and grow. A popular learning theory holds that we learn about something then try to do it. After we have done it we evaluate its success. Do I need to do it differently? Is there more I need to know? Have I learned something from this attempt to show me how to do it again? After evaluating, you try again. This goes on until you are able to complete the task. According to this theory mistakes and failures are a vital part of learning. This is an aspect of competence and developing confidence.
• Be creative. Try different ways of doing things. You may find a better way of organising your life. The creative ways I have devised throughout my life mean I can achieve a lot more than I could in earlier years. There were many creative ideas and some of them worked really well and I still use them. I still apply creativity to completing tasks. This is an important aspect of control and competence.
• Recognise and manage those things in life that will bring up unhappy memories that upset you. There will always be things like that. Maybe recognising why you were upset about something is possible and will help you be alert for that again. Recognising where the upset comes from is a great aid to being able to learn strategies to manage it. You can also see a counsellor to learn strategies when you are unable to.
• Talk to someone you trust when you need help.
• Can’t find anyone to talk to or who is helpful? Talk to a counsellor.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with learning to reduce stress, set boundaries, accept yourself, feel more in control, competent, connected make connections, identify your values, learn method of coping, and develop the skills to identify ways to contribute in your community please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with helpful information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
Grief is how we as human beings express loss for what we love
Being open to grief deepens and widens your loving. Grief is how you love when someone is not there any more. It is the natural expression of your heart for what you miss. Set an intention to allow yourself to feel even what seems unbearable. If it needs to be felt then feel it. Don’t try to overcome what your body, heart and mind want to travel through, experience and feel. Remember grief is ongoing, not a temporary thing. It is natural and you will learn to live with.
Grief is a reality. There is a story of father racing across the US to see his daughter before she died. As he sat with her body after she had died he commented to palliative counsellor that the grief was familiar. He had encountered this before. The reality is life is a series of small losses and deaths. We experience grief when we lose a beloved toy as a child, when our childhood friend moves away and the friendship ends, when we break up with romantic partners, when we suffer financial losses, when we can’t have the baby we long for, when our dreams die, when things we had are lost, when we lose time.
Grief is more than the emotions we feel. It is also a lot of losses and fears. Maybe you are suddenly alone. Maybe you have to face limitations you never had before, maybe you are lonely, maybe you are scared.
Ultimately grief is about living. You miss someone you loved but you are still alive and that is why grief is ultimately about living.
Grief is something we as humans do. It is how we know we exist. You don’t reach a point of being able to accept the uncertainty of life and the certainty of loss by suppressing the pain of grief or trying to spiritually bypass by telling yourself they are in heaven, or have been reincarnated. Or telling yourself you don’t have to feel the emotions and trying to meditate or pray them away. The more you try to push away the feelings of grief, the more tenaciously they cling to you and the harder it is to let them go.
Unless you let the world in and let your pain in and let your emotions in you cannot let go of the grief.
You can’t transcend feelings of loss. To do so is to deny your humanity.
Grief is a wide variety of experiences. Sadness, loneliness, change, anger, numbness.
If you accept and allow your grief you can walk through it and live life with grief there as well. To grieve and accept its presence is to come to the fullness of your humanity and aliveness.
People think to allow themselves to miss their loved one their world will fall apart. But connecting to your pain and allowing it is how you come back to yourself, to your soul. To the essence of who you are.
Grief contains love and wisdom that is way beyond the ways of this world. You are an apprentice to sorrow. Grief is also a wilderness. Open to nature and allow yourself to wander in grief. Don’t try to control it as we humans try to control nature and fail miserably.
Uncertainty is so frightening that we try to hold on to it. Grief is a stark reminder of the uncertainty of life. The grieving person is in freefall and there is no control. Forgive yourself for trying to control what is uncontrollable.
You can only progress through the wilderness of grief if you are willing to be there, to be awake and free. Ask yourself, what are you unwilling to feel? Undo your resistance to grief. If there are any stages in grief it is here that you will find them. Allowing the sorrow and grief is how you work your way through the darkness of grief. You meet your edge and soften. Be intentional about that. Soften into grief and the apprehension of loss. Allow tenderness to accompany grief. “We manage our lives so powerfully externally as to forget the incredible mystery we are involved in.” John O’Donohue. Certainly you want to scream “no” but “yes” is the only way you can answer the world as it is. All the “no”s in the world will not change anything.
