About Kayla Tse, LMFT

Successfully empowering clients to live more joyful and authentic lives.

The happy secret to better work and life

Posted on November 10, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

TED TALKS with Shawn Achor

Shawn Achor is the CEO of Good Think Inc., where he researches and teaches about positive psychology.

We believe that we should work to be happy, but could that be backwards? In this fast-moving and entertaining talk, psychologist Shawn Achor argues that actually happiness inspires productivity. (Filmed at TEDxBloomington.)

Why should you listen

Shawn Achor is the winner of over a dozen distinguished teaching awards at Harvard University, where he delivered lectures on positive psychology in the most popular class at Harvard.

He is the CEO of Good Think Inc., a Cambridge-based consulting firm which researches positive outliers — people who are well above average — to understand where human potential, success and happiness intersect. Based on his research and 12 years of experience at Harvard, he clearly and humorously describes to organizations how to increase happiness and meaning, raise success rates and profitability, and create positive transformations that ripple into more successful cultures. He is also the author of The Happiness Advantage.

For more information:

The Happiness Advantage: The Seven Principles of Positive Psychology That Fuel Success and Performance at Work

by Shawn Anchor

Source: http://www.ted.com/talks/shawn_achor_the_happy_secret_to_better_work?language=en

Contact me, if you are interested in working with a therapist who works with Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and Positive Psychology. I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to find out how I may benefit you as your personal therapist. Call 323-920-9278.

Going Back By Going Within

Posted on November 8, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

From Daily Om- April 15, 2008

Healing Childhood Wounds

Events from childhood, our first experiences, have the power to shape our lives. Some do so immediately, offering us challenges to overcome and encouragement to make use of our talents and interests. In the process character is built, and we make the first steps upon our personal paths. Other events seem to lay dormant until adulthood, when our closest relationships help to bring out the deepest aspects of ourselves. This is when unexamined lessons can be put to use and untended childhood wounds make themselves known in a call for healing.

“…We have the power within us to heal ourselves at the deepest level. With the wisdom of an adult, we can be the loving parent or guardian we needed as a child.”

We may discover issues of trust coming up, or perhaps we find ourselves mirroring actions from our past instinctively. No matter the case, we have the power within us to heal ourselves at the deepest level. With the wisdom of an adult, we can be the loving parent or guardian we needed as a child. Knowing that we are each whole spiritual beings having a human experience, we can nurture ourselves from that wholeness, and then reach out to others as well. We can recreate scenarios in our mind’s eye, trying different outcomes and following them to their logical conclusions. In doing so, we may be able to imagine possible reasons a situation occurred as it did, and even accept that it could not have happened any other way. With the wisdom born from age and experience, we might be able to see events from a different perspective, bringing new understanding and freeing ourselves from any hold the past may have on us.

Life offers opportunities to clear these weeds in the gardens of our souls. However, when we want to focus on easier and more pleasant tasks, we are likely to pass up the chances, leaving the wounds to continue to drain our energy and resources for living life fully today. We might find we need support to face the events of the past, so turning to a trained professional who can offer tools for healing can be a valid choice. As long as we remember that the child we were lives on within us, we are always free to go back and right old wrongs, correct mistaken perceptions, heal wounds, forgive, and begin anew.

Source: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2008/13454.html

I help people remember who they are on a Soul Level.

Contact me, if you are interested in working with a therapist trained in Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) and Positive Psychology. I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to find out how I may benefit you as your personal therapist.

Follow my blog and feel free to “Like It” and “Share it,” if you are interested in learning more about healing, psychology, mindfulness, and all things related to helping you feel good about yourself.

Are You Excited or Scared?

Posted on November 5, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Translating Our Feelings

by Madisyn Taylor

Sometimes the feelings of being scared and excited can elicit the same physical response in our bodies.

