Category: Family

It is true that we do not get to pick our family, yet the cards that we are dealt when we are born into the environment we call our family sets the tone of how much work we may or may not have ahead of us to be fully acquainted with our best self.

It is in the parameters of our family that we establish our attachment style, which forms the basis of how we relate to others. Our family also forms the foundation of our emotional intelligence. Whether or not we had healthy role models will have major implications on our sense of self- worth.

Regardless of the family we were raised in, there are two critical aspects within our control.

One: If our family did not provide us with the healthiest role models, we have the opportunity as adults to alter any and all parameters that do not serve us.

Two: We have the divine purpose within our own family to be the change we want to see, by applying a myriad of principles at our disposal to be attuned parents and raise emotionally intelligent human beings.

What did you learn in your family of origin that no longer serves you? How can you make changes? And what do you want to do differently as a parent of your own children?

Self Care for a healthier, happier and more productive reality.

I am celebrating my birthday this week, one of my favorite days of the year to give myself some much-needed self-love and care. I know I ought to be giving myself “birthday love and care” every single day of the year, but out of the 365 days per year, most days there seems to be something else that takes precedence over taking care of myself.

The truth is that optimal performance; peak productivity, happiness, and health are not possible without scrupulous self-care. Our species has achieved some amazing accomplishments throughout our history: We have uncovered the human genome; walked on the moon; and created masterpieces of art, like the Sistine Chapel. But we continue to fall short at practicing self-care, which is a major obstacle to realizing self-mastery.

Why is taking care of ourselves so hard for us to put into practice?

Here is a small collection of guidelines about self-care—possibly the most critical component to realizing all noble human pursuits:

  1. If and when the cabin pressure drops, you have to put on your mask first before you can help anyone else that may need your assistance!

Isn’t it time we got over the conditioned way of thinking that we are selfish if we take care of ourselves before we take care of the ones we love? If we have people we love in our lives, we need to remember that we cannot be there for anyone in our lives if we become ill.

  1. Re-think your “number goals,” and change them to ones that truly matter.

We often sacrifice self-care for the goal most of us make number one on our numbered lists of goals: money! But which of these number-related goals might be more important than money: Thirty minutes a day of physical activity? Five servings of fruit and veggies everyday? Twenty-five grams of fiber per day (if you are a woman) or thirty-five grams (if you are a man)? What unique, beautiful, body number goals should you be considering? Do you need to have a blood pressure goal, or an HbA1C goal if you are a diabetic? Re-think your number goals.

  1. When it comes to your physical health, strive for balance versus perfection.

If you don’t get your thirty minutes of exercise today, can you add an extra ten minutes per day over the next three days? Events happen that take us off-balance. Becoming good at reinstating our balance when it’s lost is one of the most important and impactful things we can do to take good care of ourselves. After all, we cannot eliminate the myriad of life situations that will often challenge us and in significant ways. However, becoming better at how we land back on our feet after each setback and regain our balance is key to arriving at desired outcomes.

  1. Nurture your mind everyday.

Self-care goes above and beyond the American Medical Association’s recommendations regarding our physical health. Challenging yourself to find one way to nurture your mind everyday will increase the grey matter in the parts of your brain associated with inner strengths like resilience.

It only takes a few minutes to listen to a TED Talk or a short, guided meditation, or to read a few pages of a powerful book. But the benefits of re-sculpting your brain toward a happier you last forever!

  1. Self-talk matters.

How do you talk to yourself? Often, we are our self’s worst critic. We camouflage self-criticism under the label “high standards.” A helpful antidote is to picture yourself as your BFF (your best friend forever). How would you talk to them? If your self-talk does not pass the “BFF test,” it’s time to revamp the elements of your internal dialogue. Reframing is a fabulous way to calm our nervous system and bring us back home. For example, if we try something and fail, we can look at it from this perspective: “We are a fabulous person simply having an experience of failure.” Although it may seem like semantics, the act of reframing a negative to a positive is enough to allow us to support our nervous system to work with us towards our health and not exhaust it by employing it for our defense from imaginary threats.

