Author: Dr. Andra Brosh

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Wellbeing

Inoculate Yourself Now Against Future Bad Relationships

The habit of falling into and staying in a bad relationship beyond the expiration date has become a chronic problem in our culture. Understanding the reasons why you stay beyond what’s good for you will prevent repeating patterns of bad choices.

You would be hard pressed to find someone who has never been in a bad relationship. We’ve all had our share of abusive, toxic and “going nowhere” partnerships that we either look back on with regret or learned from.

Most of what I work on in my psychotherapy practice is helping couples become better in their relational dynamics. I help them heal broken trust, release resentments from the past, and love each other more authentically. I also see a lot of people who are tired of repeating the same mistakes and who are ready to release old patterns that get them into dysfunctional love relationships. What I rarely get the chance to do is help people avoid bad relationships.

It can be really difficult to discern between a truly awful relationship and one that needs work. A bad relationship is one that would be considered toxic, abusive, or otherwise harmful to your overall health and wellbeing. A relationship that is salvageable or that can be improved stands on a strong platform of kindness, trust, respect and some form of love.

It’s not until a partnership has been pummeled to the ground that we begin to realize that there might be a better way. Change most often comes out of deep pain and loss and this is also true when it comes to love. In the end, my work becomes more about sweeping up the ashes of what’s been burned to the ground then adding a new addition to a relational structure that has a good, strong foundation.

I have found that there are a few solid reasons we end up in relationships and even marriages that don’t work for us only to stay in them way too long.

Here are the top five reasons I see most frequently:

Choosing the Wrong Person

We choose a partner for several reasons, but most often it’s because we feel we have found the perfect person. Idealized love is a natural part of romance, but you have to acknowledge the cracks in the mirror to really know if something will work. You need to see beyond the perfection into the dark recesses of your partner’s humanity because that’s ultimately what you’re committing and relating to. Choosing a long-term partner cannot be taken lightly, and it does have to be a choice. Falling into a relationship because it “feels right” or out of desperation only leads to heartbreak and disappointment.

Who you’re drawn to isn’t always the right person.

When you feel a connection with someone it’s usually chemical and familiar. Evolution has designed you to pick a partner that will give you the greatest chance for producing genetically sound offspring. Mother Nature can trick you into falling for someone because they offer protection, strength, virility and health. What she doesn’t wire you for is the common sense to recognize if this person is trustworthy, loyal, honest and kind. This has to be mindfully learned and pursued with consciousness. The truth is that you can only know someone by spending time with them, and traversing some challenging life moments. This is where you’ll get to the true character of your partner so be patient and let them show who they truly are.

Lack of Personal Introspection

When you don’t know yourself intimately you’re at risk for a bad relationship. You have to understand what you need to feel fulfilled and happy so you can properly choose a partner that can meet those needs. Like most people you have probably looked for someone who embodies the qualities you lack in yourself, which leaves you dependent on them for your fulfillment and happiness.

Distorted Intentions

The intention behind finding your right partner is truly important if you want to avoid settling. Fear of never meeting anyone, not wanting to be alone, looking for someone to make you happy, recovering from a bruised ego, or fulfilling other people’s ideals about your partner will land you in something that isn’t right. Some healthy intentions for finding the right relationship are to share a life with someone, to feel a sense of support, or to build a family. Coming from a place of intention as opposed to avoidance will help you seek what you want over what you don’t.

Overlooking Red Flags

Love is definitely blind, but this idiom is more about acceptance than it is denial. When you want something to work you’ll talk yourself out of feelings that would be important to honor. Hoping a person will be different down the road or that they’ll change over time is a sure indication that you’re on the wrong path. Seek the relationship you want right now; not the one you hope to have down the road. 

Relationships often find us more than we choose them so be kind and patient with yourself when you land in something that doesn’t work. Get the right support and gain enough insight to prevent making poor choices in the future.