When new challenges and opportunities show up in our lives, we may diagnose ourselves as feeling scared when what we really feel is excited. Often we have not been taught how to welcome the thrill of a new opportunity, and so we opt to back off, indulging our anxiety instead of awakening our courage. One way to inspire ourselves to embrace the opportunities that come our way is to look more deeply into our feelings and see that butterflies in our stomach or a rapidly beating heart are not necessarily a sign that we are afraid. Those very same feelings can be translated as excitement, curiosity, passion, and even love.

There is nothing wrong with being afraid as long as we do not let it stop us from doing the things that excite us. Most of us assume that brave people are fearless, but the truth is that they are simply more comfortable with fear because they face it on a regular basis. The more we do this, the more we feel excitement in the face of challenges rather than anxiety. The more we cultivate our ability to move forward instead of backing off, the more we trust ourselves to be able to handle the new opportunity, whether it’s a new job, an exciting move, or a relationship. When we feel our fear, we can remind ourselves that maybe we are actually just excited. We can assure ourselves that this opportunity has come our way because we are meant to take it.

Framing things just a little differently can dramatically shift our mental state from one of resistance to one of openness. We can practice this new way of seeing things by saying aloud: I am really excited about this job interview. I am really looking forward to going on a date with this amazing person. I am excited to have the opportunity to do something I have never done before. As we do this, we will feel our energy shift from fear, which paralyzes, to excitement, which empowers us to direct all that energy in the service of moving forward, growing, and learning.

Source: http://www.dailyom.com/articles/2014/45518.html

This article is printed from DailyOM – Inspirational thoughts for a happy, healthy and fulfilling day. Register for free at http://www.dailyom.com

Contact me, if you are interested in working with a therapist trained in Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB). I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to find out how I may benefit you as your personal therapist.

Stop Comparing the Present with the Past

Posted on October 30, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Written by Sara, from Institute of HeartMath. October 26, 2014

Stop Comparing the Present with the Past

I drove past a church the other day en route to Santa Cruz and the sign they had out front displayed this message: “Don’t dwell on the past because you’re not going back there.” That says it all to me. One of the hardest things for any of us not to do after a crisis or major change is to compare the way life was before with how it is now.

It’s perfectly okay and possibly necessary to do this comparing as we move through grief or deep loss. The time it takes to vent our anger and recover from despair can be different for all of us—and time can’t be forced because healing heartache doesn’t respond to schedules or agendas. Yet, in our own time, we will start to regain some stability and decide to move forward with our life. This was certainly true for me in a past crisis.

It’s a good idea to learn from history – we can get good perspectives about how to do better – and hindsight is 20/20, as they say. But if we dwell, we go around in circles and get caught in the snare of the past, we don’t focus on where we’re going and we can’t create the future we want. In fact, we may recreate what we don’t want. We stay in thought forms that are like carrying a heavy backpack of guilt, blame and other negative emotions. The past weighs a lot when there are unresolved issues and you’re the one paying that price.

When the present is more rewarding than the past, we don’t tend to hang out in the past, so creating more fulfillment in the present can help the healing. HeartMath founder Doc Childre told me how he did this. In a past personal crisis, eventually he realized that to move forward, he had to redirect his thoughts and feelings from the past situation that he couldn’t change in order to be at peace now and build the future. After an understandable period of grief, he started to realize that he was perpetuating deep pain and depression by constantly comparing now with the past. Often, his heart’s intuition would whisper: “Constantly comparing with the past is not helpful for you now. It’s time now to use that energy to move forward with your life.” It was hard at first, but being honest with himself, he knew it was time to take a responsible step towards reducing the emotional toll and inertia from dwelling in the past.

Below is a HeartMath practice that helped him. It is for after the first phase of our initial anger, grief or despair. No one would expect us to be able to stop comparing the past with the present during the first phase of sadness and despair. Be comfortable with your own timing, however long it takes you. Some people do not experience as much loss, pain or despair as others because their situation is different. For them, the first phase could be much shorter, so they may choose to use this practice earlier in their emotional recovery process.

