Gaslighting: When Doubt Becomes the Weapon

You’re not sure when it started, maybe it was the way they’d brush off your feelings, or how their version of events never quite matched yours. You began to question yourself, replaying conversations in your head, wondering if you were the one who got it wrong.

That slow erosion of trust in your own perception? That’s gaslighting.

What Is Gaslighting, Really?

Gaslighting isn’t just lying. It’s not simply disagreeing. It’s a deliberate (though not always conscious) pattern of manipulation designed to make you question your reality, your memory, and even your sanity.

The term comes from the 1944 film Gaslight, where a husband slowly convinces his wife she’s losing her mind by dimming the gaslights in their home and then denying it’s happening. She comes to doubt her senses, her instincts, and eventually, herself.

Modern gaslighting may not involve flickering lights, but the effect is just as disorienting.

The Subtle Mechanics of Gaslighting

Gaslighting works slowly. It’s not usually one explosive moment, it’s the accumulation of a thousand small ones:

• “You’re too sensitive.”

• “That never happened.”

• “You’re imagining things again.”

• “Why would you even think that? What’s wrong with you?”

Over time, the gaslighter shifts the ground beneath you. You stop trusting your memory. You hesitate before speaking. You second-guess your instincts. You begin to wonder if maybe they’re right. Maybe you are too sensitive, too emotional, too dramatic, too much.

But gaslighting isn't about the truth. It’s about power.

Why It Hurts So Much

Gaslighting doesn’t just confuse you, it disconnects you from yourself. From your intuition. From your internal compass. That’s what makes it so devastating.

And it doesn’t always happen in abusive relationships. It can occur in friendships, families, workplaces, and even in broader social systems. Anywhere there’s a power imbalance and a fear of being wrong, gaslighting can creep in.

It’s especially dangerous because it hides inside love, loyalty, and longing. You want to believe the other person has your best interests at heart. You want to keep the peace. You want to be fair. But gaslighting turns those very desires against you.

What It Can Sound Like

Gaslighting often shows up in language like:

• “You’re remembering it wrong.”

• “You always make everything about you.”

• “You’re being paranoid.”

• “You know I didn’t mean it like that.”

• “You’re blowing this out of proportion.”

Sometimes, it's more subtle. It’s a raised eyebrow, a dismissive shrug, a silent treatment that makes you feel like you're the problem for even bringing something up.

How to Recognize It

If you’re unsure whether you’re being gaslit, look for signs in yourself:

• You feel like you're walking on eggshells.

• You frequently second-guess your thoughts and feelings.

• You apologize constantly, even when you’re not sure what you did wrong.

• You feel confused, anxious, or “off,” but can’t explain why.

• You find yourself defending someone who hurts you.

These are not signs of weakness. They are signs that your nervous system is working overtime to make sense of something that doesn't make sense.

Healing From Gaslighting

Gaslighting isolates you from your truth. Healing means coming back home to yourself.

• Start by trusting your gut again. That uneasy feeling you keep pushing away? Listen to it.

• Keep a journal. Write things down so your reality has a place to live outside of someone else’s distortion.

• Talk to someone safe. A therapist. A friend. Someone who believes you, without twisting your words.

• Set boundaries. You don’t owe anyone unlimited access to your mind and emotions, especially someone who manipulates them.

Most importantly, remember this: if someone consistently makes you feel small, confused, or crazy, that is not love. That is control.

You Are Not Broken

Gaslighting doesn’t work because you’re weak. It works because you’re human. It works because you want connection, because you’re willing to self-reflect, because you care.

The antidote to gaslighting is not convincing the other person to see you clearly. It’s reclaiming your own clarity. Your voice. Your inner truth.

You don’t have to doubt yourself forever. The path back to trust, your trust, is still there. Waiting for you.

When Love Gets Tough, Liking Each Other Matters Most

Love is often painted as the glue that holds a couple together. And it is. But love can also be elusive in hard moments, when trust is frayed, when exhaustion outweighs affection, when the past barges into the present, uninvited. In those moments, it isn’t always love that carries you through. It’s something quieter, often overlooked, but no less vital:

Do you like each other?

Not in the heady, “we like all the same music” kind of way. But in the deeper, steadier sense. Do you like who your partner is when the romantic fog lifts? Do you like how they treat people, how they speak about their friends, how they respond when things don’t go their way? Do you like how they repair after hurting you, or try to?

Because here’s the truth: Love can survive for a time without liking. But a relationship can’t thrive that way.