Love can grow after death. Allow yourself to be open to that. Open to what is.
Change is always happening. Learn to relate to the groundlessness of life without resisting and wanting to control. Instead be expectant and curious.
What would happen if you stopped clinging to the person who has died? Many people blame themselves for the death of their loved one. This is how people try to hold on to the person who has died. But that is not the solution. Instead let go. Forgive yourself for the things you feel you omitted or did wrong. Let go. This is when you will merge with the one you lost and will have them there. In a healthy and beautiful way. “When the work of grief is done the wound of loss will heal and you will have learned to wean your eyes from the gap in the air and be able to enter the hearth in your soul where your loved one has awaited your return all the time.” John O’Donohue.
Grief takes as long as it takes. There is no magic number for how long it will last. You cannot force your way through grief. You can only be willing to experience it, patient for the pain to shift, curious at what you are experiencing, gentle with yourself and knowing there is wisdom that yearns to surrender you to the waves of grief.
Honour the power of goodness, beauty, and necessity in grief. Allow yourself to be open to the groundlessness of grief.
You are not a victim. Be open to the moment of grief. Open to the resources your compassionate self has. Share your grief with others. Take the power in naming your grief and learn it will give you an ability to be in the ever changing difficult world you live in.
Give permission to allow sadness. To allow crying. To feel it in your body. In time you may find turning to the suffering of others helps you lessen the grief of your suffering. Depression comes because grief is not processed. Listen to your heart and follow it. It knows what you need. Ask the pain what it wants from you. Draw comfort from the knowledge that pain gets less because it comes in waves and all waves come and go. Give the pain the acceptance it wants. Be with your grief and emotions. Ask what they mean. Remember the pain of grief does not always appear as grief. It can express itself as anger, depression, numbness, shame. Go into your body again and again. Sense the longing to feel and feel that. Ask the numbness to let you know what you need to feel.
Grief is not bad. It is not wrong. It is. It is life. It is being.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
When someone dies, the living relationship you had with them dies also.
The person you love is no longer in your life and what also dies is the hope of ever seeing them again.
That is incredibly hard, but it is final.
Gone but not dead
When a relationship you are in ends and you part company with someone, they are no longer in your life. However, there is always that small hope that you will see them again.
There is therefore no finality in that relationship.
Often when a relationship ends, there is hurt and acrimony left. So that any time you may see that person it is not the same.
How do you grieve a relationship that has had no finality?
If you add to this the complication of dividing up property and child custody and access arrangements, it gets even more difficult.
The difference between losing someone to death and losing them to a relationship end
There are similarities between losing someone through death and losing someone through the end of a relationship, but there are also differences.
For anyone who has lost a relationship, whether to death or a break up, life has to continue. You still have to go out there and work.
There are still bills to pay. If you have children, there are still their needs to attend to. You can’t just lock yourself away from the world until you feel better.
As I already mentioned, the death of someone involves the death of hope that you will ever see them again. But when your relationship has ended, that hope is still there. If the relationship has become acrimonious, the pain of seeing that person again is compounded.
The hope is there but you hope for the old relationship, not what has now developed. It is like twisting the knife.
It is okay for the bereaved to grieve. But what about those whose relationship has ended?
Another difference between the death of a loved one and the end of a relationship is the recognition given to the pain of bereavement and not to the end of a relationship.
People understand that initially you will feel hurt, but the support you will receive is likely to fade away faster than if you were bereaved.
Plus there are other things to grieve for as well as the end of the relationship.
Am I defective or unloveable?
If someone stops loving you, what does that say about you as a person? Does that mean you are unloveable? Does that mean you are defective? If the other person left you for someone else does that mean you are not worth having a relationship with? Even if you are the one to end it, what does it say to you about your romantic choices?
In a close relationship you define yourself through the relationship. When that relationship is gone, then your definition of self is damaged.
