Separately, they are rich. Together, they are powerful.

When it comes to understanding yourself and the way your inherent personality traits affect all aspects of your life and your relationships with others, gaining deeper insight into two of the most highly regarded theories and instruments for assessing personality types — the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI) and the Enneagram system of personality— can help you learn far more about the core of who you are and how you operate in the world, both when you are centered and when you are under stress.

Of course, while these two personality tests are well-respected tools for uncovering multiple layers of knowledge about what makes each of us tick, neither can truly explain any person in totality.

When Myers-Briggs and the Enneagram are used together, however, they offer a fairly comprehensive portal into a truly meaningful understanding of self.

Separately, they are rich. Together, they are powerful.

The Myers-Briggs system of personality typing, based on the work of Swiss psychiatrist and psychoanalyst Carl Jung, describes your true self, sometimes known as your essence or spirit.

This is the part of you that is innately wired into your system and explains who you were truly designed to be, way back before you took your first breath and the world started telling you who to be, how to be, what to do, how to look, how to act and so on.

Many of these messages from the world were implicitly absorbed when you were very young, which is why you often do not remember how you came to believe some of the internal rules that operate much of your life.

Some of these messages are helpful, such as how to hold a fork, drive a car or persevere in the face of adversity. Others cause distress and keep you restricted to particular ways of being that are limiting and dissatisfying.

Most of the time, these implicit messages operate in the unconscious part of who you are, so in order to unearth them and clear them out, you have to be willing to dive deeply into a process of self-growth and healing.

Your Myers-Briggs personality type describes the innate part of yourself buried under all this informational rubble and is waiting to be brought back to life.

It provides you with information and knowledge around the kinds of traits and values that are unique to our particular personality type. It also teaches you how to move towards more satisfaction or flow in your life and away from the experiences and things that drain your energy.

The MBTI helps you understand why you are proficient in some areas and struggle with others. It explains how you learn and why certain subjects delight you, while others might make you want to shut down emotionally or pull your hair out.

It describes how you like to operate in the world and why you might have difficulty with others who aren’t as structured or organized, or perhaps are as flexible and spontaneous, as you are.

Your Myers-Briggs personality type is an incredibly rich resource for helping you reconnect back to your true spirit so you can find more satisfaction in your life and relationships.

The Enneagram system is equally important when assessing your personality type, because it describes your emotional defense system.

This is an essential part of us that we could not survive without. So in essence, your Enneagram personality type illustrates how you protect your Myers-Briggs personality type.

Quite often, your defensive structure gets bad press. When a person begins to learn about how they operate under stress or when they're emotionally triggered by something, they have some judgment or negativity about this part of their structure and work like mad to disown or deny this part of their personalities.

What’s true about the Enneagram defense system, though, is that it’s your ally — you need it!

It is just as important as your spirit, your soul, and your true essence that's described by your Myers-Briggs personality type.

It is the part of you that provides protection when you're under stress or distress. Think of it like your skin, which protects your internal biological systems and vital organs from disease and injury.

In a similar way, your defense system, illustrated by your Enneagram type, protects you from further emotional injury when you are facing threats, real or imagined.

But here’s the thing about emotional protection: It doesn’t always bring you satisfaction.

When under stress, your Enneagram personality type kicks into action automatically. It’s governed by the autonomic nervous system and has only one purpose: to stop or minimize pain or threats.

This defense system is generally limbic and irrational, in that it doesn't stop to consider the consequences or impact of your next actions or words. Rather, it reacts unconsciously to help you survive the situation at hand.

In this way, understanding your Enneagram personality type can help you learn more about how your protect your vulnerable self, as well as teaching you how more consciously recognize when this part of
your personality is in charge.

Your Enneagram defense system's only concern is survival.

It does not concern itself with life kinds of issues, such as, "What do I want to be when I grow up?" or "How do I like to be treated?" or "What is my favorite color?"

So decisions you make when this part of your personality is running will be geared toward survival, not geared towards your life satisfaction, which the Myers-Briggs portion of your personality is concerned about.

That's why many of people, as adults, end up in marriages, relationships or careers that they find no longer satisfying and, in fact, might create depression or anxiety.

When you're driven by your Enneagram/defensive structure, it is only a matter of time before these choices, which are based on survival criteria, no longer bring you the relief they once did.

At this point, it is time to get some help learning how to create different emotional safety and supports that are much more in line with your innate MBTI type.

This process requires the willingness to go in and heal unresolved developmental issues from your childhood, which continue to unconsciously keep your Enneagram personality type front and center, while not allowing your Myers-Briggs personality type to make many choices.

It can be hard to understand how both personality types and sets of circumstances can be true for you.