With self-compassion and patience, make a genuine heart commitment to practice recognizing some of your thoughts and feelings of comparison with the past. As you become aware of these thought loops and feel your energy down-spiraling, then from your heart accept that it’s normal to have these thoughts and feelings. Yet, know that constant preoccupation with them can drain and depress your spirit, which you need at this time to re-stabilize and move forward.
Then, in an easygoing way without force, choose something to focus on that doesn’t cause as much pain and energy drain. It often helps to switch thoughts by changing what you are doing in the moment or changing the subject if you are rehashing the past with someone. You can also replace the thoughts with appreciation for someone you care about.

With practice, you will be able to recognize the thoughts and feelings and then just shift—to something that doesn’t bring you down and leave you with depressed feelings. When this is done from the heart, then you are not repressing feelings, you are transforming them.

HeartMath practices, such as the above, are used by mental health professionals to help people get their system into heart coherence, an optimal state in which the heart, mind and emotions are operating in-sync and balanced. As people activate their hearts to get in sync, they have more capacity to hear their intuition which helps guide them to shift perspectives, so forgiving and releasing the past become possible. Using HeartMath’s emWave® technology before talking about a problem can also help.

Some years ago, I went through a relationship breakup that I didn’t want. It was hard for me not to dwell on comparing every person I met thereafter with that man. It took me a long time to let go of that hurt and accept that maybe life had something else in store for me that would open those same heart feelings so I could feel fulfilled again. I felt like I would never have that great of a relationship experience again. I think a lot of people end up feeling this way. They assume the person they were in the relationship with is the only source of those good feelings they had. It’s helpful to realize that it’s not so much the person you’re enjoying but the feelings you experience that are fulfilling – and you can have those feelings by re-opening your heart with or without another person. This was a big life lesson for me: It’s the feelings in our heart that are opened by love. We can experience those feelings again, even when the one we loved who helped us open our heart is not present – our heart feelings are not dependent on one person. As long as we think so, we’re trapped.

With self-compassion and patience, you can emerge from the depths of challenging times, especially if you connect with the strength that comes from truly putting your heart into the intention to move forward. The first step to activating your heart is having compassion for yourself, which quickens recovery and re-stabilization. It’s important to come from the heart not just the mind to get the full physiological and emotional benefit. You may also need help to re-open your heart if the past you’re trying to release was traumatic. Be proactive: When you start creating the future, your mind starts to free up. And then you can move on.

Source: http://www.care2.com/greenliving/surefire-stress-relief-part-6-reduce-comparing-the-present-with-the-past.html

Note: For traumatic past events it is best to work with a professional therapist that can guide you through the process.

Understand more about Interpersonal Neurobiology with Dan Siegel

Posted on October 29, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

The Limbic System- where “Flight, Fight, Response” occurs

“Interpersonal Neurobiology (IPNB) is just a fancy way of saying that the brain is a social organ of the body… Relationships are our life’s blood, and this is what gives us resilience, not only as individuals, but as a collective community.” — by Dan Siegel

TEDxBlue – Daniel J. Siegel, M.D. – 10/18/09 (24:20)

Incredibly uplifting video on the possibilities of creating an integrated brain and how teaching mindsight and mindfulness as early as in preschool, has the potential for a kinder and more compassionate world.

Uploaded on Nov 12, 2009

Dr. Daniel Siegel explores the neural mechanisms beneath social and emotional intelligence and how these can be cultivated through reflective practices that focus on the inner nature of the mind.

Daniel is a child psychiatrist, educator, and author of Mindsight, The Mindful Brain, Parenting from the Inside Out, and The Developing Mind. He is the Founding Editor of the Norton Professional Series on Interpersonal Neurobiology, co-director of the UCLA Mindful Awareness Research Center, and executive director of the Mindsight Institute.

About TEDx, x=independently organize event
In the spirit of ideas worth spreading, TEDx is a program of local, self-
organized events that bring people together to share a TED-like experience.
At a TEDx event, TEDTalks video and live speakers combine to spark deep
discussion and connection in a small group. These local, self-organized
events are branded TEDx, where x=independently organized TED event.
The TED Conference provides general guidance for the TEDx program, but
individual TEDx events are self-organized.*
(*Subject to certain rules and regulations)

Dan Siegel, M.D. – Discussing the science of mindfulness (21:02)

Fantastic video and introduction into benefits of mindfulness to brain development, including children and adults.

