Picture concentric circles. (For those of you who, like me, were a little bit allergic to math, concentric circles are simply circles of ever-increasing size moving out from a point at the center-so if you wanted to draw concentric circles you'd draw a dot, then you'd make a small circle around it, then another, slightly bigger circle around that, etc.)

Now, as we bring people in, closer to the center from the outside circles, they become less like strangers and more like "family".

Uh-oh....

The problem is that as people become more like "family" to us, our reactions and behaviors towards them become more like our reactions and behaviors from back when we lived with our families of origin (i.e. you, your siblings, mom, dad, etc.), as we become more and more 'comfortable' with them.

For most of us, these old reactions and behaviors of childhood and young adulthood are a FAR CRY from the Emotionally Competent, true adults we are trying to become in our current lives with the families WE'VE now created (i.e. our spouses, kids, etc.)

One of the major pitfalls of marriage and other long-term relationships is that, as we move in from the outer circles closer to the inner-most ones, we are moving into what I call the "Emotional Boiler Room".

Once we've placed someone in our Emotional Boiler Room, our reactions and behaviors towards them tend to be less adult and more child-like, and not in a good way.

We become more reactive towards them, we Comment MORE and Listen LESS (see my LVAC posts or my book, LVAC Nation!, where LVAC=Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment.)

As we approach the inner-circle, or the Emotional Boiler Room, our ability to hold back our immediate responses and emotional reactions lessens, and our impulse to react in a knee-jerk fashion grows.

In other words, we lose those special bits of formality, politeness, and Deliberateness (see my posts on REALADULTS for more on Deliberate living, which is the "D" in the REALADULTS acronym), which bring forth our best ADULT selves to the other person.

Instead, they get the more child-like part of us, which is less likely to Listen, Validate, and Ask open ended-questions (LVAC), less likely to have empathy and to think about them even when we don't want something directly in return from them (e.g. favors, sex, money); AND less likely to use Restraint (the "R" in REALADULTS-- again, see the REALADULTS post or my new "Marriage" book for more) with them.

In other words, they essentially get a child for a spouse instead of an adult.

Now, if I had a dollar for every couple I've known that has had problems with physical intimacy in their marriages, I'd be, well, a better philanthropist let's put it that way. The fact is that if the way our spouses reference us in their conscious, pre-conscious, or subconscious minds is as "child", then we can FORGET about either emotional OR physical intimacy with them.

The point is that we really DON'T want our spouses to become "family"; not like this anyway, where someone always plays the maladjusted child and the other the incompetent parent.

And we DON'T want to have them dwell in our Emotional Boiler Rooms either.

Instead, we want to keep that feeling and that respect that we had for them when we first met; that sense of awe and specialness, and also that sense of really LIKING them and wanting to be around them.

In fact, in the new "Don't Get Married!..." book, I talk about the difference between the terms "in love" and "soulmate" as compared to a new term called 'Emotional Credibility'.

Now if you've been following my posts, you already know that Emotional Credibility= trusting the other person + liking them and wanting to be around them.

As a simple doctor, I certainly don't hold a corner on the market of the meaning of true love.

In fact, I confess that I'm not even sure what the word "love", as we commonly use it, means at all; except that over the past 20 years or so I've seen people profess their "love" to one another, only to then proceed to emotionally and spiritually torture and kill each other consistently and systematically over the years.

The other thing about the word "love" is that, even after all these years of intensive work with people, I still don't know what it would truly take for we humans to be able to profess our love to someone and to ACTUALLY MEAN IT AND STAND BEHIND IT not only with our words, but with our behaviors.

But I DO have an informed sense that, unless we are working on becoming true, Emotionally Competent Adults, we are NOT QUALIFIED to use the term "love" the way we're always trying to use it--that's for sure!

However, Emotional Credibility-now THAT'S something we ordinary humans can work with!

If I am to build up Emotional Credibility with the people I "love", then I must be actively working on two things: 1) earning their trust (more below), and 2) making it easier for them to actually LIKE me and enjoy having me around them.

In the old show "The Honeymooners", someone once asked Art Carney's character how he liked his job with the city, working down in the sewer system.

His response?

(paraphrased) "Oh, it's a living and it don't bother me too much."

The way our spouses would respond (if they were being brutally honest!) to how they liked being married to us could probably run quite a gamut, but let me tell you that a LOT of what their answers depend upon is the degree of Emotional Credibility we have with them.

A lot of Emotional Credibility (or what I call "E.C. Points " in the new book)= "Awesome!"

Mediocre E.C.= see Art's answer above

Very little --or NEGATIVE-- E.C. points (hey, I've seen it!)= "Horrible. I basically hate being around him/her and I try to avoid him/her whenever possible. I'd rather be alone."

So please know that, as we and our spouses go from that outer-circle towards that inner-circle, or Boiler Room, we don't always have to slide into that childhood, reactionary, impulsive, disrespectful, inconsiderate, non-Deliberate, knee-jerk, defensive, 'comfortable', "family" position with them.

By using the model of Emotional Credibility, which tells us to build trust by using LVAC (Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment), Restraint, and other "adult skills" (the ten major ones are in the REALADULTS acronym), we'll have a map and a method by which we can actually, and perhaps one day, say the words "I love you" to our spouses and have it mean something real in our adult lives together.

All my best to you and yours,

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

(You may also want to take a look at my post entitled, "Will Your Children Visit YOU in the Nursing Home?" for a take on a similar topic from a parenting point of view as well.)

When chronic, it can be a crippling affliction and many more of us suffer from at least some degree of this than we may care to believe.

Do you avoid going to the doctor for fear of "what might turn up"? Or do you put off certain things as long as possible, hoping that they'll just "go away"?

Do some of life's major decisions, such as those involving healthcare, money, and family issues seem to never get addressed because of fear or anticipatory anxiety about what CAN or MIGHT happen?

I hear you my friend.

The problem with allowing fear and anticipatory anxiety to rule our lives all the time is that it can get us into trouble.