Ultimately, your MBTI type is about your essence when you are centered, grounded and in connection with your spirit, and your Enneagram type is about your defense response when you try to protect yourself emotionally.

Understanding how the two interact opens up a whole new level of understanding that neither personality tool can provide on its own.

Together, these two typing systems can be powerful agents for personal healing and growth.
Kate Schroeder, M.Ed., LPC, NCC is a psychotherapist and coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator® and the Enneagram, as well as experiential body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts or sign up for her newsletter for more information on how to connect with your best self.

Originally published on YourTango.com

Some addictions are hard to see because society considers them normal.

Addictions. Huh. That thing everyone whispers about or worse, tiptoes around, yet, has the power to take someone out or ruin their life in the blink of an eye. An addiction, as defined by Merriam-Webster.com, is evident when there is a “compulsive need for and use of a habit-forming substance (such as heroin, nicotine, or alcohol) characterized by tolerance and by well-defined physiological symptoms upon withdrawal”. I think that most of us would agree with this definition.

More broadly defied, Merriam-Webster.com states that an addiction is characterized by “persistent compulsive use of a substance known by the user to be harmful”. And although this might seem more general, this is the definition that I believe to be more important whenever someone is determining whether or not they have an addiction.
Truth is folks, everyone has an unhealthy dependency on something. Absolutely everyone that you meet. And if someone tells you that they do not, then you absolutely know that they do. And this is perhaps, the most overlooked symptom of an addiction. We all have some degree of addiction. The question is not do I have one, but rather, what and where is mine.

Problem is, that when most people think of an addiction, they think of the classic examples such as drugs or alcohol, cigarettes, gambling or sugar. Although these substances and behaviors are common addictions, there are many other forms of addiction that unfortunately stay hidden from most people, because they are accepted by society as within the range of normal behavior.

Things like exercise, caffeine, reading, work, food, religion, and even technology are examples of addictive behaviors or substances when used to avoid there here and now reality of someone or something bothering you. This, coupled with the inability to choose to use or engage or not use or engage in these behaviors when feeling down, can also be an indicator of an unhealthy dependency or addiction.

I like to think of an addiction as broadly defined such as anything that someone uses to feel better, numb out or distract when they are having a hard day or a rough experience. We all have addictions to varying degrees, and the line between what constitutes a “serious” or “diagnosable” addiction between a harmful dependency on something is very small.

And quite honestly, it serves no purpose to mince words: if someone asks you whether or not you could give this person, thing or substance up for a period of time, and you feel panic or even look like a deer in headlights, then there is a reasonable chance that there is an addictive dependency that is present as a way of avoiding uncomfortable feelings or emotions.

Perhaps one of the most obvious addictions, and most socially acceptable addiction present day is right in front of our nose. We all use it. Repeatedly. And sometimes multiple times throughout the day. It is called technology, otherwise known as “screen time” for kids. If we think about an addiction as anything we do to take us out of the moment, there is nothing better than Facebook or the internet to help us pass the time or forget what was bothering us.

An addiction it is something as simple as use of or engagement in something that results in repeated harmful or dissatisfying outcomes, whether those harmful or dissatisfying outcomes are physical, behavioral or emotional. And addictions can not only be on a substance, such as cigarettes or alcohol, but that can also be process addictions, which are compulsive behaviors that have negative consequences for us.

Many abusive relationships are often process addictions that someone cannot break free from. In many cases, these process addictions go undiagnosed or unrecognized, which can be incredibly detrimental to self-esteem and worth.
Ever had a friend or loved one continue in an abusive relationship, saying that they need to leave but just cannot? Well, chances are there was some kind of process addictive quality in the relationship. It has only been fairly recently that there has been an increased emphasis on learning about process addictions in the mental health field, although these types of addictions and dependencies have been around for a very long time.

I tend to not get hung up on whether something is an addiction or harmful dependency because in my experience, anything that “numbs us out” or distracts us when we are feeling down or overwhelmed, or keeps us from having to feel more painful feelings if we were to stop, serves the same purpose: to get emotional relief in any sort of way available.

I am inclined to believe that everyone has an addiction or unhelpful dependency on something, and this dependency generally stems from an inability to get emotional relief in any other way. Depending upon the amount of emotional support in childhood, the degree, amount or severity of addictions in later life will vary from person to person.

If there was not much support for having or processing feelings as a child, then as an adult there is going to be little skill or knowledge about how to handle difficult feelings or experiences that occur in life. And this is where addictions come in- they give us emotional relief when we are unable to do so in more satisfying ways.

Just because we look like an adult, and do grown up kinds of things such as drive cars, pay bills, raise children and so forth, does not mean that we are emotional adults fully capable of supporting all of our feelings in satisfying kinds of ways.