In therapy, I often see couples who love each other deeply but are worn down by resentment, criticism, and chronic disappointment. They say things like, “Of course I love him… I just can’t stand being around him right now.” Or, “I know she loves me, but I don’t think she respects me anymore.” What they're describing isn’t a lack of love. It’s the absence of liking.

Liking makes room for playfulness when things feel heavy, and for patience when everything else is fraying. It’s what allows you to say, “I’m furious with you right now, and I still want to sit next to you on the couch.”

Liking someone means you still see their humanity, even when you're hurt. It means you remember what’s good about them, even when what's hard feels the loudest. It’s the thing that helps you reach for their hand not because everything is okay, but because you both want it to be.

So if you’re in a rough patch, ask yourself not just “Do I still love them?” but “Do I still like them?” And if the answer feels distant, don’t panic. That distance can be closed. Sometimes liking each other again is a process of rediscovery: learning how to laugh together again, how to listen without defensiveness, how to be curious about each other instead of critical.

Love may be the heart of the relationship. But liking is what lets that heart keep beating, even when it’s bruised.

Because when love gets hard, and it always will, it’s liking each other that reminds us why we ever wanted to try in the first place.

Beyond Us and Them: Finding the Third in a Divided America

In the therapy room, one of the most challenging dynamics a couple can face is polarization. Each partner becomes entrenched in their perspective, convinced the other is wrong, or worse, that the other is dangerous. They stop seeing each other and start seeing symbols. Battles over dishes or discipline become proxies for deeper existential threats. It becomes you or me. Someone has to win. Someone has to lose. This is the “us vs. them” trap. And right now, America is caught in it too.

Whether it’s political parties, racial identities, gender dynamics, or social class, we are explicitly and implicitly being told to divide the world into opposing camps. You’re either for or against. Woke or asleep. Patriot or traitor. Citizen or stranger. There is no space for nuance, no room for complexity. No one gets to be uncertain, evolving, or contradictory. And in this binary, empathy dies.

But there are different ways to understand conflict than just binary. When a couple is gridlocked in an all blame and no curiosity split, what we look for is the third.

The third isn’t a person. It’s a space. A possibility. A perspective that arises between the two and because of the two. It’s the “us” that can hold both “me” and “you.” It is not compromise, but a transformative process of witnessing, imagining, and integrating. The third doesn’t mean agreement. It means recognition. It’s the space between, or in other words, a heart big enough to hold difference without annihilation.

In a marriage, cultivating the third means slowing down, asking questions, tolerating discomfort, and recognizing how each partner’s position might be protecting something deeply vulnerable. In a country, it might look like listening to someone’s story without needing to immediately agree or dismantle it. It might look like being curious about the fear underneath the rage, or naming the pain that gets masked by righteousness. Or even allowing yourself to see the humanity, or pieces of you, in the other.

The third is hard to hold when you’ve been hurt, threatened, or marginalized. It’s not about false equivalency or forced unity. It doesn’t mean we excuse harm or pretend everyone’s reality is the same. But it does mean we challenge ourselves to see more than caricatures. To resist the pull toward totalizing narratives that keep us locked in cycles of retaliation and dehumanization.

Right now, the U.S. is in a psychological splitting. And in that splitting, we lose not only each other, we also lose parts of ourselves. The third reminds us that we are more than this fight. That every “them” is a person with a story. That democracy, like a relationship, requires the capacity to hold competing truths without collapsing.

It’s not easy. The pull to simplify, to divide, to scapegoat, is seductive. Especially in times of fear. But if we want to build something different, we have to reclaim the third.

Not just tolerance. Not just opposition.

But the radical, difficult work of metallization and relational imagination.

That’s where healing begins.

The Illusion of Fireworks: A MFT's Take on the Meaning of Independence

There’s a strange hollowness that can accompany holidays, especially the ones draped in symbols of triumph.

Every year on July 4th, we gather under exploding skies to celebrate our country’s independence. The rituals are familiar: red-white-and-blue paper plates, the smoky scent of barbecue, kids with sparklers, adults with beer. And, of course, the fireworks.

But what are we really celebrating?

From my perspective, the word “independence” doesn’t signal freedom in the way we often think. It’s not the clean severance, the heroic autonomy, the myth of the self-made individual. It’s something murkier. More painful. More intimate. And perhaps less celebratory than we’d like to admit.

Because real independence doesn’t come in a burst of light. It comes slowly, and with grief.

The Myth of Self-Mastery

Many of us are taught from a young age that independence is the goal. To not need, to not rely, to not feel beholden. We internalize the idea that the stronger I am, the less I need you. That to be free is to be disentangled. So we become high-functioning, high-achieving, self-contained… independent.