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Wellbeing

Keeping Your Balance When the Rug is Pulled Out from Under You

As human beings we thrive on predictability, and pride ourselves on being the fortune-tellers of our own futures. By predicting the future, and basing our safety and security on our ability to “know” what the future holds we bind our anxiety and deny the reality of life.

In truth, life is unpredictable, unknowable, and impossible to control. As a result we are sometimes blindsided and vehemently hit on the back of the head with the 2×4 of life’s randomness.

When I was 40 years old, I received a breast cancer diagnosis. Then, one year later, my husband announced he no longer wanted to be married. Since then I continue to find myself riding the waves of unexpected loss, and uninvited challenges that life organically brings.

When life throws its curveballs, and the world you thought you knew gets ripped out from under you, there are ways to cope and lessons to be learned. Confronting the realities of what it means to be a human being living on this earth is inevitable for all of us, but it is possible to get through unscathed. You can become a good soldier by having a protocol for dealing with what comes your way as you make the best of what feels like the worst.

First you’ll need to know that there are a few specific phases you’ll journey through as you recover from the experience of becoming untethered from what you thought was your life.

Shock

The initial blow is startling and puts you in a state of shock. You are learning very quickly that surprises are not always fun, and that when you experience an unexpected change in your life it triggers a powerful physiological response that organically comes with high levels of stress and fear. The shock usually passes within weeks creating more space for other thoughts and feelings to surface.

Disillusionment

In this phase you’re struggling with the reality of what’s happening. You’re trying to reconcile what you expected with your current truth, and part of that process is letting go of the illusions that we all create to feel safe in the world. This is where you say things like, “I never thought this would happen” or “This feels surreal.”

Disorientation

Grappling with the how’s and why’s is an inevitable part of this process. Having your world go up in flames is disorienting particularly when you don’t know where you’re going to land. The uncertainty that comes with unexpected change leaves you with no solid ground so it’s normal to feel adrift and lost as you work toward understanding that you have stumbled into a life challenge you didn’t see coming.

Coping in the immediate aftermath of a life crisis is very specific. You’ll transition into other phases as you move through the process of recovery, but the initial blow and immediate traumatic response are often overlooked and bypassed because it all happens so quickly.

Slowing down and really laying a foundational system in the very beginning sets the tone for how things will unfold going forward.

An important aspect of this kind of treatment is to truly mark the beginning point of healing. There has to be a definitive moment of when the trauma ends, and the healing begins. Without this specific awareness, intentions aren’t clear and you stumble through as opposed to creating a conscious journey.

Believe it or not, it’s possible to begin when there’s no end it site. When you’re ready, and the time is right, you’ll begin putting these coping mechanisms into place:

1.     Get Centered

It’s easy to get swept up in the chaos when your life is falling apart. Avoid losing all of your bearings by grounding yourself in healing routines and practices. Start by committing to a daily practice that plants you firmly on this earth so you start each day with a sense of connection to yourself or something greater. Journaling, art, meditation, dance and exercise are all wonderful centering practices.

2.     Become a Pill Bug

I’m sure you’ve seen how pill bugs curl up and retreat into their shell the minute you touch them. Think of yourself in the same way because you’re vulnerable right now and need to protect yourself. This is a time to retreat as much as you can even though you’ll expect yourself to go on with life as normal. Practicing self-care and honoring your trauma are key components of coming out the other side stronger and more resilient later on.

3.     Step Back

When your life is out of control your first impulse will be to “do something”. Of course there will be some issues that need immediate attention, but in general taking the time to step back and really take in the magnitude of your situation will help you gain clarity about next steps. This isn’t a time to make rash decisions or rush into solutions. Allowing the pieces and remnants of your life to land organically will give you a good sense of what you need to do next. Practice patience and trust that the process will unfold as it is intended to. This is a practice of letting go where it makes sense.

You have the capacity to learn and grow from any challenge in your life if you allow that to happen. Big challenges in life make you a deeper and more evolved person as you come to understand your own strength and resilience. Trust that you have what you need to survive, but never under-estimate the magnitude of what you’re facing.

