Pushing Buttons — Untended Pain

Posted on April 5, 2015 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Daily Om by Madisyn Taylor

When someone continues to open our old wounds on purpose, they must be told that their behavior is no longer welcome.

We all had our buttons pushed to the point where we feel we can’t take it any more, and chances are, we’ve all pushed somebody else’s buttons, with or without knowing it. The button pusher may not be conscious of what they’re doing, but in the end the buttons belong to us, and we are the ones who must deal with what comes up. The more we take responsibility for our own feelings and reactions, the less tender these buttons will be.

The importance of self-care.

We all had the experience of having someone snap at us, seemingly out of nowhere. This happens when we unconsciously push a button in someone else we didn’t even know was there. This can happen with a complete stranger and sometimes with a person we’ve known and been close to for years. We ourselves may have a relationship with someone whose buttons we secretly like to push. Buttons are just soft spots that have been touched one too many times, and they symbolize some pain that needs to be acknowledged and healed. This may be a wound from childhood, or some recent trauma, that we haven’t adequately tended. Whatever the case, when our buttons get pushed, the person who most needs our attention and caring is us, and blaming the button pusher only distracts us from finding a true resolution to our suffering.

Image from cyh.com

At the same time, if someone continually opens our wounds so that they never have time to heal, we are well within our rights to set a boundary with that person. Compulsive button pushers, who seem to find pleasure or satisfaction in hurting us, are not welcome in our personal space. In the end, knowing where our buttons are enables us to do the work necessary to heal. Freedom comes when we deal with the pain behind the button, thus disconnecting our automatic reaction to being pushed.

For more information visit dailyom.com

Contact me, if you are struggling with a relationship you feel “keeps pushing your buttons.” 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 therapist.

How Well Do You Read Other People?

Posted on November 21, 2014 by Kayla Tse, LMFT

Body Language Quiz | Test Your Emotional Intelligence

with Greater Good the Science of a Meaningful Life

Facial expressions are a universal language of emotion, instantly conveying happiness, sadness, anger, fear, and much more. Reading these expressions is essential to compassion and empathy.

Take this short quiz to measure your emotional intelligence. Try to identify the emotion conveyed in each of the 20 photos. Each answer will pinpoint the exact muscles involved in that emotion and explain the subtle differences between expressions, drawing on pioneering research by psychologists Paul Ekman and Dacher Keltner. Some emotions appear more than once.

When you’re done, share your score and have friends take the quiz.

Click here for link to test

Source: http://greatergood.berkeley.edu/ei_quiz/

Contact me if you are feeling the holiday blues and would like to talk to someone who can help you. I offer a free 20-minute phone consultation, if you have any questions about my style of therapy or to see how I may benefit you.

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.

For more inspiration see Quotes to Inspire.

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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.

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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.

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.

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.

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