The reason I put the word addictions in quotes in the title of this post is because I'm talking about a broader issue that what most of us think about when we talk about addiction; here I'm talking about ALL OF US and OUR addictive behaviors, whatever they might be.

And they might be one or more of the following: shopping, sex, drugs and alcohol, gambling, taking risks to feel alive, high adrenaline activities and thrill seeking, workaholism, anger, novelty seeking, and self-injurious behaviors (e.g. cutting, burning, scratching), among others.

These are things we can ALL identify with, whether it be one item on the list, or several, or something not on the list at all. They are things which can make us feel satiated when we feel empty; connected and tranquil when we feel abandoned or lost. They temper our rage or our outrage; and they soothe the psychic angst we sometimes feel about the ultimate meaning or purpose (or lack thereof) of our lives.

But the problem with our addictive behaviors are that they further DISCONNECT us from ourselves and from our real lives; and that includes the people in our lives such as our children, our spouses, our friends, and our communities, among others.

The other problem with our addictive behaviors are that they burn up what I call "vital life energy."

Vital life energy is simply the combination of two of our most limited natural resources: our time and our energy.

If we are spending our time and energy "over there" and "doing that" (i.e. in our acting out, addictive behaviors), then, by definition, we cannot also be "over here" and "doing this" ( i.e. in our real lives with the real people in our lives.)

In fact, it's not unusual for somebody to tell me that, soon after they stopped expending their time and energy doing whatever addictive behaviors they had been doing, sometimes for literally YEARS at a time, they realized that they were absolutely exhausted.

Soon thereafter they also realized just how much energy they were burning up while pursuing those "activities"; and they could also soon feel the difference in BOTH their energy levels AND the time available for other, more deliberate and constructive endeavors.

We humans regularly try to escape the realities of our lives and the pain of our lives using addictive behaviors.

It is extremely difficult to live life "on life's terms", as has been said before.

Who can blame us for trying  to escape life by jumping into the various addictive behaviors we have available to us, especially those which are perfectly legal and "socially acceptable", such as work or novelty seeking?

Of course, some behaviors are more obviously problematic and destructive, such as drugs and alcohol, infidelity, and gambling or spending impulsively.

For the most part, however, many of the people around us, including we who seem to be living absolutely normal, product lives, do, in some form or another, act out addictively.

This is the hardest pill to swallow (figuratively speaking) for most people.

Yes, you are a good and valuable human being.

Yes, you are worthy and honorable.

And, yes, you very likely have some addictive behaviors that you use when you are miserable, upset, anxious, angry, worried, overwhelmed, jealous, etc.

We must understand that addiction is not just for the clinically obvious, substance-based, DSM-IV (or V) diagnosable behaviors.

The spirit of what I am referring to here is that anytime we are in pain (which we are usually unaware of- see my previous post about identifying pain), we are at risk and vulnerable to acting out our addictions.

We must come to consciously know, identify, and become, to some degree, 'comfortable' with our pain, such that it no longer controls our lives when we are functioning at less than optimal conditions (i.e. tired, hungry, lonely, angry, embarrassed, jealous, overwhelmed, anxious, etc.)

As I've said in an earlier post, we must come to "feel our pain", not "live our pain".

The former will give us a chance to live our lives; the latter only our pain.

The bottom line is this: We all have a limited amount of time and energy in our lives. If we spend this vital life energy pursuing our addictive behaviors, we are NOT going to spend it on our real lives.

The result will be disconnect from both ourselves and from our loved ones, not to mention troubles with work and the other priorities we have in our lives.

Best of luck to you,

 

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

I use this question in my practice precisely because it is such a hard one for most of us to ignore, and because it paints a strong, unforgettable image in our minds and in our hearts.

But really, this rather morbid question also serves as a way of asking you if you've got Emotional Credibility with your kids.  (Remember, Emotional Credibility= trust + they want to be around you.)

In the above picture, if you do, they'll visit you; if you don't, they won't.

Ready?

Ok, let's begin.

How do you talk to your kids?

Are you respectful? What is your tone?

I'm sometimes outright flabbergasted when a parent tells me that their kids do not respect them, yet, from the way they describe it (or the way I sometimes witness it), they do not respect their kids either.

I want to clarify two things: First, our job as parents, other than to love unconditionally, is to TEACH. The other thing is that our job as parents is also to LEAD.

Not to make constant ultimatums or threats. Not to throw tantrums ourselves. Not to nag them or make continuous Comments at them.

To TEACH and to LEAD.

If I do not treat my kids with respect, whether it be with my tone or with my behaviors towards them, under what sky should I expect or assume that they will respect me?

People have taught me that respect begets respect.

If I treat you with respect, then you tend to be more respectful towards me as well.

If I do not, neither do you.

With children it is especially important to TEACH respect by LEADING with respect.

Friends and family who serve or have served in the military tell me that they would be willing to follow a person they respect and trust into certain death if they had to do so.

They also say that this is usually a person who has LED them by him or herself doing what he or she asks THEM to do, and by TEACHING them what must be done.

Our kids are watching us.

They don't have rent or a mortgage, and they don't (usually) have kids of their own (yet).

So they are watching US. And they are doing it when we least realize it.

They are listening to our TONE.

They are observing our behavior.

And, most importantly, on some subconscious level, they are continuously tabulating an assessment of who we are; in other words, what I call Emotional Credibility points ("E.C. points") .

In the end, we've eventually either passed or failed with them on a very basic, fundamental, subconscious level; in other words they ultimately either trust us and like who we are, or they don't. They're gonna visit, or they're not.

They are observing us and asking:

What's this guys limit?

What does she do or how does she handle herself when she's overwhelmed?

What can I trust her with emotionally, or can I trust her with my emotions at all?

Should I avoid him?

Will she shame me, reject me, or otherwise make me feel badly about myself?

Does he seem to genuinely like and enjoy me, or do I always feel like a burden or a job to him?

Is she always distracted or multitasking around me, or does she actually STOP, FOCUS, and pay real attention to me for a couple of minutes?