But in the therapy room, we often find that this “independence” is actually a defense, a shield against longing, vulnerability, dependency. Behind the self-sufficiency is often an ache. A child who learned that their needs were too much. A teen who couldn’t afford to rebel without losing safety. An adult who keeps everything and everyone together, all the while wondering why they feel so alone.

Dependence Is Not the Enemy

I want to invite us to reimagine dependence not as weakness, but as a necessary condition for growth. We never stop needing others, not as infants, not as adults. What changes is the way we relate to our need.

In therapy, independence is not an endpoint. It’s a process of differentiation that happens in the context of deep relationship. Not “I don’t need you,” but “I can be me while staying in connection with you.” That is a far more complicated kind of freedom. One that requires us to feel our dependency, to tolerate the anxiety of being known, to risk that our autonomy will not cost us love.

It is excruciating. And it is worth everything.

Legacy and Lineage

Then there’s the collective unconscious, the inherited emotional history we carry, especially in this country. Our national origin story is one of rebellion, conquest, and independence. But also one of disavowed trauma like colonization, genocide, slavery, and silenced grief. There is no true independence without reckoning. Without acknowledging who paid the price for our freedom.

For many clients, especially those from marginalized communities, July 4th doesn’t feel like a celebration. It feels like a rupture. A reminder of who was never invited into the dream. Therapy often becomes a space where people begin to untangle these intergenerational legacies, what it means to be “free” in a system that was never built for you. Or to carry the burden of ancestral survival while also trying to find space to rest, to soften, to become.

The Fireworks Inside

So maybe the question is not whether we feel proud or patriotic. Maybe the better question is: Where am I still trying to become free?

What internal colonizers still rule my psyche? What parts of me have been silenced, enslaved, exiled? Where have I declared independence prematurely, cutting off connection, numbing emotion, dissociating from need, in the name of “strength”?

And what would it mean, truly, to come home to myself?

Because sometimes, the path to freedom is not a declaration. It’s a quiet, painstaking journey back to the parts of us we left behind in order to survive.

This Independence Day, if the fireworks feel too loud, too bright, too performative, that’s okay. You’re not ungrateful. You might just be in touch with a deeper truth, that real liberation is internal. Slow. Messy. Full of contradiction. And absolutely worth the fight.

Even if no one’s watching.

Even if there are no fireworks.

The Ache to Be Alike: When the Threat of Differences Show Up in a Couple's Therapy Room

They sat on opposite ends of the couch, barely looking at each other.

He crossed his arms. She looked out the window.

I had asked a simple question, something about what made them feel safe with each other when things were good. She didn’t answer right away. He spoke first.

“I just want us to be on the same page, just like we used to be. We liked the same music, wanted the same things. Now everything’s a debate.”

She sighed. Not an eye-roll exactly, but the kind of sigh that carries years of trying to explain something that doesn’t translate.

“We weren’t the same,” she said quietly. “You just never noticed I was editing myself.”

That’s when I knew we weren’t just talking about conflict. We were brushing against something deeper… twinship.

He wasn’t trying to dominate her. In fact, he was tender in his own way, eager to repair, to fix, to understand. But underneath that urgency was a fear I could feel in the room. “If we’re different, maybe we’re not okay.”

And for her, that sameness he longed for didn’t feel like connection. It felt like annihilation.

Like being asked to disappear in order to stay loved.

In the language of self psychology, twinship lives in the ache to feel “like” someone else. Not similar in tastes or politics or morning routines, but in essence. In one’s emotional makeup. In what it means to be a person moving through this world.

When that need goes unmet in early life, we carry it with us. Some people try to recreate it in adult relationships. Not consciously, not manipulatively. But with a quiet desperation, “If you and I are the same, then I know I belong. Then I know I’m real.”

But when the other person starts to individuate, to assert difference, it stirs up something ancient. Panic. Threat.

Over time, he began to realize he wasn’t asking her to agree with him, he was asking her to make him feel safe.

And she began to see that underneath his need for sameness wasn’t entitlement, but vulnerability.

That shifted things.

He said one day, “I didn’t know that asking you to see things my way was really me asking, do you still see me at all?”

And she cried. Because she finally heard him, not as someone trying to control her, but as someone trying to not disappear.

This is what twinship does in couples, it whispers the lie that we have to be the same to be close. That if you are different from me, I might vanish.

And so often, that whisper is coming from an early wound, the child part of us that never quite felt mirrored, never quite felt like we belonged.

But in the therapy room, when we can name that fear, when a partner can say, “I don’t need you to be me, I just need to know you see me and you’re not leaving,” it creates room for a deeper kind of intimacy.