Published on Apr 14, 2013

Room to Breathe is a surprising story of transformation as struggling kids in a San Francisco public middle school are introduced to the practice of mindfulness meditation.

Visit roomtobreathefilm.com for more information.

Dan Siegel – Brainstorm: The Power and Purpose of the Teenage Brain (Family Action Network) (1:22:44)

http://youtu.be/kH-BO1rJXbQ

Published on Nov 16, 2013 (note video file size was too large to be uploaded here, please click on link above)

Siegel illuminates how brain development impacts teenagers’ behavior and relationships. Drawing on important new research in the field of interpersonal neurobiology, he explores exciting ways in which understanding how the teenage brain functions can help parents make what is in fact an incredibly positive period of growth, change, and experimentation in their children’s lives less lonely and distressing on both sides of the generational divide.

Find links to recent Dan Siegel’s books on my Resources page.

Follow my blog and feel free to share it, if you are interested in learning more about healing, psychology, mindfulness, and all things related to helping you feel good about yourself.

The Wounded Healer Within…

Posted on October 28, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

The Wounded Healer by Alex Grey

The wound is the place where the light enters you.

–Rumi

Depth Psychology, the Wounded Healer, and the World of Trauma

by Linda Friend, MA, MFT, Healdsburg Holistic Health News, 1999

Because I am a practitioner of Depth Psychology the archetype of the wounded healer is central to my life. In order for psychology to be “deep” it must be continuously mining the light of the spirit and the recesses of the darker chasms of the human soul. Healing for me is the rebuilding of a broken bridge between these two dimensions of the self.

The awareness, which has become more focused through the women’s movement, of the effects of early childhood abuses – emotional, physical and sexual – has led us to a deeper understanding of how the “split” develops between spirit and soul. When the infant does not experience “a good enough mother,” a mother who can relate consistently and often enough with empathy to the child’s pain while also providing a protective and safe environment, then the infant cannot incarnate. He or she does not come into their own body and as a result, the world itself becomes a frightening place. Through the experience of emotional abandonment the child learns to abandon life and so fails to respond to its own needs. Later, in adulthood, happiness and fulfillment in life remain illusive. If the child was physically or sexually abused early on as well as experiencing emotional abandonment then the child creates a “self care system” which is full of persecuting demons. We now know that the victim of trauma continually finds himself or herself in life situations where he or she is re-traumatized.

Trauma can also happen in adulthood through wars, illness, financial loss, death and divorce, etc. If the initial or early trauma is too severe life passages, which are often traumatic, can trigger a deep depression. Sometimes it somatizes into a physical illness.

To the Jungian school of thought this can be seen as a “creative illness,” mental or physical, which results in the breakdown of the old, egocentric personality and the breakthrough of the individual initiate. “Spiritual emergencies,” mental breakdown, depression, and “creative illness” are all doorways, each one an opening, an opportunity for the individual to reach for their higher potential.

Donald Kalshed, Jungian analyst, defines “trauma” as any experience that causes unbearable psychic pain or anxiety. “Unbearable” means it overwhelms the usual defense measures. In its place the severely traumatized person develops a self-persecutory defense system in their inner psychic life and the rage turned back on the self keeps the person imprisoned in the cycle.

In psychotherapy the client can experience an empathetic and supportive relationship with the therapist and gradually develop and internalize this positive experience and thus be able to mourn the past. Grief over the lost satisfactions and unmet needs of childhood, and the resultant split between spirit and soul-body must be experienced. Ultimately, the psyche must find a way to allow the grief to unite both hope/faith and disappointment/loss since they are both essential facts of life. In “mourning integration” the attachment to the identification with the persecutory experience can be given up, permitting new positive attachments to be made.