Is he always angry?

Does she always say she's too tired to play?

Does he seem jealous when I win?

And on it goes….

Over the years, I've heard many people tell me how CLOSE they came to "recently" visiting their elderly parents, whether literally in a nursing home, or otherwise.

"Oh, but we were really pressed for time" they might say, "so we couldn't stop by that day…."

or, "We really wanted to stop by, but we were just too exhausted…."

Translation: This parent long ago burned through any Emotional Credibility I had in them (probably by age 12 or so), so I've really got no true attachment to them anymore, other than guilt or obligation. No true, positive, joyous feelings here for them.

This is one of the saddest things I am witness to.

On a regular basis.

By the way, another variant of this is that we DO visit them (or talk to them on the phone regularly, etc.), but out of GUILT, not out of the joy and love which comes from having great Emotional Credibility with someone.

Guilt and obligation "visits" are NOT what we're aiming for here! You deserve better than that.

The question really is, "Will our kids visit us because we've EARNED IT?"

That's right my friends, we actually have to EARN our children's love and respect; in other words we must earn Emotional Credibility with them.

Any parent who still believes that "they should respect me just because I'm their parent", is unfortunately investing in fool's gold.

The truth of the matter is that, sure, they might LOOK like they respect you, but what they tell me when they're all grown up (after they learn it themselves first) is that they actually FEARED you, or DREADED you, or perhaps even felt sorry for you.

I don't know about you, but I for one NEVER want my kids visiting me in the nursing home or calling me on the phone because they have feelings of guilt or obligation borne of fear, dread, or pity.

No, you and I both want our kids to actually trust us with whatever they need to tell us or whatever craziness they bring upon our lives for the short time (usually) that they live with us.

We want them to enjoy us and to know that, ultimately, we enjoy them as well.

We want to talk to them with respect, in a tone which conveys leadership and guidance, and with a spirit which treats them like the future adults (parents, husbands, wives, etc.) that they will someday become.

Otherwise, someday, we might just feel the words of Harry Chapin come alive as he sang:

"I've long since retired, my son's moved away

I called him up just the other day

I said, 'I'd like to see you if you don't mind'

He said, 'I'd love to, Dad, if I can find the time

You see my new job's a hassle and the kids have the flu

But it's sure nice talking to you, Dad

It's been sure nice talking to you'"
("Cat's in the Cradle" by Harry Chapin, 1974 album Verities & Balderdash)

 

All my best to you and your kids,

 

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com

www.DrFerraioli.com
 

In my professional (as well as personal) experience, one of the major goals of being a married person is to grow as an INDIVIDUAL.

In my upcoming book, "Don't Get Married! (Unless You Understand A Few Things First)"- out later this month on amazon.com- I describe marriage as an Emotional Laboratory for individual growth.

An Emotional Laboratory- how romantic, right?

Glad you're with me so far.

Gone are the terms we're so used to using, such as "soulmate", "true love", "in love", or the dreaded, "I love you but I'm not IN love with you anymore…."

Instead, the Emotional Laboratory says that your job as my spouse is to allow yourself to take emotional risks with me to further your emotional growth, and I will do the same with you.

Let me say this again:

Your job as my spouse is to allow yourself to take emotional risks with me to further your emotional growth, and I will do the same with you.

This way we EACH grow as INDIVIDUALS in the laboratory, while at the same time growing more intimate as a couple.

One of the biggest problems with the way marriage is generally done is that people believe that they are supposed to make each other whole, or somehow save each other from the pain of life.

The Emotional Laboratory says that marriage is supposed to be for the growth of each individual spouse, who uses the other one to learn to take emotional risks that they've been trained (sometimes from as early on as childhood) NEVER to take.

So, for example, if your tendency is to "ready, fire, aim", then the Emotional Laboratory says that you must practice talking to your spouse about your feelings first, before you get mad, give up, yell, or complain. And they must do the same with you.

If  your tendency is to keep difficult topics or emotions to yourself (in order to save your spouse the pain, or to prevent them from rejecting or shaming you, or from becoming angry with you), the Emotional Laboratory says to share them instead.

Some classic, albeit, particularly difficult examples of using marriage as an Emotional Laboratory would be when tempted to act out around cheating, spending, or scheduling your time.

Before you do any of these things, you must first go to your spouse and tell them that you are in trouble and that you are tempted to act out in these ways. Your spouse, by the way, has to vow never to summarily reject or shame you, or become angry or belligerent with you when you share things which are difficult for you to share, otherwise the Emotional Laboratory will not work.

The way it's supposed to work is that one spouse takes an emotional risk by sharing something they would normally NEVER share with anyone else, and the other spouse Listens, Validates, Asks questions, and Comments last, if at all. (Sounds like the LVAC technique to you, right? Very good!)

Use your spouse as a safe haven for your deepest and most painful, as well as your most joyous and celebratory, "secrets".

Train one another to receive these gifts from each other as a way of helping you each grow into the strong, emotionally competent adult individuals you were meant to be.

For most people, childhood and young adulthood influences what they allow themselves to say to other people or to even acknowledge within themselves.

The Emotional Laboratory of marriage is a perfect opportunity to "use" another human being to help repair the trust, the self-confidence, and self-love that many of us lose somewhere during the process of "growing up." It is a chance to learn to share again, without fear or shame, and to also learn to truly Listen to another human being and to Validate their experiences.

And, remember from my earlier posts, one of the key goals in our marriages, as well as when raising our children, is to build Emotional Credibility (which equals trust + being liked by the other person enough for them to want us around.)

Use the Emotional Laboratory in your marriage and you will achieve plenty of Emotional Credibility with one another.

So remember, save the Comments for last (LVAC!) but don't save the secrets from each other anymore!

Now go to your spouse and "experiment"!

 

All the best,

 

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

LVAC stands for: Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment.

Most people pronounce it "L-VAC".

It is a trademarked communication technique which I developed to remind us how to give each other what we need when talking to one another.

It is especially important to LVAC with your child for three reasons.