Not built on sameness, but on recognition. Recognition that different is not a threat. Different is simply different.

Now, they still don’t agree on everything. They still bump into difference. But something’s changed.

Less fear, more curiosity. Less performance, more presence. Less defensiveness, more openness.

And maybe that’s the gift of therapy, not to erase the differences between us, but to help us hold the differences in each of us, without feeling like we’re losing ourselves.

Because sometimes, the most healing thing in the world isn’t to be the same.

It’s to be seen as different, and loved anyway.

Why We Push Away the People We Love

If you’ve ever caught yourself shutting down, picking a fight, or pulling away from someone you deeply care about, you’re not alone.

And you’re not broken.

In fact, I see this all the time in couples therapy:
People come in frustrated, confused, and hurt.
One says:

“I just want to feel close to them.”
The other responds:
“Then why does it feel like you’re always pushing me away?”

It’s one of the most painful and confusing things about relationships.
When we finally get the closeness, connection, and safety we want something inside us tightens instead of softening.

This Isn’t About Love. It’s About Protection.

What most people don’t realize is that when we push someone away, we’re usually not trying to hurt them.
We’re trying to protect something vulnerable inside ourselves.

The closer someone gets to our most tender parts like our fears, our needs, and our sense of worth, the more likely it is that old defenses come online.

Defenses aren’t always bad behavior to fix. They can be creative, protective strategies. They were built to survive emotional risk, and often, we are doing the best we can with what we learned early on.

Common Defenses in Relationships (That Don’t Always Look Like Defenses)

Here are a few protective strategies I see show up again and again in couples:

• Withdrawal / Emotional Detachment
  “I don’t want to fight, so I just go numb or disappear.”
  Often learned in homes where emotional intensity felt overwhelming or unsafe.

• Criticism / Control
  “If I can get them to do it right, then I’ll finally feel safe.”
  Underneath is often a fear of abandonment or emotional chaos.

• Sarcasm / Intellectualizing
  “If I can make a joke of this or analyze it to death, I won’t have to feel it.”
  Protects from vulnerability by staying in the head, not the heart.

• Shame-Based Self-Blame
  “If I’m the problem, then at least I have some control.”
  Learned when love felt conditional or tied to performance.

• Avoidance of Intimacy
  “I want connection, but when it starts to happen, I panic.”
  Often shows up in people with anxious-avoidant attachment histories.

And here's the thing: these strategies usually made perfect sense at some point in your life, and they actually worked.

They helped you survive emotional environments that didn’t feel fully safe, consistent, or attuned.
But in adult relationships, those same strategies can backfire, especially when both partners are protecting and neither feels truly seen.

Defenses Are Adaptive… Until They Aren’t

 Defenses are meaningful adaptations of where you had to find a workaround to stay in relationship.

But as we grow, defenses that once kept us safe can become walls that keep others out.

The very moment that calls for softness and closeness might be the moment your system says: “This is too risky.”

It’s not because you don’t love your partner.
It’s because your body remembers what it felt like to need and not receive.
To love and be disappointed.
To be vulnerable and unprotected.

In the Therapy Room, We Listen Differently

In relational psychotherapy, we’re not trying to strip away defenses or shame them into submission.

Instead, we get curious.

We wonder together:

• What part of you is trying to protect you right now?

• Where did this strategy first make sense?

• What is this defense afraid will happen if you let it go?

Often, the answer is incredibly tender.

“If I let myself need them, and they don’t come through, I’ll fall apart.”
“If I show them how much I care, and they leave, I won’t be alone.”
“If I stay quiet, I don’t have to risk hearing that I’m too much.”

Once we slow things down and hear the fear under the defense, the relationship starts to shift.

Defenses Begin in Relationship—And Heal There, Too

One of the hardest truths is also one of the most hopeful:
We learned to protect ourselves in relationship. And we can learn to trust again in relationship, too.

When couples begin to name and understand each other’s defenses, not as flaws, but as signs of old pain, something softens. There’s more room for compassion. Less blaming. More safety to show up with the raw stuff.

It’s not quick work. But it’s deeply human.

A Personal Note

If you find yourself pushing away the person you love, try offering yourself some gentleness first. That push isn’t cruelty, it’s caution.

It means something inside you still wants to be protected.

And if you’re the partner being pushed away, try to remember: the withdrawal, the anger, the shutting down, these are strategies, not the whole story.

There’s almost always something underneath.

 Want support decoding your defenses—together?

I work with couples and individuals who are tired of repeating the same painful patterns and ready to understand what’s happening underneath.