The factors involved in the process are complex. Early on, the traumatized person learns to dissociate as a defense. Cut off from his or her unconscious, this person develops aggrandized fantasies to substitute for life lived in the real world. Only through hard work and much suffering can these defenses be overcome. Initially, the therapist often is idealized when the client experiences support never experienced in the past, but eventually the therapist must be seen as a person, too: not perfect, but good enough despite any human faults and limitations. Ultimately, the client must also be able to see themselves in this light.

In response to my own early trauma I developed a defensive dissociative process that allowed me to develop my innate highly intuitive self into a highly psychic self. From an early age, I had the uncanny ability to directly access a very magical world and to know profound spiritual truths. My personal healing journey as a wounded healer has centered around coming more and more into the “real world” of everyday banal reality. Mothering my daughter has been the crucible for my development on the human level. Accepting of my human limitations and integrating that with my ability to access the Divine is where my “mouming integration” is taking me. It can be very much a struggle to hold both but life would not be fulfilling to me without enchantment, magic, wonder and mystery along with routine and the mundane. Otherwise, if the worlds remain separate, the all too human me has no access to the magical world and the spiritually gifted me has no access to the human suffering and its transformational potential. In the transition between these worlds trauma is transcended, and here wholeness and fulfillment are experienced.

Source: http://www.lindafriendtherapist.com/articles-depth-psychology.shtml

I believe that the best therapists are those who have worked on their own wounds. Through that transformation, they become wounded healers, as I have through my own healing.

Contact me, I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to see if we may be a good therapeutic fit.

Follow my blog and feel free to share it, if you are interested in learning more about healing, psychology, mindfulness, and all things related to helping you feel good about yourself.

Happiness is… A Free 8-week Online Course on The Science of Happiness!

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Join me as I embark on this free 8-week online course through The Greater Good Science Center in Berkeley! Sign-up here.

The Science of Happiness

Course Is Now Live! Take It at Your Own Pace Through May 2015

An unprecedented free online course exploring the roots of a happy, meaningful life. Co-taught by the GGSC’s Dacher Keltner and Emiliana Simon-Thomas. Up to 16 CE credit hours available.

We all want to be happy, and there are countless ideas about what happiness is and how we can get some. But not many of those ideas are based on science. That’s where this course comes in.

“The Science of Happiness” is a free, eight-week online course that explores the roots of a happy and meaningful life. Students will engage with some of the most provocative and practical lessons from this science, discovering how cutting-edge research can be applied to their own lives.

Created by UC Berkeley’s Greater Good Science Center, the course zeroes in on a fundamental finding from positive psychology: that happiness is inextricably linked to having strong social ties and contributing to something bigger than yourself—the greater good. Students will learn about the cross-disciplinary research supporting this view, spanning the fields of psychology, neuroscience, evolutionary biology, and beyond.

What’s more, “The Science of Happiness” will offer students practical strategies for nurturing their own happiness. Research suggests that up to 40 percent of happiness depends on our habits and activities. So each week, students will learn a new research-tested practice that fosters social and emotional well-being—and the course will help them track their progress along the way.

The course will include:

Short videos featuring the co-instructors and guest lectures from top experts on the science of happiness;
Articles and other readings that make the science accessible and understandable to non-academics;
Weekly “happiness practices”—real-world exercises that students can try on their own, all based on research linking these practices to greater happiness;
Tests, quizzes, polls, and a weekly “emotion check-in” that help students gauge their happiness and track their progress over time;
Discussion boards where students can share ideas with one another and submit questions to their instructors.

Instructors Emiliana Simon-Thomas and Dacher Keltner

The course will be led by two celebrated teachers from the Greater Good Science Center: Emiliana Simon-Thomas, Ph.D., the GGSC’s science director, and GGSC founder Dacher Keltner, Ph.D., who is a psychology professor at UC Berkeley and author of the best-selling book Born to Be Good. It will also feature guest presentations by some of the world’s leading authorities on positive psychology, including Rick Hanson,Sonja Lyubomirsky, and Jon Kabat-Zinn.