If the relationship end is acrimonious and there are nasty things being said, particularly about you and your parenting ability, it is hard for you to see yourself as worthwhile.
My idea of being a parent just disintegrated
There is also grief at the end of your picture of parenting. You are likely facing co-parenting. No matter how well you and your ex handle that, your picture of what being a parent was has disintegrated. Maybe in time you will build a new picture, but for now that hasn’t happened.
I have to leave my dream home
You are quite likely going to have to leave your family home. If you own it, selling it becomes part of the property settlement. If you are renting, you may not be able to afford to continue to pay that rent on your own.
I struggle financially now
Your financial situation may deteriorate as well. When there are two incomes, then you can often live comfortably. With one income it becomes a lot more difficult.
Grieving the end of a relationship – a summary
When a relationship ends you have many things to grieve:
• The person you loved is no longer in your life.
• You may continue to see them, but the relationship has changed, so there are constant reminders of what was and what you cannot have any more.
• Where there was love, there may be hurt and acrimony.
• They may start another relationship.
• Your picture of how you would parent your children has disintegrated.
• Your sense of yourself as being a good and loveable person is damaged.
• Your financial status is reduced.
• You may lose your home.
• And so many more losses not listed here.
What can I do about this?
One of the most important things to do is to love yourself. Surround yourself as much as possible with people who will hold you in their love and support you.
Never forget you are wanted. You are lovable. You are not defective.
Remember, emotional pain is processed in the same part of the brain as physical pain. Don’t dismiss your emotional pain. You don’t dismiss physical pain and emotional pain is just as real as physical pain.
Be kind to yourself
You are grieving.
You have lost a relationship, your future dreams, your financial security, your sense of safety in the world.
You spent a lot of time with this person you loved. They occupied your time and your emotions. Their departure leaves a large gap in your life.
Just as with the death of a loved one, your brain has to rearrange its neural networks to adjust to the loss of this person from your life.
Be kind to yourself. Allow yourself time to grieve. Allow yourself days to be upset and not cope well.
Grief takes time, so be patient.
Remember you are grieving and it is okay for you to grieve.
Grief takes time. It must run its course. Things may seem hard right now, but there will be a day when it will feel easier.
Give yourself permission to cry, scream, lock yourself away for a short time.
Be okay with hating your ex, with being angry, with being sad, with frustration and confusion.
To heal, you must first grieve. There is no way of skipping the grief step.
Give yourself some slack to have bad days.
If it gets too difficult to manage then seek help from a counsellor.
The way of the Triskelion
A few years ago I read about applying the idea of an ancient symbol, the triskelion, to your situation.
This ancient symbol has been used in many cultures for thousands of years. In our world the Celtic interpretation of this symbol is often applied.
For the Celts the Triskelion had many meanings.
One was that it represented birth, death and rebirth. In terms of your recovery from the end of a relationship that has died there is the rebirth that will come later.
It is also considered that the Triskelion revolves around strength, progress and the ability to move forward and overcome extreme adversity. These can all be goals to aim for as you allow yourself to grieve.
The path of rebirth
As you work your way through your grief don’t expect to find the type of closure you get with death. In death there is an end to things and eventually a sense of meaning.
With relationship endings it is not possible to end things. You have to find your own resolution and your own meaning in the uncertainty of the end of a relationship.
Over time you will heal and be able to remember the good times and process the bad times.
It will be scary, but you can continue to live after the end of a relationship.
In time you may find another relationship. Or maybe you won’t.
The important thing is that you have survived grief. There will always be that pain, but you will be able to live a happy and productive life.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with your relationship grief, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
As a Reiki Master I have a daily practice to choose the way I wish to live. This practice is in line with the 5 Reiki Principles.
Number 1 on my list is the choice I make to “release my investment in staying hurt and angry”.
I have observed in my own life and that of others how destructive holding on to that investment in hurt and anger is. It destroys relationships. And it destroys the person holding on to the hurt and anger.
As a counsellor I see how destructive hurt and anger is to the mental health of those holding on to hold on and convert the hurt and anger into resentment.
Anger is not bad, what you do with it can be
Despite all the bad press, anger, when directed the right way, can be constructive.