1) it builds up your Emotional Credibility with them (which equals trust + likability)

and

2) it helps them learn more about themselves while you are learning about them at the same time

and

3) they'll never outgrow the need for it since we all need it

If your child came to you and told you that they lost the locket or keychain you gave them for their birthday, what would you do?

What if they came to you and told you they had just been bullied at school or at the park?

Or how about if they told you they were scared about something? Worried? Angry?

What do you do when your child "talks back" to you?

The point is that most of us, given the above situations, make some sort of immediate Comment to the child. We'll usually make some sort of generalization, or ultimatum, or maybe get defensive somehow (or all three!)

Sorry to break it to everyone, but this is NOT parenting!

What we tend NOT to do is to first Listen to what they are saying, then Validate their feelings on the matter (i.e. "I see", "Oh, I can understand that", "Uh-huh, I see", "Yeah?", etc.)

Once we Listen and Validate, then we can move on to Asking questions.

The best questions to ask are open-ended questions, such as "What's going on?", or, "How'd you feel about that?", or, "Then what?"

Don't be afraid to use open-ended questions with your child to help them clarify what they are trying to say to you, and to themselves. A great deal of the magic of the LVAC technique lies within the Asking of open-ended questions instead of making immediate Comments. A good open-ended question encourages the other person to talk more; it doesn't shut them down.

And don't make the mistake of using closed-ended questions such as, "You're not wearing that are you?", or, "I hope you didn't do that, did you?" These are actually just Comments in disguise, and they contain the same things that our Comments contain: shame, blame, guilt, anger, defensiveness, etc.

The real problem with Commenting as a first response is that the Comment tells the child about where WE are emotionally; i.e., about OUR reaction to them or to what's happening. It does not help us learn about them, and it does not help them learn about themselves.

Our immediate Comments short-circuit the process of teaching the child how to feel what they are feeling so that they can learn to communicate their position WITH WORDS.

Instead, with our Comments we are teaching them to be more in tune with us than with themselves. This is how we pass our life experiences (and our neuroses) onto our children, generation after generation.  This will not gain us any Emotional Credibility with them, since they will begin to realize over the years, at some level, that we always make it about US instead of keeping our attention on THEM and they will pull away from us or cease to trust us emotionally.

Our Comments also promote DISCONNECT between us and them, and between them and themselves, and as you know from some of my prior posts, these disconnects are what ultimately lead to destructive acting out behaviors.

The LVAC technique will help you behave in a calm, focused, productive, and invaluable manner with your child so that they get from you what they need as your child, i.e., they need to use us as sounding boards for their lives, not continuous commentators.

If we use LVAC, our children will learn important things about themselves, about life, and, lastly, about us and our competence (and incompetence.)

They will grow to trust us and want us around for years to come because of what we've always given to them.

And, most importantly, they will grow to like and accept themselves as they become the emotionally competent, strong, and confident adults we want them to be.

Good luck, and all the best,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

(You can find out more about the LVAC technique in my book, LVAC Nation!, available on amazon.com, or by going to www.LVACNation.com)

Ladies, we gentlemen may start out as what I call "man-boys", but we are trainable if you give us a chance.

In my upcoming book, "Don’t Get Married! (Unless You Understand A Few Things First)", due out on amazon.com later this month, there is a chapter which I've entitled Man-Boys and Angry Wives.

In that chapter, I state:

"In a marriage [or marital-type relationship], many men initially have a difficult time making the transition to fully accepting the fact that, as of the day of their weddings, they have agreed to a larger agenda and goal now: to continuously work on building and customizing a life with their wives."

The problem is that many of us never consciously realize this and so we half-innocently go about our lives as though it were still a continuation of the day before the wedding (or other serious relationship commitment.) It's half-innocent, because nobody's ever taught us the right way. (But not totally innocent, because we're not children anymore either, so we ARE ultimately responsible for our choices and our behaviors.)

But this lack of understanding causes problems. In fact, it's how we help create the Angry Wife part of the dynamic:

"Angry wives are in large part created as a result of these major disappointments or "shocks", combined with whatever they themselves (the wives) bring into their marriages from past hurts and disappointments perhaps not immediately related to their husbands but triggered by him today."

So there we have it; a recipe for marital -or other serious relationship- DISASTER.

As time goes on, the man continues to try to live his life the way he knows how, and the wife continues to build up resentment and mistrust in her man as she experiences disappointment after disappointment and hurt after hurt. (If you've been following this blog, you also know that, needless to say, the sex, or physical intimacy, eventually goes out the window along with the emotional intimacy and trust; and this is what often finally gets the man's attention—see my previous "Sex and Marriage" post.)

Next, I'm going to give you three examples of "man-boy types" from the book:
1) The sportsman type
2) The social animal type
and
3) The no-job-no-ambition type

Let's start with the sportsman type.
Again, from the book:

"This is the man-boy whose angry wife is resentful because of all the time he spends playing in after work sports leagues, playing fantasy football, or playing cards, gambling, or otherwise focusing on regularly planned activities which do not involve her at all."

The problem with this is that, once we marry, the meaning of time changes:

"To an overwhelmed, harried, busy wife, especially if there are kids involved or a career, even a few hours once or twice a week in which her husband is engaging in some sort of activity independent of her and the project of their lives together can present a conflict. He is spending this extra time away from not only her, but from the life they are trying to build together, which should be his first priority."

Next, the social animal type:

"This one seems to engender even more anger and resentment from the wives, than the first kind. This is the guy who tries to continue to hang out with his (usually unmarried) buddies from college, professional school, or work. It could be happy hour on Wednesday nights or meeting up with them on the weekends, all while his wife is either working, taking care of the kids, or managing the household."

And, finally, the no-job-no-ambition type.
About this type, the book (lovingly and respectfully) tells men:

"Unless you are physically or mentally disabled, which I'm assuming you and your wife would know about, you are pretty much obligated to engage in some sort of productive work activity in your life. Above all, the perception by your wife that you are either lazy or incompetent will breed anger, resentment, and, eventually contempt."