If you're ready to explore why you protect yourself the way you do, and what it might mean to feel safe with someone else, let’s talk.

Feel free to reach out, and schedule a free consultation.

You don’t have to keep pushing love away.

The Myth of the Perfect Fit: Why Healthy Relationships Need Friction

I cant tell you how many times I’ve heard couples say something like this:

“Why is this relationship so hard!”

“Why can’t they just meet my need without me telling them?”

“If they could just understand me…”

I get it. We all grow up with some version of the idea that the “right” relationship should feel effortless. That we are supposed to find “the person,” to fall in love with, and everything just works.

But the truth of it is, healthy love needs friction.

Friction is not necessarily a sign that things are broken or wrong. It’s often the substance that creates relationships to grow.

Where the “Perfect Fit” Fantasy Comes From

Many of us enter relationships carrying hopes that we are not even fully aware of. Deep down, we might be longing for someone who just “gets us” without us needing to explain. Someone who will soothe our fears, meet our needs without asking, and understands us.

That hope often comes from very early experiences, like the times we were held, and the times we were let down. There are experiences from childhood that tell us, “Maybe this time, it will different. Maybe this time, I’ll get what I didn’t get.”

It’s tender. It’s human. And it’s also a fantasy. No partner, no matter how loving and connected they are, can fully meet our needs. But every fantasy tells a story of deep meaning and longing.

Friction is Where Growth Happens

What looks like “we are not a perfect match,” is often just two people bumping into each other’s stories. One person might pull away when they feel overwhelmed. The other might reach for closeness when they are scared. Both reactions make sense in context, but without understanding, they can feel like rejection or attack.

That bump, what we often call conflict or misalignment, isn’t a flaw in the relationship. It’s the start of a deeper conversation. It’s the chance to ask:

What is this really about?

When couples can get curious instead of reactive, friction becomes an opportunity not a threat.

Letting Go of the Fantasy

Loving someone means you’re going to hurt each other sometimes. Not intentionally hurt each other, but because you are human, and you are two different people, with two different stories, and you both have lived through pain, it’s inevitable.

But it also means you have the chance to show up in ways that maybe no one has before. To listen more deeply. To slow down. To stay emotionally present when things get hard.

And over time, that kind of love can start to rewrite old stories, not by being perfect, but by being willing to stay connected, present, and open.

Love That Includes Friction

The kind of love that really changes us isn’t about seamless compatibility. Let’s be honest eventually that would get boring and dull. It’s about having the courage to stay connected even when it’s messy. Especially when it’s messy.

The rub is where your story meet’s your partner’s story. Where old wounds collide. Where something vulnerable longs to be seen.

And when you both choose to stay open, curious, and kind, you are not just building a relationship. You are building something deep and healthy.

Ready to Grow Through the Friction

If you and your partner are stuck in a loop, or feel like you keep hitting a wall, you are not alone and you are not broken. This might actually be the doorway into something deeper and more meaningful.

I specialize in helping couples navigate these turning points with compassion and depth. If you are ready to explore the emotional undercurrents in your relationship and reconnect in a more meaningful way, I am here to help.

Feel free to reach out for a free consultation.

You don’t need a perfect fit, you just need two willing hearts and a safe space to do the work.

What is Trauma? Part 3 Healing

Healing isn’t about forcing yourself to remember, or to “move on,” or to “ignore it.” In fact, those attempts often keep the wound from healing. Your past traumatic experiences are something to tend to, to be with, to listen to.

There are parts of ourselves, our anger, grief, sadness, tenderness, even joy, that might get pushed down and out of awareness because at some point, those felt too dangerous or scary, or unsafe to express. Healing is about safely and authentically reconnecting to those parts of yourself that had to go into hiding. It’s about being seen by someone who can hold your story without judgement. Its about learning that you and your feelings aren’t bad or wrong even if you were once told otherwise.

Here are 5 ways you can begin to take steps toward healing.

1. Listening inward with curiosity, not judgement.

Instead of asking “What’s wrong with me?” Try asking “What happened to me?” or “What am I carrying?”

2. Notice your body’s language.

Trauma often lives in the body. You might start to notice:

When do I tense up, shut down, or feel numb?

What does safety feel like, and when/what/how do I feel like I lose it?

You don’t have to interpret everything. Just start noticing.

3. Find one safe relationship.

We heal from trauma in relationship not in isolation. If there is someone you trust, even just a little, try being a little more open with them about how you’re feeling.

4. Let go of any timelines.

Healing doesn’t move in a straight line. Some days will feel like progress, others will feel like taking a few steps backwards. Take a breath and trust that this is part of the process.