Anger can be an important signal that there are things in your life you need to attend to. This is where anger is a signal that drives change.
Anger in itself is not wrong. It is the response to anger that can cause harm if it is not a helpful response.
Being frightened of anger is destructive if you run from anger
People are taught to be frightened of anger. When anger is experienced a person will often suppress the anger and flee from it, instead of sitting with it and attending to it.
The problem with suppressing anger is that unexpressed anger becomes resentment. Resentment tends to fester, below the level of conscious awareness, and poison our interactions with others.
The festering wound of resentment
Then resentment develops, the person you were angry with is turned into an evil person. You remember bad things about them and forget all the good things. So the person becomes more and more negative in your mind.
Bearing a grudge against another person is resentment.
Holding on to resentment doesn’t serve you. It can make you bitter and less trusting of others. In time it can destroy a lot of your relationships.
How to release your investment in staying hurt and angry
To let go of your resentment you need to revisit the original event that led to your anger converting to resentment. That is not always easy. When you go back to that original event, you are likely to realise the event was not as bad as you have come to picture it, and that the person you have branded as evil is not as evil as you have come to think of them.
One of the biggest issues with resentment is that you assign blame to the target of your resentment. Yet things are rarely that black and white. It is important to let go of the need to assign blame.
Resentment means you never let go of your hurt and anger
One of the problems with needing to assign blame is that your need to hold the other person responsible for your feelings is doing you great harm.
When you think you are managing to cope with your hurt but are resentful towards the other person you are actually holding on to your hurt and anger. To heal you need to let go of the hurt and anger. To do that, you need to let go of the resentment you feel towards others.
Own your responses
You need to own your response to what originally happened and stop blaming others for how you are feeling now.
What do you need now? Do you need the pain and damage to your mental health of holding on to the resentment? Or do you need to think of yourself and your needs and release the resentment that is harming you?
Releasing your resentment
Performing an activity to release your resentment is really helpful.
You may find it helpful to write your feelings down on a piece of paper and then burn the paper as you announce you are choosing to let go of those feelings.
You may wish to read out what you have written before declaring you intention to let go and burning the paper.
I have an old saucepan that I put paper in when burning it. I never leave the pan until the paper has burned up completely. That way I can be present in watching my feelings dissipate and also maintain safety around the burning paper.
Releasing resentment is about serving you
Resentment is tied to forgiveness. Letting go of resentment is forgiving. Forgiving is not about the other person. It is about you.
If you can find the compassion to release your investment in staying hurt and angry then you have achieved an important step in healing and wholeness.
The benefits of letting go
When you let go of your resentment you will find you are much happier. Life seems brighter and lighter. You have so much more energy to devote to you and your growth as a person. You are better able to focus on the things that matter to you.
When you are resentful, everything in life becomes something to judge. Once you let go of that resentment you will find you have the space to accept yourself and others. You will feel happier and experience more joy.
Releasing resentment and removing the barriers it has built between you and a fulfilling life, opens up your life to receive blessings.
Can I Help?
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you with releasing your resentment, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
This blog is about protecting children and young adults and being willing to defend them in difficult situations. The fictional scenario I am going to discuss is about a child being sexually assaulted. The scenario is not real, but it is based on the experiences of many people I have spoken to over the years.
The discussion is brief and does not cover everything, but hopefully it covers the most important aspects of the scenario.
Jamie
Jamie is 7 and lives with her parents. Her father’s best friend comes around often and stays over. The last time he stayed over he touched Jamie inappropriately by putting his hand under her dress and into her undies. Jamie is upset and tells her mother and father.
What happens next can be very different depending on the reaction of Jamie’s parents.
Response 1
Jamie’s parents are upset at the friend. They support Jamie. They listen to her, reassure her and get her counselling help. They also report the matter to the police. The friend is never allowed to see the family ever again.
Response 2
Jamie’s parents are horrified and tell the friend he is not to visit any more. Nothing more is said about it. When Jamie tries to talk about it she is shut down and told there is no need to talk about that anymore.