Now for the "trainability" part I mentioned earlier.

Lest you should think that I am a self-hating former man-boy, I want to tell you ladies that this is only half-true (I am not self-hating.) I also want to say that we men are unique and different from you in several important ways, two of which are as follows (incidentally, these are both generalizations since they may not be universally true for every couple, man, or woman):

1) Men are wired to feel more emotionally intimate when they are having, are about to have, or have had PHYSICAL intimacy (i.e. sex) with you, whereas you women are generally wired to feel more sexually available when you are feeling more EMOTIONALLY intimate with us. So we are very much wired differently, in general.

and

2) Men have what I call a built in "kamikaze" reaction. In the book I describe it as follows: "One thing I've observed about men is that, once they sense that they are already seen as failures or as having failed in their spouses' eyes, they almost all tend to become angry in return, as they conclude that they've irreversibly messed up. "

What follows with the kamikaze reaction is the old, "Well, I screwed up now and she's mad/disappointed/repulsed/cold/etc. already, so f@&k it!" (As I say in my office, 'scuse the language here.)

So, if you know these two things, you now also know that:

1) You and he need to rebuild the Emotional Credibility (which equals trust + liking each other) before there can ever be healthy emotional OR physical intimacy. (So, in other words, you have to work together to help him go from man-boy to man so you can trust, respect, and like him again.)

and

2) (from the book): "Women who are becoming angry and resentful towards their husbands will get much more mileage (and results!) by first trying to gently support the husbands' efforts to change instead of immediately going on the attack." (So, in other words, try not to immediately punish him or withdraw from him (i.e. get cold) which will trigger the "kamikaze" boyhood reaction in him and you'll lose him at that moment.)

Well, there it is in VERY BRIEF summary.

My final, parting words to you are these: To the men, don't worry or feel bad. It's just a matter of building up your skills, which you can easily do if you read this blog regularly and practice; if I did it so can you!

And to the women, seek to understand the realities of the man-boy and you'll have an easier time dealing with your husband as he grows into the man you need him to be.

Now, go out there, work hard, have some fun, and help each other grow up!

 

As always and ever yours,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com   

Can you remember times when you've been so beside yourself with someone, so overwhelmed with disappointment in them or with anger towards them that you made a statement along the lines of, "You ALWAYS do such and such..!", or, "You HAVE ALWAYS..!", or, "YOU'RE ALWAYS..!"?

Or maybe it was more like, "You NEVER such and such..!" (listen, care, understand, etc.), or, "You're ALWAYS GOING TO…!" (be this way or that way, do this or that, make me feel this way or that way, etc.)?

Or perhaps you LABELLED the person with statements such as, "You are such a [blank]..!", or, "You'll never be [blank]…!" (jerk, responsible, etc.)?

I call these statements "generalizations" and they can be destructive not only to the relationship, but, and especially when used with children, to the other person's self-image and self-esteem.

For example, if I say to my child, "Put your bicycle back in the garage please", but then I also add, "Geez, you never listen!", or, "Come on, I've told you a thousand times!", now I've made a generalization which does two things: First, it tells them more about me and my overwhelmed internal state than they need to know and therefore puts us at risk for role reversal, i.e., them having to take care of me emotionally instead of vice versa, since I'm the one freaking out, and, second, it "labels" them as a "never listener" so to speak.

In one fell swoop, I have lost some of their trust in me and my ability to handle myself and to guide them in life (remember Emotional Credibility?), and, at the same time, I have begun to undermine their self-esteem and self-image by labeling them.

The funny thing about acting out our pain on others this way, (i.e. by making generalizations), is that it makes the other person ultimately trust us less and it also tends to make them act out more in reaction to our generalization. In fact, they will often do so in ways directly related to the label we've given them.

So, for example, if we tell them they never listen, guess what? They end up listening LESS.

If we tell them they are a jerk, guess what? They end up acting more like jerks with us.

If we tell them they ALWAYS do something which annoys or angers us, …you get the gist.

What we need to remember is that when we turn a person into a generalization, we are effectively putting a separation between us and them. In other words, we are becoming more distant from them, not more emotionally intimate.

Think about it for a moment: If your tendency is to say things in a tone which is upsetting to me and all I do in return is to yell at you stating that you ALWAYS use that tone with me, what have I accomplished?

Maybe in the small minority of cases, you would learn that I don't like that tone and you'd change it, no questions asked. Fat chance though.

The majority of the time, you'd get defensive OR you'd pull away from me. AND I'd get even more of that behavior from you because nothing really ever got resolved with my generalization.

If, instead, I focused on the present example of this behavior which bothers me (i.e. your tone), I am now simply pointing out your behavior to you in the present and what it does to me. I am not attacking you by labeling you or telling you how much you s@%k (insert popular adolescent and pre-adolescent word here--one which neither you nor I would EVER use of course.)

Make no mistake, when we generalize somebody, we're attacking them. It's a counterattack more than a communication. We are frustrated or otherwise hurt by them, but we are not saying that to them, and we are NOT working through the issue with them in the present when we generalize.

And, assuming that they are a human being, they will likely react, and if it's a human of the little child variety, then they'll also internalize the generalization and it'll become part of who they eventually are as adults. Not good.

Don't believe it?

When you are in the privileged position that I am in, day in and day out, and are allowed to share in the stories of thousands of wonderful people each year, you learn:

The fifty year old procrastinator was once a twelve year old child who was repeatedly LABELLED a procrastinator.

The forty five year old expert at self-sabotage was repeatedly told that they were a "screw up."

And, in the case of marriage and marital-type relationships, you'll lose Emotional Credibility with the other person, which, as you might recall, equals trust + actually being liked by them and them wanting to have you around.

So please, don't generalize with your loved ones, communicate with them instead. Stay in the present with the behavior that's happening right now, not in the past or the future.

And, above all, good luck and be well.

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

We often have no problem identifying physical pain, but when it comes to emotional pain, unless it's something obvious, we're often unaware of the fact that we carry around pain in our lives and of the impact that it has on our behavior and the choices we make.