5. Remind yourself you deserve to heal.

Trauma isn’t about how bad the thing was. Its about how alone you felt. If it hurt, if it shaped you, if its still echoing inside you… IT MATTERS.

If something resonated with you while reading this, I want you to know, that part of you deserves care.

You don’t have to figure everything out at once. You don’t have to be ready to dive into the whole story. You just have to be willing to listen to the parts of you that have been hidden.

Sometimes healing begins not with a grand decision, but with a “I don’t want to do this alone anymore.”

If you ever feel ready, reaching out to someone like a therapist or a trusted person can be the beginning of not erasing your story but the weaving of a new one where all of you gets to exist.

How do I know if I have Trauma? Part 2 Signs of Trauma

Dr. Gabor Moté said it well, “Trauma is not just what happened to you. It’s what happened inside you as a result of what happened to you.”

Trauma doesn’t always shout, sometimes it whispers through our bodies, our emotions, and our relationships. And unlike a physical wound that can easily be seen, the psychological and emotional wounds we sustain can be harder to recognize, because our wounds often hide in the adaptations we made to survive.

How we adapted at a young age such as, shutting down, pleasing others, being acutely aware of other people’s emotions, highly skilled at reading body language, over working or achieving, etc, is how we stayed connected with others in order to survive.

So what are some of the more common signs of trauma?

• Feeling like you have to stay “on” all the time, even when you are exhausted.

• Finding yourself disconnected from others, from your own feelings, and even from your own body.

• Having difficulty trusting others, or feeling safe in relationships.

• Blaming yourself when things go wrong even when it’s not your fault. Or being perfectionistic.

• Being drawn to people or situations that hurt, with or without fully understanding why.

• Wanting closeness, but pulling away when you find you are getting close.

• Living with a deep, almost invisible loneliness, even when you are surrounded by others.

• Constantly feeling like you are not good enough, or lovable. Or feeling like you are too much for people.

• Having negative self talk.

• Carrying a shame based view of yourself, or deep sense that something is wrong with you.

If any of this resonates with you, it’s ok. It doesn’t mean you’re broken. It doesn’t mean you’re “making a big deal out of nothing.” It means you found creative ways to protect yourself.

And now, maybe, there is a part of you that is ready for something different.

How do I know if I have Trauma? Part 1 What is Trauma?

Trauma.What came to mind when you read that word?

Was it war? Violence? A major accident? Abuse?

If it was, you wouldn’t be alone. The more I talk with people, it’s the major events that seem to be most associated with the word trauma. And for good reason. War, Abuse, Violence, Racism, Poverty, Neglect and their link with trauma have been well studied and documented.

However, trauma isn’t just the big terrible events that happen to us. Sometimes, trauma can be found in what didn’t happen.

We get the word trauma from the Greek word traûma, which means “wound.” Originally it was meant for physical injuries. It didn’t matter if the injury was caused by a blow from battle, or a thousand paper cuts, it was called trauma. It wasn’t the event that determined the physical trauma one had sustained, it was the wound itself that was called trauma. Over time this word has evolved to include psychological and emotional wounds as well.

Some of the deepest, most lasting wounds come from consistent everyday misattunements. These are when a parent is too stressed or overwhelmed to notice your sadness. Perhaps being criticized instead of comforted when you were scared. Or having to hide parts of yourself like anger, tenderness, creativity, wildness, curiosity, sadness, spunk, etc. in order to stay connected to the people you loved and needed the most.

Maybe no one meant to hurt you. Most likely they were struggling or even wounded themselves. And what was slowly and silently absorbed without words was, I am wrong to feel what I feel, its not ok to be fully me, its not safe to need this much.

People Pleasing

Here is a great post by April Twenhafel, a colleague at Prepare to Change Counseling, wrote about people pleasing.

People Pleasing by April Twenhafel

Therapy: Is it worth it?

I remember one of the first times I went surfing during a big swell, the waves were suppose to be 7-9 feet with an occasional 11-foot wave. I decided I would go to one of my favorite local spots. As I made the mile trek across the warm sand, I was feeling both excited and anxious, because often those two go hand-in-hand. So many unknowns bouncing around in my head… Will I be able to paddle out in such large surf? Will I have enough energy to catch a wave if I do get out? What if I get held under, or pummeled by a huge wave? 

It reminded me of when I decided to see a therapist. There was an excitement to be able to work through some things, to grow, to heal. AND there were so many unknowns going into the first few sessions. Will this therapist understand me? Will they be able to help? Will I feel comfortable opening up to them? 