 

  1. Give yourself the gift of connection and human touch everyday.

Regardless of how many ups and downs each day may bring, make the time to hold your loved ones up close and personal. When we hold or touch a person we love, the hormone oxytocin floods our blood stream. Oxytocin is a potent modulator of critical nervous system functions involved with anxiety, depression, and pain perception. If you feel that life becomes a little too much at times, don’t forget oxytocin—the most natural and potent anti-depressant, which is free and has no side effects. All you have to do is reach out and touch the ones you love!

  1. Take an active stance against negative thoughts, words, and people.

We don’t often consider the negative consequences of the vibrational frequency of any type of negativity. But if you think of a time in your life when you nurtured a plant, you know how toxic it would have been if you had chosen to water your plant with an acidic fluid, like bleach or vinegar. We, too, are delicate flowers easily taken off our optimal levels by any threat that sounds our alarm! There is nothing more alarming than negative thoughts, words, and people.

Each and every one of us has a very special purpose, regardless of our background, history, or humble beginnings.

We often believe that the economy, unique life situations, or circumstances outside of our control are responsible for us not living the life we want and deserve.

The truth is that we have everything we need to arrive at all our desired outcomes.

All we have to do now is focus on effectively closing the gap between the optimal results we expect and the quality of care we provide ourselves.

As it turns out, the love we put into anything important at work or at home will determine our results.

But the one thing we need to always remember is that we cannot love anyone anymore than we love ourselves.

The time to start loving yourself more is now!

The Most Profound Way to Make Friends and Influence People

We invest much energy and time in trying to become a popular person. We beat ourselves up at the gym to have a nicer body; we starve ourselves to lose weight; we go under the knife to change physical attributes; and we go into debt to buy designer clothes and other material trophies. And what is the outcome of all of these efforts? We are more isolated and lonely than ever.

Do you want to know a secret? The key to being the most likeable person at work or at home is to be the person who is best at establishing safety with others!

 Why is safety the only quality that truly matters?

Our nervous system is built like a sounding board. Much like a mirror, our neurobiology perceives and reflects the internal state of the people around us. Research shows that when we see someone else in pain, the regions of our brain associated with pain get activated. We don’t have to be neuroscientists to witness our mirror neurons at work. Just notice how we tear up while watching a sad movie, although the sad story is not actually happening to us. Emotions are indeed very contagious.

When two people are interacting and one person’s internal state is not calm and balanced, it will activate threat-related neurons and the stress response in the other.

In fact, our nervous system appears to play a very important role in how we feel and behave without us even realizing it. Steven Porges, who developed the polyvagal theory, specifically uncovered compelling data on the role our autonomic nervous system plays in the regulation of affective states and social behavior. Most of our physiological responses occur without our awareness, due to neuroception—a sub-conscious process of threat and danger detection.

When we define others in a negative way, are critical and or contemptuous towards them, their stress response gets activated. The stress response shuts down the brilliant, thinking part of our brain and slows down critical functions, like our immune system. Needless to say, being under the emotionally hi-jacked state of our stress response does not feel good.

We will have a very hard time making friends and influencing people if we elicit the stress response in others when we interact with them.

Three million years have passed since the Stone Age, and we now seem to reside in the threatened brain era, where it is estimated that we activate our fight or flight response over ten times per day. Six hundred million years of evolution have yielded us a brain that has the propensity to assume the worst. What can we do practically to intercept our built-in negative bias and master the art of building safety with the people that matter in our world? Here are some ideas:

  1. Say what you will do and do what you say.

This is one of the best-kept secrets describing the quickest and most effective way to build trust with anyone. It appears to be challenging in the midst of it all to prioritize and remember all the things we said we would do for all the people in our lives. But if you wish to be more popular at work or at home, being the person others can truly depend on is gold. Knowing our own limits and not over-promising and over-extending ourselves is critical too. It is much better to say “no,” than to say we will do something and not do it. Being a man or a woman of our word is a potent ingredient in being liked and having influence over others and, may I say, it is extremely rare.