Students will be able to proceed through this course at their own pace. However, students who participate between September 9 (the course’s launch date) and November 4 will have more opportunities to interact with instructors and fellow students. “The Science of Happiness” is a Massive Open Online Course (MOOC), hosted on the edX platform, meaning that it will enroll students from all over the world. Though there are many opportunities for students to interact within the course, the opportunities for live interaction with the instructors are limited.

Interested in receiving continuing education units? Click here for more details about how you can receive 6 or 16 credit hours for taking “The Science of Happiness.”

Source: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/news_events/event/the_science_of_happiness

Enjoy and May We All Be Happy and Free from Suffering!

Follow my blog and feel free to share it, if you are interested in learning more about healing, psychology, mindfulness, and all things related to helping you feel good about yourself.

Contact me, I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to see if we may be a good therapeutic fit.

How to Stop Attachment Insecurity from Ruining Your Love Life

Posted on October 26, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Take this 5-Minute Test and Find Out What’s Your Attachment Style

By Meghan Laslocky | February 13, 2014 |

Do you have commitment, trust, and attachment issues? Science helped Meghan Laslocky—and it just might help you, too.

Readers of my book on heartbreak often ask me what aspect of it had the most profound effect on me personally. My answer is always that becoming familiar with the ins and outs of attachment theory has, quite simply, changed my life.

Attachment theory was spawned by the work of John Bowlby, who was the first psychologist to put forth the idea that underpins much of today’s psychotherapy: that a child’s intimacy and sense of security with his or her primary caregiver plays a crucial role in how secure that child will be as an adult. Over time, psychologists have further refined this idea to argue that early childhood attachment patterns predict adult attachment styles in romantic relationships later in life.

While the exact terminology can vary depending upon which expert one consults, adult attachment styles generally come in four flavors:

Secure: “Being close is easy!”
Anxious-preoccupied: “I want to be emotionally intimate with people, but they don’t want to be with me!”
Dismissive-avoidant: “I’d rather not depend on others or have others depend on me!”
Fearful-avoidant: “I want to be close, but what if I get hurt?”

The last three of these fall into a mega-category known as “attachment insecurity.” The avoidance and anxiety that go along with most attachment insecurity are undoubtedly key themes that many of us in therapy wrestle with, week after week, and sometimes year after year.

I know I did.

Getting over it

I am, or at least was, a textbook, or perhaps even extreme, case of anxious and avoidant. For years, I was so crippled by fear of intimate relationships that I didn’t have anything even close to a boyfriend until I was 28. Even then, it took another eight years for me to pull off having a long-term, serious relationship, much as I wanted one.

There are a lot of things that explained this rather debilitating immaturity (depression, trauma, and a bevy of neuroses, not to mention misguided stubbornness and pride), but the only thing that explains how I got over it and ultimately became a wife and mother (and the author of an entire book on heartbreak) was the patience and care of a truly gifted therapist—that and medication that treated my depression and social anxiety.

And while I know I still have a long way to go—intimacy still be a battle for me, as those who are close to me will attest—just having acquainted myself with my attachment style and made the progress I’ve made thus far fortifies me for all the work I have yet to do.

But I also find it incredibly comforting that just as I was a textbook case for anxious and avoidant when it came to my intimate relationships, I’m now a textbook case for someone who has, more or less, gotten over it.

You see, research in attachment theory is pointing in a thrilling direction: that just because an individual is, as an adult, suffering from attachment issues that negatively affect their romantic relationships, that doesn’t mean they will forever.