The other day I observed someone "losing it" with their child at a local Toys-R-Us store.

Of course, we all do this from time to time, but it's important to know when we are crossing the line between appropriate behavior, in this instance expressing anger (as opposed to rage) or helping to correct a child's behavior, and acting out our own pain on the child by over-reacting with rage or by undermining the child's self-esteem.

The ways we act out our pain are often the ways our earliest caregivers acted out THEIR pain too (which is how we learned it), so we are simply repeating the pattern, never realizing what we are really doing or that the cycle must stop.

We also act out our pain in our relationships with other adults.

How many times have you snapped at your spouse or other adults in your life, such as co-workers, siblings, neighbors, or friends, and later felt guilty or ashamed about it? That was your pain talking.

We humans carry around an awful lot of subconscious pain around with us every day of our lives and we often act it out with our behaviors and our choices without even realizing it.

Examples of some behaviors which come from our pain:

-drug and alcohol abuse

-spending or gambling

-chronic anger or erratic behavior

-procrastinating or avoiding

-self sabotaging

-ignoring or repressing our feelings

-constantly searching for The Next Big Thing or The Key To Life

-need for constant stimulation or thrill seeking

-novelty seeking

-regularly engaging in risky behaviors or choices

-lack of true intimacy with other people

-inability to hold down a regular job

-narcissism of entitlement or feeling above everyone else

-needing to habitually control things

-sexual addictions

-lack of follow through or self-worth

-idealizing then devaluing people

Examples of where we get our pain from:

-alcoholic or drug addicted parents

-depressed or overly-anxious parent(s)

-absent or neglectful parents

-emotional, physical, or sexual abuse

-emotional role reversal with parents

-too much life responsibility too early on

-witnessing violence

-poor nutrition and other resources

-chaotic, hectic, inconsistent early environment

Every one of us can identify with at least one item from each of these two lists, and for most of us, more than just one. We ALL carry pain EVERY DAY. And we expose our lives and the people in our lives to this pain on a regular basis.

What we need to begin to do is to acknowledge that there is a "whole 'nother universe" under the surface of our lives, one in which there are leftover feelings from as far back as childhood and the disappointments and betrayals we experienced back then with our primary caregivers…all the way up to present day hurts, whether they be new traumas or the triggering of those earlier, original ones.

We need to have a special place and some special people in our lives with whom and where we can talk about our fears, our anger, our anxieties, our sadness, our despair, our losses, our insecurities, our shame, our guilt, and all the other feelings which most of us carry around without ever really knowing or acknowledging it.

It's like this: we can either Live our pain and have it affect everything, including the people, places, and things we choose to pursue in our lives OR we can begin to free ourselves by learning to Feel our pain by having and using the resources I just mentioned above to identify and to talk about it.

Try to make it a regular practice to talk and/or write about your pain. Put it into words. If you're a creative person (or even if you're not), put it into your art as well.

Your subconscious tries its best to process your pain for you in your dreams at night, but, for most of us, we also need a regular venue in which to learn to identify and to verbally express our pain so that we can be free to live our lives, not our pain.

I wish you all the best in your healing journey,

 

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

(Next time I'll share with you the dangers of "making generalizations.")

Unconditional Love vs. Unconditional Positive Regard

There is a difference between Unconditional Love and something I call "Unconditional Positive Regard."

Unconditional Love is what parents are supposed to give to their children. It means that the child is not yet ready to be fully responsible for their behaviors, so that they can bring the parent their "poopie diaper" and the parent will clean it up and will still love them. It is to be expected.

Unconditional Positive Regard, on the other hand, is what peers can give to each other. It means "benefit of the doubt" or "I will first judge you to be innocent and give you a chance before I jump down your throat."

Unconditional Positive Regard does NOT mean Unconditional Love, because we adults are (or are supposed to be) responsible for our behaviors towards one another.  It is one of my ten "Adult Emotional Competence Skills" which are all included in the mnemonic REALADULTS (the "U" is for Unconditional Positive Regard and you can find it and the others in my earlier post of the same name or in my book LVAC Nation.)

You see, if I bring you my emotional "poop" and you put up with it or "clean it up" for me time and time again, you will eventually resent me. (Put another way, I will lose Emotional Credibility with you, which, as you may recall, equals trust + likability.) You will become more my parent or babysitter than my peer.

The problem is, however, that we often expect, no, we DEMAND Unconditional Love from our peers, especially our spouses, either directly or indirectly.

We want to be able to behave impulsively, without restraint, or to treat them any way we want in the heat of the moment but to still expect infinite understanding, patience, and immediate forgiveness. (Sounds an awful lot like that "poopie diaper", no?)

In other words, we subconsciously want them to be our perfect, all understanding and all forgiving parent, while we are the helpless victim child.

Unfortunately, this is just not realistic in adult peer-to-peer relationships like marriage, and it leads to hurt, disappointments, and resentment, as well as both emotional AND physical disconnect.

In fact, the reason I came up with the term Unconditional Positive Regard in the first place is that at least it is something we adults CAN give to one another on a day-to-day basis without adding to the disconnect and resentment between us. And it's something we can work with.

With Unconditional Positive Regard, we are responsible for our behaviors, and when we behave in a less than Emotionally Competent manner (e.g. outbursts, acting out, not following through, devaluing, wrong tone, sarcasm, lying, ulterior motives, manipulation, selfishness, etc.), we are willing to accept feedback about our behavior from the other person and we are also willing to try to correct it in order to preserve the connection between us. (Ever wonder where all the sex goes in so many marriages? It goes right where the emotional connection and Emotional Credibility went—out the window!)

Unconditional Positive Regard, or benefit of the doubt, says that when you are mean or less that considerate with me I won't immediately jump down your throat or become defensive or angry right away, but I WILL point out your behavior to you and what I would rather have from you. Your job is to then listen to my feedback and use it to grow into your most Emotionally Competent adult self.

