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Good communication is essential for relationships, but it’s challenging for nearly everyone. In my therapy practice, I have helped many people with communication issues, including couples, families, and individuals. Work in this area usually involves learning to engage in reflective listening and responsible, feelings-based communication, which means talking about one’s own emotions, rather than blaming others. These are essential concepts and skills, however, they depend on something more fundamental: self-awareness. Awareness of ourselves allows us to listen to others without reacting impulsively, to recognize what we are really feeling, and to express ourselves in an intentional way. 

Continue reading “Self-Awareness: The Key To Better Communication”

We don’t usually accept our authentic feelings and just allow them to be what they are. Instead, we try to control our inner experience based on our preferences and our beliefs about what we should and shouldn’t feel. A lot of this happens unconsciously, through automatic patterns of avoidance.

Unfortunately, when we avoid our feelings we are not present with ourselves; we lose touch with our bodies and with what is going on inside of us. If our feelings reside outside of our conscious awareness, they haven’t been resolved and haven’t gone away. Hidden feelings play a powerful role in human life, unconsciously shaping much of our experience. These rejected emotions may also take a toll on our bodies, creating tension which can contribute to pain and disease.

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Our society is polarized by political and cultural divisions, and this has the potential to impact the therapeutic relationship in various ways. Someone undergoing therapy not only might want to discuss their political views, but they may also want to know what positions their therapist holds, or they may feel concerned about how the therapist will respond to them. A client may have trouble trusting a therapist if they fear that the therapist is on the opposite side of political divide. How a therapist handles these issues is not only important for the client’s trust or sense of safety, but it also may be therapeutically useful for the client, or not.  

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Imagine that some mean, judgmental person followed you around all the time, putting you down and accusing you of screwing up. From the time you woke up in the morning, until you went to sleep at night, they would be there pointing out your supposed mistakes and flaws. To make matters worse, let’s assume that you believed everything that they said about you. How do you think this would affect the way that you see yourself, and how you live your life?

Continue reading “Freedom From The Inner Critic”