I started the long, 100-yard paddle to where the waves were breaking. About half way there my arms felt like noodles from diving under so many powerful waves. I was huffing and puffing, trying to catch my breath as I fought the rushing whitewater of every crashing wave. I felt like I was never going to make it to where the waves were forming. I found my self-talk saying, “just keep paddling. Don’t look back, just keep looking forward to where you want to go. You WILL get there.” With every stroke and breath these words became like a mantra or meditation for me. I knew if I looked back I would be discouraged at where I was and then I would have to fight the desire to give up.

In that moment, I realized this is like the process of therapy. It can be difficult, painful, and scary, with so many unknowns going into it. These are the moments that often bring the growth and healing. It’s not easy, AND that doesn’t mean its not good. 

As I got closer to the lineup, I could see the big dark bumps way out toward the horizon, which generally means set waves (waves that come in larger than the current waves) are coming. I kept my eyes on the set waves, and with each wave that came in I was barely able to dive under the wave before it crashed on me. There were 4 set waves that came through with one rogue wave. They are often called rogue waves because they are the biggest set waves, they seem to come out of no where, and will often take everyone out in its path. 

Life seems to throw rouge waves at us from time to time doesn’t it? Maybe everyday feels like you are being pummeled and pushed back. They feel like set backs, like all the work and progress we have done to move forward and find healing is lost. It can be so defeating. This is the process of deep growth. Often times we take a couple of steps forward and then get pushed back, and if we keep going and trust the process of therapy, over time, we will look back and see just how far we have come. 

After all the hard work of getting out to the line up, I finally caught one of those bigger waves. I will never forget the joy, and the feeling of riding a wave like that. It was worth every moment of the fight to get there.  Life can become joyful again. You will find healing. You will grow and really thrive in life. You are worth every moment of the fight to get there! 

What forgiveness IS: The building blocks of being set free

No matter how hard we try, it seems we just aren’t immune to being hurt. People often come to therapy because they are suffering in someway, and desire to find relief from the wounds experiences have brought them. We are taught if we show hurt or pain, that we are weak, and so we tend to express it through anger. 

Anger isn’t all bad. It can be a natural response to pain, hurt and injustice. Anger can motivate us to into action against the very thing that causes pain. It is when anger festers into bitterness and resentment that it can become dangerous. 

Nelson Mandela said, “Resentment is like drinking poison and hoping it will kill your enemies.” 

When resentment and bitterness remain over a period of time, they can cause feelings of helplessness, limit problem solving skills, and trigger anxiety and depression. 

Resentment robs you of your joy. Bitterness steals your ability to fully live.

I have to admit when I looked up the definition of forgive, I was surprised. Merriam-Webster defines it as “to give up resentment,” and my favorite, “to grant relief.”

Many of us try to find relief through blaming and revenge, but that is corrosive in relationships and its violent. 

Brene Brown defines blame the “discharging of pain, discomfort, and anger.”

And revenge never works, because we are a hurt person, now hurting others. 

Gandhi said it this way, “an eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.”

In her book Unbroken, Laura Hillenbrand wrote, “The paradox of vengefulness is that it makes men dependent upon those who have harmed them, believing that their release from pain will come only when their tormentors suffer.” 

This is the process Walter Wink coined as the “Myth of Redemptive Violence.”

So how do we begin to give up resentment and grant relief?

How to Begin:

1)  Forgiveness is a process                                                                                                  

It takes a lot of work, and often times people stop the process to early because of discomfort and pain. It is something you may have to revisit over and over, and can take a while. 

2) It begins with awareness                                                                                                          

Just recognizing you have a wound, you have been wronged, you’re holding onto a grudge, or your anger has festered to bitterness or resentment is where you start. 

3) Name it                                                                                                                                  

You can’t heal if you can’t name what happened. Write it out on paper, draw it, sculpt it, get every detail out. 

4) Release it                                                                                                                            

This is a very difficult choice at times, but it is what frees us from the past and moves us forward toward healing. It often works best if you find a ritual to enact releasing it.                                                      

Write it down and burn it                                                                                                              

Draw it and throw it away                                                                                                          

Sculpt it and burry it                                                                                                                      

Go for a walk and yell at the person as if they were there                                                          

Do what ever you need to do to get it out and release it.

5) Practice compassion and empathy on a daily basis                                                              

When you make a mistake try not to beat yourself up. Honestly assess what happened, and any actions you might need to take to resolve it.

What Forgiveness is NOT: 5 roadblocks on your path toward healing.