Response 3
Jamie’s parents are horrified and the father contacts his friend and tells him to not visit any more. He meets up with the friend, who tells him he didn’t do anything and he is appalled at the way they have believed their daughter’s lies. Her father comes home and tells her she is to apologise to his friend and that he will continue coming to the house.
Response 4
Jamie’s parents tell her to stop making something out of nothing. She obviously encouraged him and she has to stop this behaviour. Her mother tells her she must avoid the friend and shut her bedroom door at night when he is there.
Different Responses
4 very different responses to a sexual assault, a violation of her boundaries, and being placed in a very unsafe situation.
All these have happened to people time and again.
The message these reactions give Jamie have long lasting impacts on her life.
Impacts on Jamie’s life
There are many ways this event can impact on Jamie. Below is a summary of what may happen.
Response 1
Jamie feels safe, supported and heard. She learns she is not to blame. She feels her parents are willing to step up to support her and protect her from events in the world. She also learns that she can set healthy boundaries and she has worth because her parent’s have put her needs first.
Response 2
Jamie feels believed and heard. She is okay, but there are lingering issues around processing the abuse.
Response 3
Jamie feels betrayed and confused. She can’t understand why she has to apologise to the friend for the thing he did that made her uncomfortable. Her boundaries have been violated but she is given the message that she has no right to set boundaries. She realises her father will put others first before her. She learns from his actions that she has no value.
Jamie may disengage from life over the coming years. Her engagement with school may be impacted. She may also start exhibiting acting out behaviours.
Response 4
Jamie feels unsafe and unprotected. She learns she has no value and that she is always wrong. Her boundaries have been violated and she learns that her boundaries are non existent. That she has not right to say no. She learns she has no worth to others.
Jamie may also disengage from family life and engagement with school. She may misbehave, become defiant, get involved with petty crime, car thefts, dangerous driving and other “antisocial” behaviours.
When might Jamie present for counselling?
In each response I may see Jamie. But it will be at different life stages and the issues Jamie presents with will be different.
Response 1
I may see Jamie to help her process the incident with the father’s friend. She will have a chance to understand and process what happened. If nothing else happens in Jamie’s life, it is unlikely I will ever see her again.
Response 2
I may see Jamie later in life. She may have some PTSD around the events. There may be feelings of shame around what happened. She may find engaging in social contact with males difficult. She may require a number of counselling sessions to process this and rewire the neural pathways in her brain that are connected with the event. It is possible Jamie may not even know what the source of her difficulties is. She may only identify this in therapy.
How could Jamie’s parents have helped at the time of the original incident? By listening to her and helping her to understand she did nothing wrong. By allowing her to express herself and being open to her continuing need to process this.
Response 3
Jamie will usually come to see me later in life. She will likely present with difficulty setting boundaries, even to the point of not realising she has the right to set boundaries. She may report finding it hard to say no to people. She may have put on weight to stop men noticing her (there is a lot of research around this well recognised issue).
Jamie will most likely have very low self worth. She will also feel a lot of shame. She may have difficulties in her relationships. Either getting involved in partners who don’t respect her boundaries, or ending relationships because she feels she is not respected.
Jamie may also find she is constantly trying to gain her father’s approval, or she may have a difficult relationship with her father. In time she may tell me about the assault.
Response 4
Jamie may come to see me later in life. She may tell me she has difficulties with relationships. She may well be anxious and constantly trying to meet the needs of the people in her life. She may have put on weight to stop men noticing her.
She will most likely have low self worth. She will also feel shame.
Summing Up
These descriptions are very brief descriptions of what may happen to Jamie as a result of sexual assault when 7. The long term impacts of sexual assault are many and complicated.
The message I am sending is that any form of touching in no go areas is sexual assault. It will leave the victim feeling uncomfortable and violated. It is up to those they turn to for help to protect them and take a stand against the perpetrator. If you are one who feels unable to protect those in your care from perpetrators then it is important you seek counselling support to heal your own difficulties.
Jamie may well have been 15 or 25, or older. Instead of parents, she may have been seeking support from friends. There will still be impacts of any non consensual sexual contact.
When someone reports a sexual assault they need to know that those people in their life who can protect them, are willing to protect them. This is particularly so when the person is a child or young.