Sure it's true that most of us feel some fear and anticipatory anxiety sometimes (or maybe more than sometimes); AND it's also true that many of us allow it to win the day sometimes. BUT it is very important to know when it's absolutely necessary NOT allow it to influence our decisions.

This is very basic, fundamental knowledge that children need to be taught by example from the adults around them.

Unfortunately for many of us, those adults too suffered from paralyzing fear and anticipatory anxiety OR, at the very least, they showed themselves to be unable to tolerate our innocent, normal, childhood fears and anxieties which only made things worse for us.

Children need adults to help them learn to find their courage.

They already have courage; they just need us to help them find it and support it so that it can grow healthily.

Once children grow up, it becomes quite difficult to reverse the damage that has been done in terms of the various fears, hypervigilance, and anxieties we have about the world around us.

What we, as adults, need to do now is to slowly, gradually, and Deliberately (see my post entitled "REALADULTS" where the "D" stands for Living Deliberately) learn to support the courage that we had inside of us as children before it was influenced by the environment (i.e. the adults) around us.

In order to do this, we must practice what I call Suspending Fear.

The spirit of Suspending Fear involves trying to get back to a state when our minds were not yet mapped out with all the fears and anticipatory anxieties that were imprinted on them in childhood and young adulthood.

It is a technique which allows us to Deliberately and, in a very mechanical, calculated way, turn off our hypervigilance for just a moment or two; just enough time to book that doctor's appointment, health maintenance test (colonoscopy anyone?), difficult meeting with a financial counselor, etc.

By practicing Suspending Fear for just a few moments, we allow ourselves to "act" like we would have acted as who we were BEFORE all the influences and experiences of childhood and early adulthood took over our minds, hearts, and souls.

It is not about talking ourselves OUT OF the fear, or convincing ourselves NOT to be fearful. It's about temporarily having what the old Zen masters would call "no mind" or perhaps "right mind." In other words, Suspending Fear is not about putting anything at all INTO the mind to get rid of the fear; it's about EMPTYING the mind entirely for a few moments.

The problem with fear-based emotions and reactions is that they cannot easily be reasoned away.

Oh, you can try.

And you can convince yourself that you are brave and that you are okay, and this may actually work sometimes for some people.

But, for the majority of us, our fears and anticipatory anxieties go back even further than our verbal skills and cognitive processing skills.

Many of these "pre-verbal" traumas have left us in states of chronic, perpetual hypervigilance which not only is unhealthy in and of itself, but which also distorts and disables our abilities to make appropriate, healthy choices with the situations and facts that life presents to us.

We therefore sometimes literally need a "clean slate" or "no mind" for a few moments, so that we can think and behave as we would have BEFORE the fear and anxiety made its deep grooves in our minds.

Over the years, I have been blessed in my work to get to know literally thousands of people pretty intimately. They have taught me many lessons both in my general medical and my psychiatric careers, including the dangers of leading a fear-and-anticipatory-anxiety-driven life.

Some of these lessons include:

People die sometimes because they put things off out of fear and anticipatory anxiety.
What was once benign becomes malignant.
What was once elective and routine becomes emergent and risky.
Options can sometimes narrow and become less desirable with neglect and the passage of time.
What could have been done on our terms, now gets done on someone or something else's terms.
In the end, pain comes to us, even, and sometimes more so, when we always try to run from it.

So practice the Suspending Fear technique and any other technique you come across or can learn from others. Take your time and do what you can, but at the same time try to push yourself too.

Don't hesitate to do some reading on fear or to get some preliminary exploratory counseling to learn more about your specific fears and how they affect your choices, decisions, and your life in general. (You might be surprised what you learn!)

All the best, and... you're gonna be alright!

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

How will your kids remember you?

A morbid question, I know.

And how about your spouse, if he or she outlives you?

Are you mainly the disciplinarian in your house? Or are you the 'good time Charlie'?

Does your spouse see you as an angry or miserable person most of the time?

Do you tend to always be nervous or worried about what needs to be done next, or what has yet to be done?

Are you rarely ever PRESENT and FOCUSED in the moment with your family?

Do you think that you 'add to' or 'take away from' the overall milieu at home?

Life is short.

Before we know it our kids are grown and don't need us quite as much; and when we look in the mirror we start to see our mothers and fathers.

I think it's important, during these times of ever increasing freneticism in our lives, to consider how quickly time goes by and how quickly opportunities to record happy memories goes by with it.

When is the last time you were with your children and DIDN'T feel an internal pressure to be elsewhere or to be doing something else?

Are you a constant multi-tasker? Or do you have times when you consciously and deliberately switch gears so that you can focus on one thing at a time and give yourself a break?

Are you always trying to "get through" your day or do you sometimes get to "live" your day in a Deliberate, conscious, enjoyable manner?

Have you ever experimented with just answering "yes" to your kids requests to do things with them, just to see where they'll lead you?

Examples:

"Mommy, can you color with me?"
"Daddy, can you come outside and play with me?"
"Mommy, can we bake something?"
"Daddy, can you come help me with this?"

How quick are you to say "no" to them or "in a minute!"? How about to your spouse?

Saying "yes" can sometimes help us push our limits when our old patterns and mental grooves tell us that we can't, shouldn't, couldn't, wouldn't, mustn't, or dare not!

(I quite recently found my early-middle-aged-self sliding down a dry mountain on my early-middle-aged-butt, sitting inside a way-too-small rubber tube wondering if my disability insurance was all paid up! I'm sure my kids --and my wife-- will remember that one for quite some time!)

One of the reasons I so enjoy treating adults in my practice who happen to also be parents is that they already come with a built-in mechanism for self-growth: Their Kids!

They do push us to be what they need us to be.

If only we'll take their lead and go for it!

Part of our task in life, other than to simply survive, is to find ways to flourish and to grow into relatively competent, calm, secure adults.

Life doesn't give us all the answers, no matter how old we become, but it DOES give us plenty of opportunities to learn, and it also constantly invites us to jump up to the next plateau and to take it from there.