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Wellbeing

Get a Ph.D. In Your Emotional Life

When I first went back to graduate school to get my Ph.D., I worried about my ability to perform, and whether I was smart enough to take on that kind of education. I spent quite a bit of my young adult life feeling stupid, and conditioning myself into believing that I just wasn’t a smart person. As a result, my self-confidence suffered, and I just wasn’t sure if I had what it would take to get the degree I really wanted.

After one brief semester of graduate school, I learned that I had something very special that I had never acknowledged as being valuable or useful.

As I began learning about emotional life, and how affected we all are by our life experiences, I quickly realized that I was jam packed with a kind of knowledge that was much more powerful than anything I could ever learn in a book. I was storing a huge amount of untapped wisdom that I had been unknowingly collecting my entire life.

As I sifted through the mud that had been layered on top of my inner world, I began to uncover the valuable nuggets of emotional wisdom that had remained dormant for so long.

Like a tumbleweed gathering debris as it rolls, you have been collecting emotional experiences and pieces of wisdom throughout your life. Each experience you have fills you up in the same way your brain absorbs information from a book. Everything that happens to you provides the opportunity for wisdom, and a deeper understanding of the self. The effort and ability to understand your feelings and the impact of your life experiences increases your emotional intelligence, and ultimately makes you wiser.

In your daily life you probably ignore your feelings. Whether it’s due to a lack of awareness or a need to repress what you don’t want to feel, you’re missing out on some very important information that you need for success in your life.

What you feel is directly correlated with how you behave. If you’re not in tune with your emotional life, than you’re at risk of irrationally reacting to others and living only your partial truth. Your feelings offer an incredible amount of information.

If you feel unappreciated at work, this emotion might be sending you the data you need to set some firmer boundaries or that you need to re-evaluate where you are in your career. If you feel lonely or distant from your partner, then you may want to listen to your emotions and get under the hood of your relationship to figure out what’s going on.

In the same way your receive physical signs and symptoms from your physical body that alert you to something being off, your attunement to your emotional symptoms will help you take care of yourself and tend to issues before they become problematic. If you’re disconnected from your emotional life this doesn’t mean there’s a deficit in you; it’s a deficiency in your emotional development.

You first learned about your feelings when you were very small. If you were lucky enough to grow up with sensitive and emotionally aware parents, then you would have had the good fortune to have your feelings accurately reflected back to you. This would mean that when you felt angry and threw a toy, someone was on hand to label that emotion for you so you could learn to identify it in the future.  Or when you felt sad, someone was available to hold you and affirm that the feeling was real and valid so that when it surfaced again you would know that it was a valuable communication from your own body.

Reversely, if you grew up in an environment where emotions were undervalued, then your fluidity in the language of feeling would have become limited. You were wired and born to feel, but the ability to make sense of those feelings depended on the skill of your teachers.

As you live in the world today you can become more intimately acquainted with your emotional life in many ways.

I encourage a three-step process that lays the foundation for tapping into your inner emotional wisdom.

1.     Become Curious

The beginning of any learning has to start with an open mind, and a natural curiosity. Maintaining a childlike wonderment about your feelings will allow you to relate to your emotional life more compassionately. As you develop a greater interest in yourself, and what drives your experience of the world, you’ll increase your emotional intelligence and you’ll begin to feel more empowered to deal with life’s challenges.

2.     Deep Dive

In the same way there is a whole world of life living under the ocean waters, your emotional life lurks beneath your consciousness. You’ll get bits and pieces of it as feelings get triggered and rise to the surface when activated, but the greater bounty will require you to dig and dive deeper into the unknown. This happens in therapy or through working with a guide who can safely take you where you need to go.

3.     Add Vocals

Your emotions are a symphony and you have to put voice to the music. Labeling your feelings and expressing them verbally when they surface is an important part of this process.  Even the most primitive and fundamental emotions like anger and joy are hard to express when they have never been verbally acknowledged. You were born crying because you are evolutionarily wired to verbally express yourself. As you become more comfortable with verbal expression you come to realize that it’s easier to get your needs met by others, and that you feel a deeper sense of intimacy in your life.