Unconditional Positive Regard is an active, dynamic process between two adults, neither of whom are perfect reference points for mental health, but both of whom are willing to learn from each other's feedback.

As many of you who have read my books (or this blog) already know, we are all just "somebody else's messed up kid" anyway, so why expect you or your spouse to be some sort of perfect adult or parent to one another, or, on the other hand, to put up with bad behavior from each other while trying to preserve the connection between you?

Use Unconditional Positive regard to say to your spouse, "Hey, I'm not your parent and you're not my helpless victim child. I will give you the benefit of the doubt here to explain your behavior, and then I'll tell you what I think about it so we can come up with something better for ourselves and for our relationship."

If you don't learn to talk like this to each other, you'll just get defensive instead, or you'll pull back and withdraw from one another; nothing will ever get resolved or worked through and your relationship will grow more distant and less emotionally and physically intimate as time goes on.

If, on the other hand, you DO try to talk like this, you will be building up a customized, extremely valuable relationship with the other person; one in which you can each improve yourselves using the other person's Unconditional Positive Regard, along with their accompanying observations and feedback, as tools for your own personal growth.

Remember, adult peer-to-peer relationships, and especially marital ones, are really about YOU. We grow as INDIVIDUALS within the relationships we have with other people and when we go through the difficult, often gut-wrenching work of ironing out the issues we have with one another in an honest, open-minded, optimistic, and exploratory manner.

(Please see my upcoming new book, Don't Get Married! -Unless You Understand  A Few Things First- due out later this month on amazon.com. In it I discuss the concept of marriage as an Emotional Laboratory for individual growth.)

All the best,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

(Next time I'll tell you how to identify pain.)

 

In light of the upcoming school year, I wanted to offer this piece to you parents out there before we get into the next topics I promised you (i.e. Unconditional Love vs. Unconditional Positive Regard and, the other upcoming topic, How To Identify Pain.)

For children about to head off to middle school (and for their parents), there are a couple of salient things to keep in mind in order to help make the transition as smooth and as beneficial as possible.

As with any other transition in their lives, including the ones yet to come, such as high school and college, it is important to continue to emphasize an approach which maximizes opportunities for them to verbally express themselves and to be heard and then acknowledged when they do so. The more we encourage this, the less they will act out their unexpressed emotions in destructive ways.

By making them feel good about expressing their feelings, thoughts, conflicts, worries, hopes, etc., to you the parent or to other responsible adults, they are encouraged to continue to do so in the future.

Now, the hard part: how do we make them feel good about this, thus reinforcing this habit in them for the future?

Before we answer that, we must first look at what happens when we do NOT do this, in other words, when we shut them down by Commenting immediately about what it is they are telling us, rather than Listening first, then Validating them, then Asking open-ended questions about what they are saying. 

Simply put, if we Comment first they will not get as much of an opportunity to explore with you, or, more importantly, within themselves, what it is that they are really feeling or trying to say. 

This leads to a breakdown in deep trust and faith in the relationship and in your ability to help them handle whatever life throws at them (remember Emotional Credibility?)

They will also begin to disconnect within themselves as well, replacing potential self-knowledge with shame, guilt, fear, anger, or confusion, among other things.  Over the years, these disconnects (both with you and within themselves) will grow, leading to the need to act out their unexpressed and unconscious emotions via unhealthy activities and choices including drugs, alcohol, sex, fighting, lying, cheating, procrastinating or not focusing on their goals, and other inappropriate and destructive behaviors. This is why it's so important to help them to express and to know consciously what they are feeling and what they are trying to say to us.

As you may know by now, I call the approach described above LVAC^TM which stands for Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment. 

This approach helps the child maximize his or her ability to learn about what it is he or she is feeling and what they are trying to say by minimizing our tendencies to interrupt their train of thought and their emotions with our anxiety-ridden Comments. 

This is the way we make children feel good about talking to us about their feelings and it reinforces this habit in them for the future, which is necessary for the development of a robust, healthy, and adaptable self in adulthood.

In other words, as we are getting to know them better with the LVAC approach, they are getting to know themselves as well, and they are therefore developing a solid, strong emotional core inside. What a gift we are giving them!

In the middle school and high school stages of pre-adolescence and adolescence there is a great need for the LVAC approach in order to promote self-knowledge and the integration of the self (as opposed to disconnects within themselves), so that there are fewer potentially destructive acting out behaviors as well as less vulnerability to peer pressures of all kinds.

You can think of it like this: the more healthy and robust and whole is the self, the less disconnected, empty, and fragile is the person, and the less they will have the need to act out in order to temporarily feel alive and whole.

In the end, the pre-teen and teen years don't have to end up as them against us or them hating themselves or the world (rebels without a cause), all of which are wastes of emotional energy and growth opportunities which can take years to recover from. 

Instead, the LVAC approach lets them pour their valuable energies during these formative years into the development of true self-knowledge and a cohesive sense of self, i.e., really feeling connected and really knowing what they like, don't like, want, don't want. It also allows them opportunities to truly engage themselves both in their work and in their relationships, thus eventually helping them to attain astronomically more satisfying, joyful, and less conflicted lives.

In short, it will help them to 'fly', which is what we parents want.

'Till soon,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.
www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

Do you trust your spouse? I guess a better way to ask this question would be: Do you have trust in your spouse?

In order to talk about forgiveness in your marriage, we first have to look at how we lose the trust in each other.

I divide trust into two basic categories: "Macro-trust" and "Micro-trust."

Macro-trust is the trust we usually think about when we're talking about trust in a relationship and it covers the big things like fidelity, addictions, violence towards each other, and willingness to discuss issues.

If a marriage doesn't have Macro-trust, it's not a viable relationship and it won't last.

For now I want us to focus on the other kind of trust, namely, Micro-trust.

This trust is the one we don't usually think about very often, at least not deliberately and consciously. It involves things like trusting your spouse to handle whatever it is you need to tell them without making you feel bad or attacking you or ignoring you or getting defensive with you right away.