For many, if not most of us, our childhood experiences with our original caregivers did not give us the model or framework we now need in order to be able to see ourselves mastering life and thriving; we may have been shown how to 'handle' life, but not necessarily how to conduct it masterfully and with a sense of adventure and grace.

Survival, yes.

Mastery, tranquility, and extra 'emotional fat on the bone'?

No.

So let's practice pushing ourselves and broadening our abilities in our lives.

If you're already married and have children, you've got your built-in laboratory right there! (By the way, in my upcoming book, "Don't Get Married! Unless You Understand A Few Things First", I describe EXACTLY how and why marriage is actually an 'Emotional Laboratory' for individual growth.)

Practice saying "yes" to your family more and see where it takes you for the day.

You might be surprised where you find yourself (on a mountain top with a few premature ventricular contractions?), and what you find yourself doing.

AND...you'll be GRABBING life, stopping that unstoppable clock for a moment or two, and creating some permanent, happy memories for all!

Good luck and all my best,

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

Are you chronically angry?

Or does someone you are close to always seem angry, frustrated, or upset?

There are reasons why we humans can be like this, including current levels of stress, health problems, and, ultimately for many, old childhood emotional wounds and injustices which we haven't yet really healed from.

For this last one, the emotions can often be quite complex-- some combination of anger plus fear plus humiliation or shame, for example. And if you combine all these you get rage.

In fact, I would argue that most people, including many of us, who might be chronically angry are really suffering from old childhood wounds and injustices which are probably unconscious to them.

What they DO with all that pain, however, is often VERY noticeable and potentially very destructive to their relationships, including with their children and their spouses.

What chronic anger can look like varies with each person, but it can include:

-being short with people
-yelling
-being cold or withdrawn
-constantly being sarcastic or joking at other peoples' expense
-always being defensive or negative
-being contentious or contrarian
-appearing to be or being thought of as a 'miserable person'
-being vengeful or quick to hold grudges
-chronically sabotaging others (or oneself)
-assuming the worst about others or about a given situation

Some less obvious, but nonetheless significant examples of chronic anger include (some of these may surprise you as you may not see the immediate connection to anger—for these, take my word and experience….)
They are:

-chronic forgetfulness in an otherwise healthy individual
-tuning people (or certain people) out and not 'hearing' them
-chronic lack of follow-through or lack of caring or taking things seriously when needed
-chronic 'tiredness' or 'doom and gloom' in an otherwise healthy individual (by the way, unexpressed anger or anger turned inwards and 'imploding' on the Self can cause or contribute to both chronic anger AND depression as well as chronic fatigue)
-chronic boredom or disconnect

It's important to know that people who are chronically angry are IN PAIN. They seem miserable and behave the way they do because they don't know how to escape from the emotional chains that bind them to the past.

Maybe they were given too much responsibility too early on by emotionally incompetent parents. Maybe they were abused. Maybe they had other great losses that we can only imagine.

So unless they are breaking the law or acting out physically (i.e. violence for example), we need to start with an EMPATHETIC approach when dealing with them. By the way, empathy does not equate with weakness.

An empathetic approach includes both trying to understand the other person AS WELL AS setting appropriate limits and boundaries with them when necessary and in a compassionate manner, in order to help them to heal and to grow and in order for us to not be further compromised by their behaviors.

Every chronically angry person, unless they are a sociopath (i.e. criminal, pre-criminal, or criminal-like) or they have a primary psychotic disorder (i.e. schizophrenia, schizoaffective disorder, etc.) where their ability to understand reality is by definition compromised, has a healthy part of themselves that KNOWS on some level that they are doing something wrong when they act out in an angry manner.

They are, in fact, either consciously or subconsciously usually looking for someone to help them STOP.

When we set boundaries with them, without anger or contempt, we are appealing to their healthier side; the side of them which gets it and which agrees with us on some level and wants to grow and to heal.

Of course, if the person, in addition to being chronically angry, is psychotic, as I've mentioned, or is somehow dangerous to you or to others, professional help is required.

What if YOU are the one who is chronically angry?

My first piece of advice is to focus on practicing and honing my adult skill of Restraint (the 'R' in my 'REALADULTS' mnemonic—see my prior post of the same name for more.)

This skill is also known in my office as the 'bite the tongue technique'.

You must convince yourself that much of what you say, and, in fact, many of your first impulses and reactions, are really about YOU and your past traumas like all those hurts and injustices from your childhood and years past that I mentioned before.

You must learn to not trust these first impulses and reactions enough to immediately act on them anymore.

Practice Restraint.

In other words, shhhhh…bite your tongue.

Keep most of your Comments to yourself and, instead, practice my LVAC technique by Listening, Validating others, Asking open-ended questions, and Commenting last, if at all.

Practice hard, like you would any other skill, and it WILL pay off handsomely. You will find yourself growing and healing as an individual, and you will find your Emotional Credibility (trust + likability) skyrocketing with others.

We must respect where these strong feelings and reactions came from and what they represent to you and to your life's story, but we must also help you learn to train yourself to no longer allow these feelings and reactions to dictate your behavior or to control you and your life.

Let's help free you from the demons of the past which keep you trapped in an angry, false shell of your True Self.

Sometimes people need professional help getting there and that's perfectly fine. Sometimes counseling and even a bit of medication will help you get started if you can't yet do it by yourself.

What's important is that you learn a better way to take care of yourself and your pain.

There are REASONS why you always feel angry, frustrated, overwhelmed, threatened, or scared. Don't let your life go by and your relationships suffer without addressing them, and yourself, properly and with care.


Best always,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

Are you an 'active listener'?

When most of us think about listening, we think of it merely as a pause between opportunities to speak.

Instead of relegating listening to a secondary place among our communication skills, what if we were to try to hone and perfect 'active listening' as a PRIMARY communication skill?

What is 'active listening'?

Active listening is listening with a PURPOSE.

It is ENGAGED listening.