Five ways to overcome attachment insecurity

If you think you’re insecurely attached, and it’s having a negative impact on your love life, here are a few common sense steps you can take to make the transition to secure attachment:

Get to know your attachment pattern by reading up on attachment theory. I don’t care if it’s through Wikipedia, an academic article like “Attachment Bonds in Romantic Relationships,” or immersion in a book like Attached, by Amir Levin and Rachel S.F. Heller, a psychiatrist and a neuroscientist respectively. Trust me: Knowledge is power.
If you don’t already have a great therapist with expertise in attachment theory, find one. It might even be worth asking if they’ve ever had a patient or client who they’ve seen make the leap from insecure to secure attachment in their adult romantic relationships.
Seek out partners with secure attachment styles. The last thing you need if you’re trying to overhaul your attachment style is to be undermined by someone who can’t support you. Research indicates that about 50 percent of adults are secure in their attachment style—pretty good odds for finding someone out there who rocks your world AND is secure. Studies suggest that a positive experience with a securely attached person can, in time, override your insecure impulses.
If you didn’t find such a partner, go to couples therapy. If you’re, say, anxious-preoccupied and you’re already in a loving relationship with, say, someone who is fearful-avoidant, I’d advise finding a couples therapist who can help both of you become more secure, together. Even if you feel like your relationship is going great, consider taking this step as a pre-emptive strike against trouble.
Practice. Pillow talk just isn’t your thing? Make yourself do it, even if you have to start by talking to a stuffed animal. Hate talking about the future of your relationship? Try talking about the next few months of your relationship if you can’t handle talking about the next few years.

It’s important to keep in mind as well that secure attachment in intimate relationships doesn’t just make those relationships more fulfilling; there’s evidence that it can make interactions with even those you’re not close with richer.

Research indicates that “boosting” one’s security in any fashion (“security priming” in psychology circles) makes people more generous and compassionate overall. This study by leading attachment researchers indicates that “the sense of attachment security, whether established in a person’s long-term relationship history or nudged upwards by subliminal or supraliminal priming, makes altruistic caregiving more likely.”

My sense is that for those attempting to upgrade their attachment style from insecure to secure, it is, as the saying goes, just like riding a bike: Once you’ve got it, you’ve got it. Over time you can still challenge yourself to become a “better biker”—a stronger one, a faster one, a more agile one—but once you’ve mastered looking ahead and pedaling at the same time, you are forever good to go.

About The Author

Meghan Laslocky is the author of the new book The Little Book of Heartbreak: Love Gone Wrong Through the Ages (Plume, 2012). She lives in Oakland and is a graduate of Middlebury College and the UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism.

Source: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/how_to_stop_attachment_insecurity_from_ruining_your_love_life

Follow my blog and feel free to share it, if you are interested in learning more about healing, psychology, mindfulness, and all things related to helping you feel good about yourself.

Contact me, I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation to discuss any questions you may have and to see if we may be a good fit.

Feeling Self-Critical? Try Mindfulness

Posted on October 23, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

By Emily Nauman | March 10, 2014 | New research shows that mindfulness may help us to stop comparing ourselves to other people.

Many of us feel great about ourselves when we focus on how much success we’ve had in comparison to others. But what happens when we don’t succeed? Self-esteem sinks.

GreaterGood.Berkeley.edu’s Mindful Mondays series provides ongoing coverage of the exploding field of mindfulness research.

New research shows that developing mindfulness skills may help us build secure self-esteem—that is, self-esteem that endures regardless of our success in comparison to those around us.

Christopher Pepping and his colleagues at Griffith University in Australia conducted two studies to demonstrate that mindfulness skills help enhance self-esteem.

In the first study, the researchers administered questionnaires to undergraduate students in an introductory psychology course to measure their mindfulness skills and their self-esteem. The researchers anticipated that four aspects of mindfulness would predict higher self-esteem:

Labeling internal experiences with words, which might prevent people from getting consumed by self-critical thoughts and emotions;
Bringing a non-judgmental attitude toward thoughts and emotions, which could help individuals have a neutral, accepting attitude toward the self;
Sustaining attention on the present moment, which could help people avoid becoming caught up in self-critical thoughts that relate to events from the past or future;
Letting thoughts and emotions enter and leave awareness without reacting to them.

The results, published in The Journal of Positive Psychology, support the researchers’ predictions: students with these mindfulness skills indeed had higher self-esteem. However, this study did not clarify whether mindfulness causes self-esteem, or whether those with mindfulness also had higher self-esteem because of some other factor.