He walked in, furious. He sat down and started cursing, saying how evil she was, and that she would never change. It reminded me of how anger is portrayed in cartoons, when a person’s face goes red and steam comes out of their ears. After 15 minutes, he yells out, “I can NEVER forgive her for this!!” 

When I asked what was keeping him from forgiving her, he said something very telling, “I can’t forgive because this hurts too much. The pain is so bad, I won’t ever be able to forget it happened.” 

We live in a culture that is quick to suggest the old cliché “forgive and forget”, as if forgiveness can only come when we can forget what was done to us. 

Forgiving and forgetting aren’t always one and the same. In fact, forgetting isn't the end goal. Forgetting at times, can actually be a detriment to forgiving, because it can hijack the work we are doing to heal the wounds of our heart. Forgiveness leads us to this healing, and it doesn’t always lead to forgetting.

If we are going to forgive and do the work of healing the wounds of our heart, it is important to know what forgiveness is not. 

WHAT FORGIVENESS IS NOT:

1) Forgiveness IS NOT condoning or being ok with what has happened.                                     Rather than letting the offender off the hook for what they have done, it actually gives you        the freedom to name the offense and call it what it is.

2) Forgiveness IS NOT waiting for someone to apologize, or admit they were wrong.  

Forgiveness doesn’t rely on the actions of the other, it is something that you must choose to work towards. If you’re waiting for a sincere apology, you might be waiting a long time.

3) Forgiveness IS NOT forgetting what happened.                                                           

Sometimes forgiveness is actually remembering. Healing doesn't come when we work to forget, but it comes from working through the hurt, anger, brokenness, and possibly setting boundaries.

4) Forgiveness IS NOT eliminating the consequences or stopping justice.                                

You might still need to call the police, CPS, etc. to make sure the offense is dealt with properly.

5) Forgiveness IS NOT reconciling or pretending it never happened.                                      

While reconciling the relationship may be the path you choose to take, it is by no means a requirement of forgiveness. Forgiveness may be what finally releases you from the chains that have bound you to the one who hurt you.

WHAT FORGIVNESS IS:

1) Forgiveness is healing from the hurt and pain so it doesn’t fester and stifle our JOY.

For more on forgiveness check out: 

The Book of Forgiving by Desmond and Mpho Tutu.       

Rising Strong by Brene Brown                                            

Forgive and Forget by Lewis B Smedes                                         

Social Anxiety Group

Prepare to Change non-profit is hosting a social anxiety group for adults. Please contact us if you or someone you know is interested in attending. 

Why We Fight With The People We Love The Most

Great short video of why we fight with the people we love the most. The heart of what intimacy can mean starts at about 2:19.

Love Sense: from infant to adult

The pain of disconnection from a loved one significantly impacts us. This video by Sue Johnson and Ed Tronik, shows how disconnection effects us from infant to adulthood.

Forgiveness: How to be set free

I am excited and honored to be speaking at theDBSA OC chapter educational meeting on September 18, 2017. I am going to be speaking on Forgiveness; what it is and what it isn't, and how to begin to set yourself free.

It is open to the public, so if you would like to come click on the links below to find out all the details.

Educational meeting flier

DBSA OC

13 Things You Do Because of Anxiety

I came across this video the other day and thought it briefly summed up common symptoms of anxiety. After #5 they do a short advertisement for their sponsor, so make sure to stay with it for #6-13.

We all experience a little anxiety from time to time, however, those who struggle with anxiety can feel exhausted, overwhelmed, and it can be debilitating. There is help. Seeking a therapist or counselor who specializes in anxiety, can help you manage and cope with anxiety. If you or a loved one has anxiety please feel free to contact me. 

Dustin Shultz, LMFT. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, speaker, and adjunct faculty at Azusa Pacific University. I have experience working with teens, men, women, and couples, and have had success with people who are experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, sexuality, divorce, affairs, cutting, grief, shame, stress, and life transitions. I help people live more authentically and embrace life

Overcoming addiction: Everything you think you know about addiction is wrong.

Addiction can wreak havoc, not only on the addict but friends, family, and many other people. What is it that one person can overcome addiction, while another person never finds freedom from the grips of addiction? What if our bonds, connections, and attachments could actually be a healing element to addiction? This interesting research points to the power of human connection.

If you or someone you know desires to break free from addiction, there is hope. A trained therapist can help.

Dustin Shultz, LMFT. I am a licensed Marriage and Family Therapist, speaker, and adjunct faculty at Azusa Pacific University. I have experience working with teens, men, women, and couples, and have had success with people who are experiencing depression, anxiety, trauma, sexuality, divorce, affairs, cutting, grief, shame, stress, and life transitions. I help people live more authentically and embrace life.