When we listen actively, whether it be to our kids, our spouses, our coworkers, or our friends and neighbors, we are listening with not just our ears, but with our hearts, our minds, and our spirits; we are listening with empathy, with creativity, with our imaginations and our fantasies, and we are listening with the INTENTION of understanding the other person as best we can.

When we Listen like this, we are truly trying to connect and to create emotional intimacy with others.

The human spirit craves this sort of connectivity and, unlike physical intimacy, it really can and should be had with as many other people as possible in order to give us a sense of belonging and feeling settled inside and in our lives. Of course, when we work on Listening and creating emotional intimacy in our marriages, as you'll see in my upcoming marriage book, it elevates that relationship –both emotionally AND physically- beyond what it otherwise would be and it helps us heal like never before.

Also, when we Listen as described above, we can naturally leverage that Listening into an even greater understanding of the other person and where they're coming from by doing the rest of my LVAC technique with them as well; namely, Listening, Validating, Asking (open-ended questions), and saving our Comments for last.

But the main point I want to convey is that listening is NOT a secondary activity behind speaking.

In order for us to become active listeners, we must learn to Stop (see my post on Stopping-- another adult skill) and realize that Listening is as much an adult skill as anything else and it must be Deliberately cultivated, practiced, and honed with our energy and our intention.

Listening IS the main event, along with our empathy for the other person's position (Validation), and our Asking them questions to help clarify what they are trying to tell us and tell themselves. With children this is particularly powerful, but so to with adults.

I've often wondered what would happen to us if we lost the ability to speak except for asking questions.

In fact, I wrote a short story about this called "The Father" which you can read on my websites www.LVACNation.com or www.DrFerraioli.com (just look under Bonus Features- I've formatted it so you can read it on the go with your cell phone.)

In the story, a disabled father raises his children successfully even though he can barely speak without losing his breath and even though he is quite physically limited. When I wrote this story I was trying to answer the question, "What is the absolute, bare-bones essence of what we're supposed to be giving to our children?" I wondered if it had to do with our conversations with them, our participation in sports and other activities with them, time spent together, our values, or what?

I found that, ultimately, and where it counts the most, Listening was the answer. I think you'll like the story.

In the end, it's up to us to find the presence of mind and the personal tranquility required to be able to become active listeners.

But please know the following: Becoming an active listener will require a 'gear shift' internally, as you come to face your need to be all 'revved up' inside, ready to speak, defend, comment, etc., and, instead, as you shift towards allowing yourself to calm down, wait a moment or two, and really Listen with energy and intention.

You will grow with this, and you will earn greater Emotional Credibility (trust + likability-- also in the upcoming marriage book) with others.

Thanks for Listening,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com

(P.S. The new marriage book, "Don't Get Married! Unless You Understand A Few Things First" will be available on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other online retailers within the next couple of weeks—I'll make an announcement –an excited one!- when the time comes!  J  )

In life, most of us already know how to go Go GO!

What we're not so good at is learning how to STOP.

From our earliest childhood days most of us were taught to do all of the things that needed to be done at home or that were assigned to us at school (or not.)

We then proceeded through grade school, perhaps some sort of college, vocational, or graduate school, then, finally, off into the work force.

By now many of us are also married, some with children, and we have other obligations such as bills, various professional and social commitments, etc.

Let the frenetic multitasking begin.

We know how to do this; we have been trained for it.

But ask yourself this question:

Am I comfortable with being still? In other words, do I know how to Stop?

And this includes your thoughts as well.

In this age of such 'popular' diagnoses as ADD, ADHD, and Adult ADD, among others, we really need to take a step back and reassess how we pace ourselves in our lives and how we "conduct" our days.

There is an actual skill that is needed here, and we need to talk about this skill.

I call it "Stopping", as part of my REALADULTS mnemonic (it's the "S" in REALADULTS), which is designed to give you and to help you remember the ten most important Adult Emotional Competency skills (my prior post called "REALADULTS" lists and explains all ten of them.)

When the maestro does his job with the orchestra, he or she not only guides the musicians as to when and how to play the notes, but also when to Stop. We need to become better maestros of our days.

In fact, the concept of Stopping is a universal and elegant part of nature which we can observe in both the animal and plant kingdoms, as well as with weather systems, the seasons, and in both geological and anthropological history, and even in the microbial evolution of infectious diseases.

In all, we humans are some of the most inexperienced creatures (or systems) when it comes to knowing how to pace ourselves, which includes knowing how to Stop.

We are so driven by our subconscious pain and conflicts that often our only way to feel in control is to keep on going.

This gets passed down to our children (as it probably got passed down to us), and then they too grow up not understanding or practicing the skill of Stopping.

The problem many of have with Stopping is that it makes us uncomfortable.

When we Stop, our thoughts come back to us. The momentary cessation of activity creates a vacuum which is immediately filled with our subconscious (and sometimes conscious) conflicts, anxieties, worries, fears, resentments, rage, despair, helplessness, shame, etc.

Our usual, and quickest solution to this barrage of pain is to what?

You got it-- to keep going!

We need to know that there is value in Stopping long enough to feel some of this pain.

One of the valuable things about Stopping is that we learn that our pain is, ultimately, limited in nature, and that  pain alone won't kill us or make come to fruition all of our worst nightmares.

Of course, what we do with our UNACKNOWLEDGED pain in order to avoid it (like never Stopping), can, in fact do these things to us.

But as long as we learn to Stop long enough to FEEL what we are constantly running away from, we might actually get a chance to experience real joy at the other end.

In my first book, Cobwebs And Ugly Wallpaper, I talk about "Running and Searching".

What I mean by this is that we humans are constantly looking for the next great thing: the next cure for life, the next novelty, the next stimulation, the next thrill, the next guru or shaman, the next inspiration that is not ourselves.

It's like that song from Huey Lewis And The News:

"I want a new drug
One that won't make me sick
One that won' make me crash my car
Or make me feel three feet thick

I want a new drug
One that won't hurt my head
One that won't make my mouth too dry
Or make my eyes too red

I want a new drug
One that won't go away
One that won't keep me up all night
One that won't make me sleep all day

I want a new drug
One that does what it should
One that won't make me feel too bad
One that won't make me feel too good"

There is no cure for life.