  1. Replace judgment and resistance with compassion. 

When another behaves in a way that rubs us the wrong way, we take it personally. At that point our threat-related neural activity increases and the right hemisphere part of our brain, which governs our relational ability, shuts down. It is then easy to slip and slide into becoming judgmental, defensive, and resistant to connection. What if instead we choose to focus on feeling compassion for the other person’s temporary inability to relate to us in a healthy way and take the high road in reinstating the sense of safety between us? Research from Stanford University’s Center for Compassion and Altruism has uncovered that nothing releases bursts of dopamine (our “feel good” neurotransmitter) in our brain as much as compassion does. If you become associated with dopamine release in another, you can actually become addictive in a good, positive way!

  1. Practice having power over your mind.

When something in another triggers negative emotions in you, redirect your attention to identifying at least three positive things about them. Although not visible on the exterior, emotions are perceived under the surface through contagion neurons. And if you have any concerns that thinking positive thoughts about someone who is upsetting you is letting them off the hook, think again. Redirecting our attention from a threatened brain state to a calmer state will allow us to have the clarity of thought to handle this, and any other, situation effectively. In addition, this practice is critical to the mastery of self-control, a rare skill that everyone admires and is attracted to.

  1. When emotions run high, use “I language.”

Communication between two people is nature and science at work. Since it is natural for two people to have differences, we must exercise caution when expressing any discomfort we feel and not put our fellow human beings down. When we do, safety is immediately removed, and the person across from us is no longer interested in resolving our differences. They are now busy defending themselves.

When views, perceptions, and understandings are shared with “I language,” they do not trigger defenses. We feel honored and special when someone shares their feelings as opposed to defining us in a negative way. Think of your last, heated discussion with another. How would that conversation have ended if you had expressed your feelings and needs instead of blaming the other person for how things turned out?

  1. Invest wholeheartedly in your healing!

We don’t typically like to admit it, but we are complicated, powerful systems that come with no directions, driven most of the time on autopilot from procedural memory. As much as we prefer to be known as easy-going, we all have varying degrees of wounds, past pains, and baggage we carry along with us, which frequently get triggered when we least expect it.

We are hot beds of emotions driven by our never-ending efforts to get further away from pain and closer to pleasure. Nothing is more powerful than being the admired person and role model we strive to be. We do this best by processing, unpacking, and making coherent stories of our past experiences that otherwise hold our spirits hostage and disrupt and sabotage every effort and good deed we make toward connection and belonging.

As it turns out, it is not the perfect exterior but a well-regulated interior that appears to be the most attractive attribute we can bring to our personal or professional life.

Although we can continue to play the part, use the right words, wear the right clothes, and do things the way others like us to, we know that maintaining a status quo façade is an ineffective way to create authentic connection and trust with the people in our microcosm.

If we want to make a difference and be part of a small revolution, nothing can set us apart from the crowd like being people who are predictable, accountable, reliable, and who say what they mean and do what they say.

You can be the person others know they can depend on, no matter what. You can be the one they always feel calm and safe around.

And I promise you, a person like that is definitely the one everyone wants to be around and everyone wants to follow.

What is abuse?

At one time I used to think abuse was a foreign concept that only existed in the lives of my fellow human beings who had limited education and a compromised standard of living. I thought they experienced abuse because they did not know any better.

Little did I know!

Abuse does not discriminate by socio-economic status and appears to be widespread and present not only in the lives of many individuals and families, including the affluent, but even in the business practices of many reputable, organizations.

Abuse includes any type of behavior that targets another human being, with the goal of making them doubt their perceptions and abilities in order to gain power and control over them.

Here are some effective ways within our control to build resilience against abuse:

  1. Learn to recognize abuse when we see it.

One of the biggest problems with abusive behavior is the myriad of ways it camouflages itself, which makes it difficult to recognize.

Beyond overt name-calling, anytime any of us has not cultivated our own personal power and choses to define another in a negative way, we are crossing the line from an effective to a dysfunctional pattern of behavior and communication. Some examples include:

  • When we give someone the “silent treatment” because we are upset with them, thereby defining them as nonexistent.
  • When we withhold fondness and admiration from someone we care about, because we experience discomfort with an aspect of our relationship with them.
  • When we use mishaps of others from the past to coerce them to act a certain way in the present,
  • When we minimize the perspective of another human being or counter their expressed feelings or needs,
  • When we dismiss agreements we made and act as if we do not remember them,
  • When we deny reality in response someone’s efforts to re-connect with us and we deny being aware of any disconnection in the first place: “I don’t know what you are talking about”,
  • When we make a joke about someone that highlights a part of them that is not one of their strengths.