The question is not “do I have an addiction” but rather “what is my addiction”. An addiction is anything we use to feel better that we cannot give up or stop voluntarily for an extended amount of time.

So the next time you feel compelled to get on the computer or to go for that run, or even notice that you have to have your Starbucks before you can do anything else, you might ask yourself: “what would happen if I didn’t do this”…? 

​And if there is any sort of negative reaction that happens inside at the thought of not making that next move, you might want to explore that further to determine whether you are avoiding some emotional experience thing that isn’t going to go away on its own, and actually limits the amount of satisfaction you can feel in your life.  

Kate Schroeder is a therapist and coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information on how to connect with your best self.

Don't fall for the hype, you need a little of both!

"Introversion" is the trendy word right now. Or should I say the non-trendy word? Often, when I am working with a client and we discover that they are truly an introvert (as determined by the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator (MBTI)Personality tool) I get some sort of scrunched-up facial expression from them, as if they’ve just smelled something undesirable.

This is generally followed by some kind of response similar to, “But I like people and I like doing things,” followed by all sorts of facts and arguments about why this cannot be true as if they’ve just gotten some sort of terminal diagnosis that spells the beginning of the end for them.

And the exact opposite happens for those who are determined to reallybe extroverts by the MBTI personality tool (in my experience, everyone wants to be an extrovert but far fewer actually are than statistics show).

As I sit across from them, they look as if they’ve just won the lottery.Like someone has just told them they have found the pot of gold at the end of the rainbow. I generally get some kind of comment like, “See, I knew I was an extrovert — I am really social!” followed by an enormous smile on their face.

The truth is that even introverts require a connection in the world and with others, and all extroverts require solitude to some degree. These are signs of being human, moving toward and away from connection according to one’s needs. And is also a sign of living in balance and harmony with one’s needs.

The problem is that as a society, we often get fixated with only one end of the connection spectrum: either totally connected all the time and unable to easily move into solitude or totally immersed in solitude and unable to easily move toward connection.

Finding the balance between solitude and connectedness is an age-old concern, that often gets muddied up when we are living from anything other than our true self and needs.

Trying to find a healthy balance between being happy on your own and with yourself and how to connect in meaningful ways with others is not something we can “figure out” with our brain — we have to live the experiences and learn from how they impact us in order to determine what we need at any given moment.

Here are 5 suggestions for how to begin to find your own unique balance between solitude and connectedness:

1. Know thyself.

Seriously. Even Socrates was on-board with this idea. He observed that people were trying to know obscure or hard things before they knew about themselves. He called them ridiculous. So did Plato. Even St. Augustine supported this notion when he stated that “People travel to wonder at the height of the mountains, at the huge waves of the seas, at the long course of the rivers, at the vast compass of the ocean, at the circular motion of the stars, and yet they pass by themselves without wondering.” 

The ancient philosophers were on to something a long time ago that we have a hard time remembering today.
How many people dedicate extensive amounts of time, money and energy traveling the world or immersed in the pursuit of knowledge about topics outside of themselves? Lots. But very few people put the resources or efforts into knowing themselves, which is perhaps the most important knowledge we can acquire.

And then they complain that they're not happy. They isolate and avoid relationships. And then they complain about that.

Or else they cannot be without “doing” or “producing” or “socializing” lest they have to begin to feel things that they have kept running from feeling their whole lives. And they complain how they are too busy and stressed-out.

Self-knowledge and deep understanding of our true needs and desires, as well as deeply understanding the habitual ways we all have learned to unconsciously protect ourselves emotionally, leads to greater satisfaction in life.

Because for those still living out of protection mode, life is much more limited and dissatisfying. And for those who are interested in learning how to find a balance between separateness and connectedness, here’s a place to start.

2. Find and build the community that will support who you really are — not who they want you to be.

I love this one because it is so simple. Not easy, but simple. Find a way to do what makes you happy and not to do what doesn’t make you happy. That’s it. Avoid those people, places, and things that do not make your heart sing— you know them: these are the experiences or relationships that feel obligatory or required.

And in order to be able to do this, you have to know who you are and what makes your heart sing. What brings satisfaction. And the only way to know this is to begin to dive deeply into building awareness of who you were designed to be. Once you have that a deeper understanding of who you really are, you can begin to notice more quickly when you are doing something you want to do and when you are not.

Some people are even so dedicated to supporting their true self that they have learned how to track on an energetic level when they are moving towards something that will be satisfying or when they are in protection mode and following the steps outlined for them so that they don’t rock the boat.

In fact, some of these people are so astute that they can tell the distinction between isolation and solitude — which on the surface can look the same — by deeply connecting with a physiological experience inside. Talk about having a GPS that will never get you lost.