Life is, in part, painful. Stopping lets us acknowledge what it is that we are feeling; what it is that we're running from or to.

All of our running and searching, which is what we do when we're not Stopping, uses up our limited Vital Life Energy which is our time on earth plus our limited energy.

We need to teach ourselves how to be still for a minute or two at a time. I like to use the seconds hand on my old watch to sit and Stop while it makes a full rotation (or two or three…), while I remain still.

And we also need to teach our children that it's okay to Stop and sit with THEIR emotions too.

Our children too are under a constant barrage of external stimulation, including video games, computers, cell phones, television, and movies, among other things.

How many of us sit with our kids and just "hang out" and talk in a free-form, open-ended way on a regular or even semi-regular basis?

Most of our lives are run by those same demands and agendas which, while useful and necessary to provided a degree of structure to our lives, also help to perpetuate our dependency upon external cues to tell us how to feel and what to do next.

We lose OURSELVES.

Let's work on finding our way back to our Selves and let's help our children not lose their own Selves in the first place.

Let's learn how to Stop.

Best to you and yours,

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

www.DrFerraioli.com  

"Emotional Fat on the Bone" is a term I use to describe our emotional resiliency. It represents our ability to handle our lives with as much emotional competence as possible. It also represents our ability to live as true adults, instead of adult-appearing children.

Picture Emotional Fat as insulation or a buffer between your raw nerves and the world around you.

The more Emotional Fat on the Bone, the better.

To borrow from our animal cousins for a moment (which I'll often do in my office to keep things even more interesting), one of my Labrador Retrievers has a LOT of Emotional Fat on the Bone.

Low flying airplane?

No problem for him; no reaction (no, he's not deaf.)

Strange person walking up to us?

No immediate reaction; he deems them innocent before he finds them guilty depending upon their behavior.

Changes in routine or food?

He deals with it in stride.

My sometimes less-than-adult reactions or behaviors?

He forgives me, then we move on.

A hard day's work or multiple tasks in a row?

He takes them on one by one until they're done.

So…

How much Emotional Fat on the Bone do you have?

Here are some ways to tell:

(By the way, this list is by no means meant to make you feel badly if you find yourself lacking in Emotional Fat on the Bone, because we can always grow some more as we become more experienced in life and heal from childhood wounds.)

Okay-

How long does it take you to anger or lose control?

(Less than a minute= very little Emotional Fat vs. hardly ever lose it= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

What TYPES of situations can make you lose it or become angry?

(Most situations= very little Emotional Fat vs. extreme situations= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How quickly, during a conversation, do you talk negatively or about negative things?

(Within three sentences= very little Emotional Fat vs. hardly ever, or not for a long time= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much does it take to make you very anxious?

(Everything makes me anxious= very little Emotional Fat vs. I tend to remain calm= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

Do you hold grudges?

(Yes, all the time, and for long periods of time= very little Emotional Fat vs. hardly ever= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How hard is it for you to trust people?

(I don't trust people or their motivations= very little Emotional Fat vs. I start out trusting and let them prove me wrong= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How long can you focus on something without getting distracted?

(Seconds= very little Emotional Fat vs. as long as needed= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much does it take for you to become distracted?

(The wind blowing= very little Emotional Fat vs. I am very focused when I need to be= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much does it take for you to become overwhelmed?

(More than one thing on my mind or getting interrupted overwhelms me vs. it takes a lot of goings on to make me feel overwhelmed= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much patience do you have with people?

(People are idiots= very little Emotional Fat vs. A LOT of patience= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much does it take to frighten you or make you feel threatened?

(I feel frightened or threatened most of the time= very little Emotional Fat vs. I usually feel pretty secure= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How adventurous are you?

(Not very= very little Emotional Fat vs. pretty darn adventurous if it interests me= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

Do you like challenges and new things, or do you prefer things to remain the same?

(I always prefer the status quo to change= very little Emotional Fat vs. I welcome change when it seems appropriate or advantageous= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

How much of the time would you tend to take things personally?

(I ALWAYS take things personally= very little Emotional Fat vs. I usually DON'T take things personally= LOTS of Emotional Fat.)

Having given you all these examples, let me encourage you by saying that, compared to my one Labrador Retriever that I described above (my black one), I have VERY little Emotional Fat on the Bone- so don't feel too badly.

In fact, the day I realized this was quite a wake-up call for me.

Here was a dog that actually conducted himself in a more adult-competent manner in his life than I sometimes did in mine!

The level of Emotional Fat we have is often a characteristic which is dependent upon two factors: one is our genetic, inborn temperament; the other, our upbringing and parental influences.

I have met people with excellent inborn temperaments, but who had overly anxious or aggressive parents, and who turned out to have about average levels of Emotional Fat on the Bone.

On the other hand, I've met people with significantly less genetic gifts, but who were exposed early on to one or two caregivers with lots of Emotional Fat on their bones. The result? Again, about average degrees of Emotional Fat.

For most of us, we probably have somewhat average genetic temperament gifts (some of us are a bit on the anxious side, others a bit more aggressive, some maybe more easily distractible, etc.)

What this means is that we all have to absolutely MAXIMIZE our genetic potential by practicing what I call "adult emotional competency skills" (see my REALADULTS mnemonic post where each letter of REALADULTS stands for an emotional competency skill.)

The more we practice these skills in our lives, the more we will be able to leverage our God given (or evolutionary, whichever you prefer) temperaments, and the more we'll have to offer our children and the world around us.

So, there you have it; Emotional Fat on the Bone.

Now go out there and work on growing some more of it!

(Maybe you'll turn out to be a bit more like my beloved Lab, Boston, than I could ever be.)