In order to find out if mindfulness directly causes higher self-esteem, the researchers conducted a second study. They instructed half of the participants to complete a 15-minute mindfulness meditation that focused on the sensation of their breath. The other half of participants read a 15-minute story about Venus fly-trap plants. All of the participants completed questionnaires that assessed their level of self-esteem and mindfulness both before and after they completed the 15-minute task.

Consistent with the researchers’ predictions, those that participated in the mindfulness meditation had higher scores in mindfulness and in self-esteem after meditating, while there was no change in these dimensions for those that read the Venus fly-trap plant story.

Because the only difference between the two groups was whether or not they participated in a mindfulness exercise, these results suggest that mindfulness directly causes enhanced self-esteem.

The authors write that because the effects of the mindfulness exercise on self-esteem in this study were temporary, future research should examine if mindfulness interventions can lead to long-term changes in self-esteem.

However, these findings are promising. The authors write, “Mindfulness may be a useful way to address the underlying processes associated with low self-esteem, without temporarily bolstering positive views of oneself by focusing on achievement or other transient factors. In brief, mindfulness may assist individuals to experience a more secure form of high self-esteem.”

Article from:

http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/article/item/feeling_self_critical_try_mindfulness

Emily Nauman is a GGSC research assistant. She completed her undergraduate studies at Oberlin College with a double major in Psychology and French, and has previously worked as a research assistant in Oberlin’s Psycholinguistics lab and Boston University’s Eating Disorders Program.

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Are You a Highly-Sensitive Person?

Posted on October 21, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Is this you?

Are you easily overwhelmed by such things as bright lights, strong smells, coarse fabrics, or sirens nearby?
Do you get rattled when you have a lot to do in a short amount of time?
Do you make a point of avoiding violent movies and TV shows?
Do you need to withdraw during busy days, into bed or a darkened room or some other place where you can have privacy and relief from the situation?
Do you make it a high priority to arrange your life to avoid upsetting or overwhelming situations?
Do you notice or enjoy delicate or fine scents, tastes, sounds, or works of art?
Do you have a rich and complex inner life?
When you were a child, did your parents or teachers see you as sensitive or shy?

Sensitive The Movie Trailer

Take this Quiz to Find Out If You Are an HSP-Highly Sensitive Person

If you find you are highly sensitive, or your child is, I’d like you to know the following:

Your trait is normal. It is found in 15 to 20% of the population–too many to be a disorder, but not enough to be well understood by the majority of those around you.
It is innate. In fact, biologists have found it in over 100 species (and probably there are many more) from fruit flies, birds, and fish to dogs, cats, horses, and primates. This trait reflects a certain type of survival strategy, being observant before acting. The brains of highly sensitive persons (HSPs) actually work a little differently than others’.
You are more aware than others of subtleties. This is mainly because your brain processes information and reflects on it more deeply. So even if you wear glasses, for example, you see more than others by noticing more.
You are also more easily overwhelmed. If you notice everything, you are naturally going to be overstimulated when things are too intense, complex, chaotic, or novel for a long time.
This trait is not a new discovery, but it has been misunderstood. Because HSPs prefer to look before entering new situations, they are often called “shy.” But shyness is learned, not innate. In fact, 30% of HSPs are extraverts, although the trait is often mislabeled as introversion. It has also been called inhibitedness, fearfulness, or neuroticism. Some HSPs behave in these ways, but it is not innate to do so and not the basic trait.
Sensitivity is valued differently in different cultures. In cultures where it is not valued, HSPs tend to have low self-esteem. They are told “don’t be so sensitive” so that they feel abnormal.

“Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.”

Albert Einstein

Excerpt from Elaine Aaron’s website http://www.hsperson.com/

Click on my Resources link for link to Elaine Aaron’s book The Highly Sensitive Person.

I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation. How to contact me.

Kayla Blanche Tse, LMFT

Trauma-Informed Art therapy & Psychotherapy, Certified Havening Techniques® Practitioner

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