Sadly, many parents do not support their children in these situations. I have heard so many stories of children forced to go to the abuser’s home because their story was not believed and the parents were unwilling to protect their child.
Parents are supposed to protect us from harm. The betrayal when they won’t is horrendous.
Can I Help?
If anything in this blog has struck a chord with you, or has left you feeling you need to resolve a difficulty in your life, I can help you.
If you would like to talk to me about how I can help you, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
Attachment is a frequent topic of conversation. You may have heard about it and wondered what it is. In this blog, I will be explaining attachment and the related term attunement. I will describe the impact it has on child development and finish with an explanation as to how this impacts on adulthood. Finally, I will end with the good news for adults who missed out on secure attachment in childhood and how to correct insecure attachment.
What is Attachment?
Many mistakes and much research has demonstrated that an essential need for children is to be held and touched, as well as to feel seen. This need starts at birth.
These two needs are named Attachment and Attunement.
Attachment describes the bond between the child and their caregiver/s. For survival, a baby needs at least one secure adult who will provide the baby’s needs. If the child cries, it needs an adult to pick it up and attend to its needs for food, nappy changes, comfort when distressed and loving interactions. In an ideal world every child will receive that care and will be secure in the knowledge its care needs will be met.
But this is not an ideal world. And children, even in infancy, have to adopt behaviours to ensure their care needs are met.
The securely attached child
For the child with secure adult/s in their life, it is easy to have their needs met. They know there will be someone to look after them, to keep them clean, feed them, comfort them when they are distressed, play with them, see them. The usual attachment behaviours of crying or holding out their arms will result in their needs being met.
The insecurely attached child
For the child who does not have a secure adult in their life, it is not so easy. These children, described as having an insecure pattern of attachment, learn that their carer is not available when they need them. For this child, crying or expressing emotions may be dangerous. They learn to hide their fear and distress. Other insecurely attached children may learn that only when they exaggerate their crying or adopt any behaviour that gets attention will they get their needs met. For these children there is a belief that their carer is not there to meet their needs physically and/or emotionally.
Another group of insecurely attached children may learn that their carer is totally inconsistent in meeting their needs. This carer may be terrifying. That child may be frozen, unable to get any needs met and never being sure of the carer’s response to their attachment seeking behaviour.
The positive impact of secure attachment
When a child feels safe. That their physical and emotional needs will be met. They are able to develop on a normal trajectory.
Before I explain this, I want to talk about Attunement.
Attunement
It is not enough for a child to have its needs for food and comfort met. Children also need to feel seen.
If a child is not seen and visible to its carer/s then it will not get its needs met and will not survive.
Attunement is noticing a child, tuning into them, interacting with them, seeking to understand them.
A child needs to be reassured that if they are upset at something, their carer will seek to understand what the problem is.
Babies are observed to use behaviours to be noticed by their carer. They smile, coo, put their hands out, respond to the carer’s interactions. All these are part of early attunement.
Another aspect of attunement is the carer who hears the child cry and understands that cry is one of discomfort. So they change the nappy and check for anything else causing discomfort.
If the cry is one of hunger, they feed the child. And so on.
As the child grows, the attuned parent plays with the child, interacts with them, looks at things they show them, seeks to understand why the child is upset, seeks to understand acting out behaviours and so on.
Providing the security to explore the world and safety to return to
Attunement is an important aspect of secure attachment for a child.
What a child needs is to have a secure base from which to explore the world while being delighted in, helped and sharing enjoyment. They also need a safe haven that welcomes the child returning and where they can feel protected, comforted, delighted in, and having their feelings organised so they can learn to do that later in life. (Circle of Security www.circleofsecurity.net)
Interacting with a child securely and safely
Once children learn to talk, they learn to ask questions. A lot of them. These questions are vital aspects of learning for the child. It is a child’s interactions with its carers that drive brain development.
It is during the child’s first five years of life that dramatic brain development takes place. During this time the child learns how to self-regulate their emotions. They learn this by being co-regulated by their carer who holds and comforts them when they are upset or hurt, as well as laughing with them when they are having fun.