All the best,

Anthony Ferraioli, M.D.

www.LVACNation.com
www.DrFerraioli.com
      

In light of the upcoming release of my new 'marriage book' (called, ironically enough, "Don't Get Married! Unless You Understand A Few Things First"—and due out in a few weeks on amazon.com, barnesandnoble.com, and other retailers), I want to share with you a very important, related topic:

Namely, how we pick our spouses and why.

Picture a coin.

You know how it has two sides?

Well, when we date someone, we see ONE side of the coin.

Let's say that Sally likes the way Jonny opens the car door for her, and how he orders for her at the restaurant (and pays the bill without hesitation or negotiation!)

Sally likes THIS side of the coin.

Now, let's take a look at the OTHER side of the same coin.

Turns out that, after several years together, Sally begins to notice that Jonny likes to have CONTROL over things, including HER things.

And, in doing so, he helps put her into an emotional position of being a helpless, dependent little girl.

She, of course, DOESN'T like this, even if she doesn't quite know why consciously.

The problem is that she DID like the way he "took control" early on; but she DIDN'T know that this came in a "package deal" with the other side of the same coin.

To switch analogies for a moment: Sally liked the sun-roof option, but wasn't aware that she'd also be paying for the upgraded stereo and leather too, as part of the whole package deal.

Now let's look at Jonny's side of the story.

He just LOVED the fact that he was so liked and appreciated by Sally for the way he took "care" of her early on.

But, as time went on, he began to resent how he had to always be the one to take the lead and to make all the decisions. He felt like he had another child instead of an adult partner.

Now let's step back in time so we can see just why they picked each other to begin with.

As a child, Sally's mother and father had a lot of anxiety about her. In fact, they overcompensated with all of their Comments to her about the dangers of life and their worries at any given moment about any given situation she was in.

She never really ever got a chance to test her mettle as she grew up, instead finding herself ever increasingly comfortable in her role as a helpless, somewhat hopeless little dependent. And, best of all, her parents seemed to react better and less nervous when she STAYED in that role.

This role, needless to say, was not healthy for Sally, but it's what she knew and it's how she was trained to be starting in her childhood.

So, naturally, when she began dating as a young adult, something in her subconscious mind told her the type of person she'd be most comfortable with; i.e. someone who would help her continue her childhood position as a helpless, frightened dependent…. Enter Jonny.

Now Jonny had it differently growing up.

HIS parents were constantly showing him how overwhelmed they were when he couldn't take care of himself or when he screwed something up.

This, of course, was not fair to Jonny as a little boy. Little kids are SUPPOSED to screw up and they're NOT supposed to be able to take care of themselves- that's the parents' job.

Nonetheless, he grew up thinking that all the stresses and worries of his immediate situation could be prevented and that his parents could finally be calm and tranquil and at peace if only he could develop the habit of predicting what would happen next so he could CONTROL it. This way, 'problems' could always be avoided.

"Going out to eat? I already know what's good here at this restaurant."

"Movie? I've got the reviews right here."

"Buying something? I've already researched it."

As long as Jonny was prepared and VIGILANT, his world (which includes his parents) would be okay.

So, of course, when Jonny was allowed and encouraged by Sally to continue to act out this way, he was able to continue to 'solve' his childhood fears of his parents (and now Sally) not being okay by taking and keeping the control.

He was, therefore, COMFORTABLE with Sally, who let him do this.

Healthy? No.

Comfortable? Yes.

In other word, he was able to continue his childhood with Sally. (By the way, had Sally protested his taking such control on their first date, they would NOT have felt comfortable with each other and therefore they would NOT have ended up together! Often, part of what we 'like' when we're falling 'in love' are these very things which prove to be unhealthy for us!—more in the marriage book)

So here we have a woman (Sally) who is prepared to continue her helpless role from childhood, together with a man (Jonny) who is happy to continue his "all powerful" childhood role.

Perfect, right?

Wrong.

Because after a while, we humans begin to RESENT the ones who help put us in and perpetuate these unhealthy childhood positions.

The only trouble is, we usually don't actually consciously know that any of this is going on, so we don't usually get mad at and contemptuous with our original caregivers.

No, instead we begin to become angry with the latest example of our original caregivers; i.e. our spouse.

Then, let the games (misery of many marital relationships) begin.

Seldom do we ever realize that our spouse is not the ORIGINAL person who hurt us this way. They are not the ones who originally put us in these unhealthy positions. They are simply someone who is pushing an already established button. (I describe more about these 'buttons' in the new "Don't Get Married" book as well.)

And they (our spouses) will ultimately inherit our rage.

So, in the end, we act out our anger towards each other and proceed to build up first disappointment, then resentment, then, eventually, rage and contempt.

And it's a long way back from contempt in a relationship, my friends, if it's even possible at all.

We really have to remember that our spouse is actually just somebody else's messed up kid, just like we are. And we have to help each other break out of the chains of our unhealthy childhood positions by changing the behaviors and reactions towards one another that reinforce these positions.

That's what marriage is really all about: It's what I call an "Emotional Laboratory" for INDIVIDUAL growth from our childhood positions.

Since we've already gone through the trouble of selecting each other for EXACTLY the WRONG reasons subconsciously, we've now got the perfect partners with whom we can also REVERSE our unhealthy childhood positions!

In other words, by choosing each other, you can say that we've also located and pinpointed each of our "boo-boos" from childhood. We found each other! I hurt you the exact way your caregivers did and you hurt me the way mine did!

Now we can either continue to hurt each other by triggering and reinforcing each others' unhealthy childhood positions thus staying in childhood together, OR we can help each other reverse these childhood positions and heal from them.

If you choose the latter, please don't forget to have plenty of empathy, Restraint, and to do LVAC^TM (Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment) with each other (more on this topic in my book LVAC Nation! or at my website www.LVACNation.com.)

This is hard (sometimes impossible) work my friends. (This is why the book is called "DON'T Get Married! Unless You UNDERSTAND a Few Things First".)

You have my encouragement and my utmost respect for trying. After all, we're all in this together.

Good luck, and all my best,

 

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

On this eve of 'back to school' for many of our kids, I think it's important to remind ourselves about the importance of how our own Emotional Competence can help make the transition easier for them.