Micro-trust also involves the feeling of knowing that your spouse will support you emotionally in life, including trying to understand your desires, wishes, what you want, don't want, like, and don't like. It is the knowledge that you have that your spouse truly thinks about you even when you're not around, and even when there's nothing immediately in it for them.

Micro-trust is often the trust we lose first in our marriages. It begins to fade as we "betray" each other with our lack of truly Listening (remember LVAC?), Validating, Asking questions to learn about each other, and Commenting last, if at all.

We also lose the trust when our spouses begin to sense a childishness about us which often shows itself in our selfishness or even our narcissism, so to speak. It is that vibe we give off that says, "Sure I love you, but, hey, I come first when the s@%t hits the fan!" That means that if I'm low energy, tired, hungry, frustrated, distracted, worried, or somehow overwhelmed, I'll snap at you, deprioritize you, become sarcastic with you, not listen to you or try to hear you, etc. And all the while I'll also make demands of you. In a word, I'll be an Emotionally Incompetent Adult with you when I'm under duress, or perhaps any time at all- totally unpredictable!

The problem with losing the Micro-trust is that, unlike Macro-trust issues, it's often insidious. If you have an affair, or spend your paycheck on alcohol or drugs, or gamble it away, it'll be pretty obvious that your spouse won't trust you for long.

But with Micro-trust issues; issues like lack of consideration, lack of listening, a sense of uncaring or inconsistency, the effect is often one of buildup of resentment and disconnect in the marriage.

Now for the forgiveness part.

People will often tell me, once they've learned about these things, that they can literally pinpoint the moments in which they began to lose the Micro-trust in their spouses, or vice-versa: a lie here, an outburst there, a deception or ulterior motive over there. Whatever the case may be, they begin to see what happened.

Now the question becomes, what can we do about it to fix it?

People have taught me that one important step which needs to be addressed before there can be true healing in a marriage is the forgiveness step.

We must literally ask our spouses for forgiveness.

But this goes beyond simply saying, "I'm sorry."

Asking for this kind of forgiveness involves more than just words. It involves a mindset, a spirit, and an adjustment in your heart.

It involves allowing yourself to first feel the pain which led you to act the way you acted or would habitually act with them. We often live or act out our pain on other people, and we don't even realize that we're in pain to begin with.

Maybe we're angry, frustrated, afraid, uncertain, confused, anxious, excited, worried, or out of sorts somehow. The fact is that we acted out this "pain" on the other person, and most likely more than once.

So when we're contemplating asking for forgiveness, we must first take ownership of our true feelings. This way, the act of asking for forgiveness actually starts with addressing ourselves first; our pain.

Next, we think about the pain, confusion, betrayal, anger, sadness, or despair we've caused the other person. We must feel that as well, for we are responsible for that too.

In other words, asking for forgiveness in a truly adult, Emotionally Competent way means that we are acknowledging both our own pain, as well as the pain we've caused the other person.

Now this process may take you some time to go through so don't rush it or it won't be as real as it needs to be. When you ask for forgiveness in the way that I'm describing, you are also asking, begging actually, for a clean slate. You see, we humans usually don't like to think of ourselves as being disliked or as being the source of someone's pain; it simply discourages us from being able to change the things in ourselves that we need to change.

No, in order to truly and permanently change and grow into our most Emotionally Competent, true adult selves, it is vital that we feel forgiven by those we've hurt the most.

And, especially in our marriages, this becomes an essential prerequisite to the process of rebuilding the Emotional Credibility with each other which we've lost over the years when we lost the Micro-trust (remember, Emotional Credibility= trust + liking the other person and wanting to be around them.)

Ever yours,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

(As previously promised, next time I'll talk about the difference between Unconditional Love and Unconditional Positive Regard from my REALADULTS mnemonic, then, after that, I'll share with you the ways to identify pain. Many of these concepts are also covered in my new book, "Don't Get Married! (Unless You Understand a Few Things First), due out later this month on amazon.com, as well as in my other books which you can check out at www.LVACNation.com or www.DrFerraioli.com)

 

When we marry, there are two very important things which we no longer independently control in our lives, namely:  1) time and 2) money.

As you'll see in my upcoming new book ("Don't Get Married! Unless You Understand A Few Things First" coming to amazon.com later this month), our marital lives are quite different from our single lives in many ways, and our attitudes about time and money are a huge part of that difference. I call this change from single life to married life "coming in for a landing."

Single guy: "I'm going out with the guys after work today for happy hour."

Married guy: "Honey, the guys are thinking about going out on Thursday for happy hour. What do you think?"

Notice the differences. The single gentleman is able to, quite on the fly, let people know what his plan already is.

The married, gentleman, on the other hand, asks about his wife's thoughts about his plan, AND he gives her a few days heads-up for when it's supposed to happen.

The reason for the differences in the above scenarios is based on that idea from several posts ago called Emotional Credibility.

Remember,  Emotional Credibility equals trust + liking the other person and wanting to be around them.

When we continue to make independent decisions about time and money without communicating or processing first with our spouse, as though we were still single, we lose Emotional Credibility with them; it is also an indicator that we have not yet come in for a landing from our single lives to our married lives.

Thinking about buying a new car? Better check in with your spouse and see if that'll be an appropriate family purchase at this time.

Thinking about moving? Better check in with your spouse and learn about his/her opinion regarding the financial aspects of that, as well as their own vision for your future domicile together.

Want to volunteer at a local shelter? Great idea, and very altruistic! BUT, better see what your spouse is thinking too. (If not charity, at least communication should start at home.)

You see, once we marry, we've agreed to a few things:

First, we've agreed to be accountable to the other person.

Second, we've agreed to be more deliberate about our behaviors and decisions.

And third, we've agreed to be honorable with regards to our spouse's feelings and opinions, and about the trust they've placed in us.

(Of course, we've also agreed to other things as well, including fidelity, empathy, compassion, support, and encouragement, among others.)

If we follow through on these things we build the trust and our spouses like us more and want us around more of the time (i.e. Emotional Credibility). If we do not, they can feel betrayed by us and we lose Emotional Credibility with them.