These are all examples of maladaptive behaviors that “abusers” use to gain power over others.

  1. Understand the core issues that lead one to behave abusively.

Although when we are being abused we tend to take it personally, being subjected to abuse is not at all our responsibility. Someone who uses any of the above ways of interacting with another,  has an injured sense of self worth, hence, attempts to make you feel less than who you really are, as a way to feel good about themselves!  We need to understand that as scary as the behavior of an abuser may be and as misunderstood and unimportant as we may feel (as well as afraid of what may happen if we press the issue), an abuser’s behavior comes from a sense of powerlessness. As crazy as it may seem when someone is putting you down If we can cultivate empathy for the obvious ineffectiveness of the abuser to express their feelings and needs in healthy ways, we can actually begin to make a difference in eliminating this destructive pattern of behavior. By not taking it personally and understanding how challenged “the abuser” is psychologically, allows us to stay empowered to use assertive, effective communication, strict boundaries for accountability, and zero tolerance for abusive transactions. Trust me, the “abuser” deep down is miserable for how ineffective their dysfunctional patterns are in their life’s outcomes, they don’t really want this kind of trouble just don’t know how to change it!

  1. Take an active stance against abuse by refusing to respond to it.

We often think that by getting upset and responding with anger toward someone who puts us down, we set them straight. Actually, playing “tit for tat” games with an abuser feeds their injured sense of self.

If and when we do something that offends another and our behavior requires adjustment, we deserve as much good will and respect as we do when we are acting beautifully. When our responses comes from a deep sense of self worth, we do not tolerate unhealthy treatments because we made a mistake. Equally, when we feel worthy and deserving of love and belonging, we don’t engage in somersaults to make someone treat us with respect. We treat ourselves with respect by not getting upset and by setting clear boundaries.

So, the next time anybody “stone-walls” you, you can clearly express that you acknowledge their challenges in expressing their feelings and needs at this time. You can inform them that when they are ready to tell you what they need, you will be happy to hear their perspective. Then simply go about your day and remove yourself from being treated as invisible.

After all, everything is simply a temporary perspective, and your perception of self is the only valid reality.

  1. Reinforce and role-model healthy communication.

We are all beautifully human, and we don’t have the power to read somebody else’s mind, nor can we feel, sense, and experience life’s events through someone else’s lens. We will ruffle another’s feathers at times and they will ruffle ours.

After all, the dictionary definition of relate is to make a connection between differences. The only way we can make a connection between our differences with another human being in a healthy way is by choosing to express our feelings and needs in a loving way—void of criticism, hidden agendas, and contempt.

For example, “When you are late to our meetings without giving me a heads up, I feel frustrated and angry. I need you to please give me a heads up as soon as you know that you will be late so that I may adjust my schedule.”

This is the only way one may consider making adjustments to accommodate our request and trust me, none of us will in response to abuse!

  1. The most important action we can take against abuse is to strengthen our own sense of power.

When we process our own wounds and past hurts, we are not afraid to assertively express our feelings and needs. We can move past anyone who comes across our path who refuses to acknowledge our point of view or to be accountable for their actions.

It is important to focus on feelings of empathy and compassion for someone who is in much pain and using maladaptive behaviors to feel better about themselves. Yet we have to be brutally honest with ourselves, as well, when we allow our pain to get the best of us and we find ourselves guilt-tripping another for our negative emotions.

Healthy development and emotional intelligence allow us to accept and respect others points of view, show goodwill, and be accountable when we occasionally slip. We may at times need to express negative emotions like anger or frustration with another, but we can do so constructively, without defining another in a negative way.

The insidious nature of abuse can seriously interfere with one’s emotional and physical health and corrode the essence of the human soul of an individual, a community, and the world we live in.

The time is now to reverse the trajectory of our physical, emotional, and social health—one breath and one relationship at a time.

And it all starts with you!