Remember, to a child one of the scariest, anxiety-provoking (and therefore separation-anxiety worsening) things we could do as parents is to disconnect from them.

How do we disconnect you ask?

A million ways 'til Sunday is the short answer.

We disconnect when we snap at them, when we fail to LVAC with them (LVAC=Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment—see my previous posts), and generally when we make it about US and our reactions rather than THEM and their anxiety.

Remember too that children are WAY more sensitive and observant than we are, and that they often speak to us in wonderful, innocent, what I call "learning metaphors."

A "learning metaphor" is a statement or line of questioning that the child makes in order to either learn something new about themselves or to address their uncomfortable emotions, such as anxiety.

We must use the Spirit of LVAC (a.k.a. LVAC Stance or 'spirit of exploration') to participate appropriately with them rather than simply reacting to them out of our own internal conflicts and worries:

"Dad, are you worried about going back to work tomorrow?" (metaphorical question)

"Why, yes, a little bit." (metaphorical response, knowing he's worried about school)

"Well, I'm VERY worried about going to school tomorrow!"

"Oh, I see. Yes, Dad can understand that." (Validation step of LVAC, doesn't have to be in order)

"I just don't want to do it!"

"Why's that?" (Asking step of LVAC)

"I'm so used to being home, getting up when I want, and taking my time getting dressed and eating breakfast in the morning. Now it'll be a big rush."

"Oh, I see. Yeah, I could understand that." (Validation)

"And I don't know how to get to my new classroom."

"Oh, yeah. Well, I think your sister said she'll show you the way tomorrow." (Comment,  but an accurate and useful one to him because I've first Listened, Validated, and Asked before Commenting)

"I just want to hide in this blanket."

Hugging the child in the blanket, "Yeah, I know." Then saying no more for now. (Validation and NO MORE COMMENTS)

"In two days I'll have a four day weekend because of the Jewish holiday." (It's working; he's finding his way up out of this)

"Yep, that's true buddy."

"Can we go fishing again next weekend and bring along cousin Matt?"

"Sure we can."

End.

Children reach out to us with either words or behaviors when they are feeling uncomfortable or when they are trying to learn something.

It is up to us to recognize our role in helping them to modulate their anxiety or to learn about themselves by using an LVAC approach with them.

Save the Comments for last, just like LVAC says to do.

Our Comments are often a result of our OWN anxiety or confusion about the issue our child is bringing to us, or what we are observing.

We try to "fix" or "end it" as quickly as possible with our Comments, and, though we mean well and though we love our children very much, we end up getting in our own way and theirs.

Trust me when I tell you that we do NOT have to know the answers all the time.

What we DO have  to know is that our children (through either God, evolution, or some combination of both, depending upon your own beliefs) are driven towards growth and healing; we just need to stay out of their way with our immediate Comments (i.e. with either our reactionary words or behaviors.)

Trust that the child has the answer within them. They will not present something to you that lies outside of the meaning and the necessity of their own developmental process; even if it involves a degree of (temporary) pain and discomfort for both of you.

In other words, they often "know" more than we do; we just need to have the emotional skill set to help them get there. LVAC was designed with this wisdom in mind.

It tells us to follow our children to where THEY are emotionally, and to not make them follow US to where we are.

The former will soothe their anxiety and give them strength, self-assurance, and confidence; it will help them eventually fly away from us (in a good way and the way we want them to as their parents.) And it will teach them how to handle themselves and their pain; the same pain which makes us act out in destructive ways in our lives when we don't know how to do this.

The latter (i.e. making them follow US and OUR emotions instead of vice versa), will create a dependency on OUR Comments and OUR reactions; in other words, upon US.

It will unfortunately weaken them by getting in the way of their own process of self-discovery and the need to face bits of emotional challenges and pain that are meant to help them grow into who they're supposed to become.

So, my friends, over the new few days and weeks, please keep in mind that your kids might come to you with general anxiety or worry, or perhaps more obvious frank separation anxiety.

Try to use an LVAC approach so that they can feel stronger and more whole and courageous.

Remember that they are VERY sensitive to your reactions.

When we either literally flip out, or more subtly make Comments that give away our inability to handle ourselves (and them), we DISCONNECT from them and they feel it like an ABANDONMENT—thus MORE anxiety.

If, on the other hand, we react with the calm strength of LVAC, we will heal and THEY will grow.

Good luck, and I truly mean good luck, because I know how hard it can be.

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

What sort of "emotional weather system" do you carry with you?

When you come home from work, do you bring in clouds or sunshine to your family?

Do you complain, berate, act belligerently, fuss about, tell people what they're doing (or have done) wrong today, or tell everyone how exhausted and frustrated you are?

Or do you restrain some of these things and focus on being present NOW with your family (including your spouse) at home?

Each of us has the power to bring the people around us down, or, on the other hand, to lift them up and help them feel connected and alive; it all depends on the emotional weather system we carry with us.

If, when I'm with my family, I allow myself to "let loose" on them all of my pain and conflict for that day or that week, then I'm coloring their sky with dark clouds. And because of this, I'm also losing Emotional Credibility with them (which equals trust + them liking me around.)

That's because a funny thing about we human beings is that we absolutely "reference" each other before we even realize consciously that we're doing it.

What do I mean by referencing each other?

Let me explain.

In other words, when I think of Sally, my subconscious mind will, automatically and before I even have a chance to realize it consciously, make a quick overall assessment of her Emotional Credibility. My subconscious will then either "reference her to the good" or it will "reference her to the bad" depending on the result.

You can think of it as my immediate gut reaction to Sally.

Now it's true that sometimes we form a gut reaction to someone without even knowing them, and this is called a "transference reaction"; i.e. they trigger something in us on a subconscious level from past people we've known or experiences we've had even if it has nothing to actually do with they themselves.

However, we are talking about something different here.

The idea of coloring someone's sky with darkness or sunshine with our emotional weather system is a more controllable, CONSCIOUS phenomenon because it involves learning to recognize and modify our BEHAVIOR.