During these years, the child learns about the world and forms the view of the world as either safe or dangerous.
4 main areas where attachment drives development
Cognitive development. This is the internal belief about who I am and who You are.
Emotional regulation. This is the ability to experience, tolerate, express and regulate all emotions and to learn to seek help when needed.
Exploratory play and allied behaviour. This is the ability to be able to initiate exploration and investigation of the world through play and socialisation.
Pro-social orientation towards others. This means feeling able to reach out to others, to form friendships with others, to be part of a community.
9 positive benefits throughout life of secure childhood attachment
Protects from toxic stress. Toxic stress can be an abusive teacher, a bully, an abusive parent, needs being unmet, a disruption in the family such as divorce or a parent dying.
Allows healthy development. The stress of insecure attachment has a negative effect on child development. It also makes children vulnerable to depression or anxiety in childhood and later life.
Learning to regulate emotions. This has already been mentioned above.
Develop a healthy sense of self. Being related to by others in secure attachment allows the child to develop a sense of “who am I” and “who are you”.
Frees the brain to focus on learning. Insecure attachment involves the child constantly seeking safety which prevents the brain from giving full attention to learning.
The development of self reliance. If the child is secure, they can feel safe to try new things and learn to be self reliant. On the flip side, the child also learns it is okay to ask for help when needed and safe to rely on others when necessary. Insecurely attached children can struggle to learn self reliance and can struggle to ask for help because as a child there was no one to help them.
Healthy self esteem from which confidence grows. A securely attached child learns that there is always someone who thinks they are worthwhile. This is communicated to the child by the fact that there is always a carer there to pick them up, soothe them, play with them, see them. This sends the message “I am here and you are worth me being here”. What message does the child get from this? “You are here and I must be worth your being here. If I am worth you being here then I am worthwhile”.
Social competence. The carer baby relationship is the first relationship a child has. These sets the template for all relationships the child has in life. Secure attachment teaches a child: • it is safe to be close to another person (intimacy) • you can support others and they can support you • empathy • getting along with others in all areas of life (or doing the best you can because it is not possible to get along with everyone)
Good health. This is considered due to lower stress in childhood and into adulthood, which, apart from the lowered exposure to the damaging effect of stress hormones on the body, is shown to lower the need to resort to stress relieving activities such as excessive alcohol intake, comfort eating and smoking.
Secure attachment also leads to healthy relationships which result in good mental health, good physical health, healthy life habits and lowered mortality risk.
How does this relate to me as an adult?
If you had a secure attachment and were well attuned to as a child then you are likely to be able to live life with the ability to cope with the challenges you encounter. You may occasionally need help, but you will be fairly likely to be comfortable asking for help.
You will be able to form secure relationships with other people.
If you didn’t have a secure attachment then life may be more stressful. It may be harder to cope when challenges occur. You may not know who to seek help from or feel safe seeking that help. You may find it hard to do that things you want to do in life.
You may also find it hard to function when you are stressed. And you may notice you are stressed often. On the other hand, other people may comment on how stressed you are and you don’t think you are stressed at all because stress is so much part of your life that you don’t know what it feels like to not be stressed.
You may find you get into friendships and intimate relationships with people who are toxic. You may find yourself unable to speak up at work about problems.
You may find you feel there is crisis after crisis and struggle to feel at peace.
There are myriad ways your childhood may impact on you.
The good news
The good news is that, with the help of a trauma trained counsellor, it is possible to repair those early attachment wounds. It is possible to learn how to be more secure in relationships. It is possible to learn how to use the way your brain developed to serve you well in life, instead of hampering you.
Can I Help?
I am trauma trained and if you would like to talk to me about how I can help you to develop a more secure attachment style, please contact me on 0409396608 or nan@plentifullifecounselling.com.au
If you would like to learn more, I write a regular newsletter with interesting information, tips, information on courses, and the occasional freebie. At the moment I have a free mindfulness meditation for anyone who signs up to my newsletter. This meditation offers a way to safely explore your feelings and learn to be okay with them. If you would like to subscribe please click on the link here: http://eepurl.com/g8Jpiz