This kind of self-exploration isn’t for the faint of heart. It takes courage and strength to look inward with such intensity, but the payoff is a greater sense of wholeness and authenticity. Earning your degree in emotional intelligence will be the best investment you ever make.

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Wellbeing

Are You Relationship Ready?

If I had to pick one question that I get asked most often by my patients it would be, “Am I ready for a relationship?” Week after week I sit with forlorn and lovesick people who are desperate to find love and terrified that they never will.
The inquiring minds on my couch want to know:
-Can I trust my judgment?
-Will I pick the wrong person and get hurt?
-Am I lovable?
-Will I ever meet that special someone?
Coming out of bad breakups, divorce, and toxic relationships, the men and women I see have eroded self-trust and a lack of confidence in their ability to find and sustain a healthy, loving relationship.
Most of us never get the education or role modeling we need when we’re young to manage our interpersonal relationships as adults. As a result we fumble and blindly stumble through relationship after relationship until we finally begin to realize that there might be a better way.
“Relational health” is not a familiar concept for most people, yet it’s the cornerstone of well-being for all of us.  Your relational health is defined as the quality of your interpersonal relationships with the barometer being your own sense of happiness.
As a human being, you’re wired for love and connection, and you were evolutionarily designed to connect and bond. Because of this you will do anything to feel connected, including engaging and staying in unhealthy dynamics to preserve the attachment to a partner.
In essence, your relationships are crucial to your survival in the same way a baby needs a caregiver to stay alive.
How did something that’s supposed to be so natural become such a struggle?
The reality is that we’re complicated and so are our lives. What we think we want and what we actually need are often very different. I have had patients come in with lists that look like scrolls containing all of the qualities and characteristics they’re looking for in a partner.
He has to be funny, responsible, kind, and handsome. She has to be fit, ambitious, witty, and artistic. This is what they’ve been taught to look for and value in another human being, and what they think will ultimately make them happy with that partner.
These are what I call the conscious qualities that we look for in someone, but there are unconscious qualities that live out of awareness. The unconscious qualities are not in consciousness because they have either never been brought to awareness or we don’t feel entitled to want them.
Below your conscious thinking lives a whole world of unmet needs, unwelcome feelings, and some of your own characteristics that were never appreciated or nurtured.
The truth is that most of us live as partial versions of ourselves and look for someone to complete us. We search for the missing pieces of our most authentic self in a potential partner with the hope that we will feel whole once we’re partnered and in a relationship.
This is the “you complete me” syndrome, where the hope of one or both partners is to become whole in the relationship.
Two halves usually make a whole, but when it comes to relationships each partner needs to be fully whole for optimal relational health. The most authentic and fulfilling relationships will come from finding the person who compliments and supports your most authentic self.
If you have an unconscious need for freedom you’ll do best with someone who can tolerate distance and your independence. If you unconsciously fear abandonment you will need to find someone who has the capacity to be present and available.
While this sounds fairly straightforward, it’s only possible to get this right if those unconscious needs, feelings, and parts of yourself are brought to awareness. When they remain repressed you unconsciously seek to repair your childhood wounds by re-enacting the same dysfunctional dynamics with a partner.
Instead of finding a stable and responsible partner you’ll find an unavailable partner and spend months or years trying to feel safe with someone who can’t give you what you need.
Taking the time for introspection and doing a deep dive to truly understand your relationship history is a first step toward relational health.
The high rate of divorce and the ever-increasing numbers of people waiting longer to get married tell us that rushing into a relationship is not always a good way to go.
If you have the time and patience in your life to actually prepare for your next relationship, you’ll increase your chances of sustaining a fulfilling and long-term partnership with someone who is good for you.
We all want to believe that love just happens, but it doesn’t.
You have to seek love, but you’ll never find it if you haven’t first found yourself. When you know yourself deeply, and when you can embrace your humaneness, loving another human being becomes possible.
Without introspection and a deep understanding of who you are and what you need, real love will evade you.