We can actually CHOOSE to restrain our momentary misery or upset instead of letting it immediately, and often inappropriately, bleed all over everyone else around us (excuse the blood reference; once a physician always a physician.)

And the most powerful part of this concept is that it's contagious.

In other words, if I act out my pain by being miserable around you, you will then, in turn, most likely take on my emotional weather system and pass it along to the next person, project, or situation in your life.

Or even if you don't take it on and pass it along directly, you might at least absorb it and it will affect your mood, self-esteem, sense of tranquility and focus, etc.

On the other hand, if I present to you with some degree of control over myself and, at least for the moment, restrain myself, then you'll feel differently in my presence since the emotional weather system over us will be brighter.

Maybe you'll actually have a chance to tell me about how YOU'RE feeling.

Or maybe you can tell me something about your day, or about the kids, your project, etc.

The point is, I won't have ruined any chance of connecting with you and building Emotional Credibility with you by casting a dark emotional weather system over our heads with negativity, anger, hopelessness, or criticism.

Something I call the "Spirit of LVAC" (LVAC = Listen, Validate, Ask, Comment), means that we approach other people in our lives with a sense of restraint so that we can learn more about THEM.

The LVAC stance is a position of inquiry, not of Comments. We learn to Listen, then Validate peoples' feelings, before we might Ask some questions, holding our Comments for last.

When we come in all negative or angry, with guns a-blazin', we are Commenting FIRST instead of Listening first. We are in an aggressive, controlling, dark stance instead of an LVAC stance or spirit (see my previous posts for more on LVAC and Spirit of LVAC, or read my book LVAC Nation! available on amazon.com.)

We are telling the other person that WE are the center of attention, not them, and not anybody or anything else.

We are insecure, unsettled, agitated.

And we are coloring their sky and their emotional weather system with dark clouds.

Try to practice checking in with yourself and your emotional weather system BEFORE you go home from work or, in any case, before you engage your loved ones (you can use my "One Minute Trick" from my prior post of the same name.)

We have to try to keep in mind that it's ultimately up to us how people reference us when they think of us; will it be dark clouds and doom and gloom or sunshine, competence, and hope?

Good luck and be well,

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

The reason I ask this question is because it holds part of a crucial key to better understanding why we at times react negatively or inappropriately to our children the way we sometimes do. It also helps explain one reason why they can push our buttons the way they do.

In my years of practice I have come to learn that we humans tell ourselves, often subconsciously, a 'story' about our kids.

These stories, when we uncover them, can, at times, be quite shocking to us. But it is nonetheless important that we uncover and harvest them in order to defuse them of the enormous power they have over us and over how we react to our kids.

For example, you might, for some inexplicable reason, see little Tommy as a future petty thief, or criminal who will have no chance at a normal, productive life in society.

Maybe you see little Sally as a weak little thing who will grow into an abused, unhappy, and self-hating victim who ultimately takes her own life. Or perhaps the story goes that she will never make it in the harsh, cruel world; she just doesn't have the guts for it and she will fail.

Maybe little Jimmy will never be a "real man" when he grows up. Maybe your story says that he'll always be somewhat "limp wristed", effeminate, or "casper-milk-toast" and that he'll never have a relationship or be able to work and help support a family.

It could be that your subconscious story about little Wendy involves her ultimately abandoning you or betraying you somehow; that all your love and work will go unthanked and taken for granted.

Whatever your story, it's important that you know it and that you know it WELL.

Because the stories we tell ourselves about our children influence that way we deal with them. And what fuels these stories is often initially unknown to us; though possibilities such as them reminding us of ourselves, or of our parents, or of our 'crazy Uncle Willy' are just a few among many.

If my subconscious story about my child is that they will never make it in the world or that they have some sort of major disadvantage in life or character flaw, I will project those subconscious fears and beliefs onto them and it WILL affect them and their future.

Rest assured that these fears most definitely did not BEGIN in the child, but that I can and do project them ONTO the child.

And, as you know from reading my posts, if it's in the subconscious, we ACT on it (thus the term "acting out.") But if we bring it into the conscious realm, where we can KNOW it, TALK about it, or WRITE about it, we have a chance of NOT acting it out.

I have been witness to many instances in which a parent cannot explain their behaviors towards and reactions to their child until they begin to learn more about their subconscious, often shocking and unacceptable to them, story about the child.

You see, the whole point of the subconscious is to protect us from thoughts or feelings that our conscious minds deem unacceptable to us. Things like murderous feelings, sexual fantasies, rage, and jealousy, are often too hurtful for us to know and to admit to, so our bodies repress them into the subconscious realm where we might catch glimpses of them in our distorted nightmares or "Freudian" slips.

Isn't it frightening to think that, as much as we love our kids and would do anything for them, we also harbor subconscious stories about them which can ultimately harm them through our behaviors towards them and our reactions to them; behaviors and reactions which may very well help make these stories come true?

In fact, these stories can influence the entire tenor of our relationship with our kids.

So, if my story about little Tommy is that he's a manipulative little sociopath, guess how I'll treat him?

Or if I treat little Sally as a hopeless casualty of her own life, guess what I'll be helping prepare her for?

My suggestion would be to find a way, whether by writing about it or talking about it, to uncover your stories about your kids.

See how much of it is appropriate and fitting to who the child REALLY is as a person, rather than with regards to your projected image of that child.

And, as you do this, please hold on to your seats; what you may discover, as beneficial as it will ultimately be to know, may surprise you!

Bottom line: Strive to learn more about who your child REALLY is! Use LVAC (see prior posts) and ask them questions and let them talk to you and define themselves to both you and to themselves.

If they remind you too much of yourself or of someone you know, and if that's not necessarily a good thing to you, then try to focus on parts of them that do NOT remind you of this.

Remember, they are a blank slate with a bit of our genetics attached. Help them grow into who THEY are, and you'll be able to enjoy them more.

 

All my best,

 

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