Work with your spouse on communicating what you want, don't want, like, and don't like, as well as what you feel you need or don't need. You are no longer a free agent; you've signed onto a team now.

Never assume that they'll just "know" or that they should just "know" or "agree". They don't and won't, and they'll resent you for thinking that they do or should.

Make it a lifelong goal for your lives together to get to know each other every day by Listening, Validating, Asking open ended questions, and saving your Comments (either in word or behavior) for last. (Go to www.LVACNation.com or see my book "LVAC Nation!" on amazon.com for more on the trademarked LVAC Technique.)

So remember, when it comes to time and money, marriage requires that we be accountable, honorable, and deliberate with these valuable, limited resources in order to preserve the Emotional Credibility and the healthy emotional connection between you.

All the best,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

(Next time I'll share with you the subject of Forgiveness in a marriage, which I also cover in the aforementioned "Don't Get Married!..." book due out later this month on amazon.com. And, later, I'll share with you the difference between Unconditional Love and Unconditional Positive Regard from my REALADULTS mnemonic for true adult emotional competence!)

In every family, if you go back far enough in the generations, there is some form of tragedy:

Maybe it was the destruction and losses of war. Or perhaps there was a complete loss of fortune or property. Or maybe there were drugs and alcohol or violent acting out behaviors. Perhaps it was murder or rape or other horrible examples of man's inhumanity towards his fellow man; or maybe something entirely different occurred, like a parent, grandparent, or great-grandparent stricken with severe mental illness.

Whatever the case may be, the result was that the generations afterward felt the effects of these traumas whether directly and in obvious ways, or indirectly in more subtle ways.

You see, we humans, whether we are aware of it or not, are absolutely affected by the traumas of the generations before us in sometimes very subtle ways, and we pass on the effects of these traumas down to the next generation through our various adaptations and personality traits which were originally meant only for sheer survival.

So even if we ourselves or our parents didn't suffer through one of the great calamities I've listed above, we do suffer what I call the "shell of the trauma" as it gets passed down to us, then to our children, etc., through the CHANGES in personality of the original survivor.

Think about it for a moment: if you yourself survived one of the traumas above, then it would make sense that, even though you survived it, you did CHANGE because of it as well.

Trauma requires that, in order to survive it, we CHANGE. Thus the term "survivor."

We humans "survive" trauma, but it leaves its mark upon us; on our hearts, our minds, and on our souls.

So let's say that great granddad survived World War I (or II depending on your age), but he came home with all the signs of what we would now call PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder)-- short temper, poor impulse control coupled with a sense that life could end at any minute, mood swings, problems sleeping, etc.

Granddad then gets married and has children. Guess what? With these CHANGES in his personality, he now has to deal with his wife, his children, and with post-trauma life itself. It doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that his family will very likely be on the receiving end of these CHANGES.

The kids will get yelled at quicker, he'll lose it faster, he'll be overwhelmed more easily and act more erratically; maybe he'll use alcohol or gambling or affairs to escape his pain. Whatever it is, these CHANGES in him, though he "survived", are transmitted to his children by his very reactions and interactions with them. By his very personality.

Now they've been traumatized too. And guess what again? Now they'll pass this "shell of the trauma" down to their children as well even though they themselves were never in a war at all!

So the kids of the kids of the traumatized man are now traumatized too! They have been hurt by the "shell of the trauma"—i.e. the very CHANGES in granddad which resulted from his original traumas and which may have even helped him survive the original trauma in the first place. (Quick impulses to react and a degree of paranoia may have helped granddad survive on the battlefield, but now, with his family, these personality CHANGES cause fear and anxiety in his loved ones and traumatize THEM too.)

And so it is the case with all of our adaptive CHANGES from our own traumas--we pass them along to our children and they to theirs, over and over again as the "shell of the trauma" which we were originally exposed to. It's in our personalities; i.e. our reactions, our fears, our paranoias, our impulsivities, our defensiveness and our sensitivities. Our very personalities have CHANGED and have been shaped either directly by original traumas, or by parents who have passed on the "shell of the trauma" to us via THEIR personalities.

What were once useful and perhaps critical CHANGES for survival become destructive and self sabotaging personality traits and what we call "defense mechanisms." They get in the way of true emotional intimacy and connectedness with our loved ones and they perpetuate the original traumas onto them.

The way we can "reverse time" and help neutralize our traumas is by using the LVAC^TM Technique.

It is really very simple: when we do LVAC (which stands for Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment), we are Commenting last, if at all.

A little secret I'll share with you is this: we pass our traumas onto the next generation with our Comments. These can either be Comments literally with our words, OR with our behaviors.

With LVAC, we are Listening first, then Validating what the child is saying. Then we Ask open ended questions to them about what they're saying so they can explore this with us and within themselves. This way we are giving them a chance to find out what THEY are thinking and feeling, rather than passing on OUR reactions and baggage to them, which we already know have been distorted and CHANGED by our parents' Comments to us.

Instead, we Comment last, if at all. This way, when you finally do make a Comment it will at least be more accurate with regards to what's really going on with the child in front of you and less about the reactions that have been passed down to you.

Notice that the beauty of this method is that it forces us to Comment last.

It makes sense if we think about it: our Comments come from OUR reactions, OUR opinions, OUR experiences, OUR filters in life, and OUR defense mechanisms. In other words, they come from OUR traumas.

If we've already established that our original traumas or the "trauma shells" which have been passed down to us CHANGE all of the things I've just listed in the previous sentence, then it follows that we really can't trust our Comments to be very neutralized and emotionally "clean". In fact, they're loaded.

In your life you've probably noticed that if you want to learn about somebody the best thing you can do is to listen. On the other hand, if you want others to learn about you, speak.

The trick with "reversing time" is to not allow our raw Comments to come out on a day to day basis for this is the way we will transmit our traumas. Instead, follow LVAC and you'll help stop the trauma cycle in your family.

All The Best In Your Healing Process,

 

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com 

(Next time we'll discuss the idea of "Coming In For A Landing".)