And when we begin to be able to deeply discern those people, places, and experiences that are supportive of who we really are from those experiences that are not, then we naturally begin to gravitate toward what feeds us and what does not. It’s kind of like having super powerful emotional taste buds.

3. Clear out the emotional debris that gets in the way of easily moving in and out of separation and connectedness.

About those people who are molecularly-connected toward a deep wisdom inside that guides them toward satisfaction and away from dissatisfaction: These are people who are deeply committed to their own personal growth and have spent years working on their emotional process.

Rest assured, though, that even those of you who are just getting started can build a beginner’s awareness of what gets in the way of being able to find balance. And it doesn’t take an incredible amount of time. But it does take commitment to yourself and to your discovery of what you really want.

You can start by simply paying attention to how your body responds to the meaning of the different words "solitude" versus "isolation", "connectedness" versus "socializing".

Generally speaking, the things that we want and need create a softening or relaxing experience in our body and energy, and the things that are against our grain tend to create a hardening or tensing physically and energetically.
And for some of you, it may take the help of a therapist to begin to be able to see how your defensive structure differs from your true spirit. A defensive structure is always about protection and survival emotionally. Isolation is an example of a protective or defensive behavior. Especially if the isolation does not feel like a choice.

Separateness is an example of a healthy behavior, a boundary that is creating space for you to get your needs met. It is always about choice, although we may have some strong feelings about needing to be separate from others for a while to regroup. And although on the surface they can look similar, they originate from two very different energies and motivations in our body.

Simply speaking, isolation leads to dissatisfying experiences and separation tends to move us toward satisfying opportunities. It may take some help to begin to see the difference between these two experiences and what gets in your way of being able to easily distinguish between these two experiences. You’re probably going to have to do some work to learn more about this and to solidify your knowing deep inside.

4. Keep in mind that balance doesn’t look the same for everyone.

Balance is not always a 50:50 split between things. In fact, it's defined differently for everyone, and will look different for everyone. Some people need more time on their own to recharge their batteries, but for others, they may need more time with others in order to regroup and rebalance. So we have to keep an open mind that your balance is likely going to look different from another person’s balance, and that is OK.

What we’re talking about is the difference between extroversion and introversion — as well as differences between things like being a feeler or a thinker — all preferences on the MBTI personality tool.

There are also differences in defensive structures, as well as leftover needs from childhood. Many factors play into how everyone determines what feels like enough alone time and how much contact they need with others.
When I start working with a client in therapy, one of the first places that we start is by using both the MBTI and Enneagram personality tools to gain a beginning understanding of how they were truly designed to be, and how they’ve protected that vulnerable child inside from heartbreak and disappointment.

Over time, with the use of this self-knowledge, people can begin to see when they are off balance or out-of-center when it comes to a need, and when they are right in line with supporting themselves. And it does not generally take that much time to begin to be able to do this. And the wonderful thing about this work is that in this process, they organically begin to move toward what makes them feel good and away from what doesn’t bring satisfaction.

Remember that your balance is going to look different from another person’s balance, and that is OK. Sometimes it can help to create daily reminders that it is your right to be alive in whatever way that you need. And to call on your support, both inside and outside of you, to back yourself up on this.

5. Commit to yourself, not to behaviors.

One of my favorite quotes is the old saying that goes something like this: “Give a man a fish, and you feed him for a day. Teach a man to fish, and you feed him for a lifetime.” I like this because it is all about teaching someone how to be self-sufficient over the long haul — not just how to acquire immediate change, which is never usually sustainable for very long.

This is the idea behind committing to yourself, not to behaviors.

Changing your behaviors, although perhaps helpful in the short term, is not going to be very sustainable as you go throughout your life.

All it is going to take is one or two hard days in a row, and fairly quickly you’re going to find yourself back in old behavioral patterns. This is old safety and because it is so familiar, it is the default. So, if you have a tendency to isolate, it is not going to be very long before you run out of support inside and find yourself back into your isolation no matter how hard you promised yourself you were not going to do that again. Or for those of you who cannot be alone no matter what, it’s only going to be a matter of time before you find yourself back out in the world again because the solitude was unbearable.

But committing to yourself means that you will learn not only how to be more in touch with your true needs and desires, but also how to discern more easily between your true need for separateness or connection or hiding out in isolation or socialization when that arises.

By committing to you and not just to a behavior, you will build a skill that will last for your lifetime, and if you’re committed to it, get passed down to your children and their children and so on.

This will also allow you to experience greater freedom in your life, as you learn to depend less on environmental feedback about what you need and more on the messages inside of you. And this is what emotional maturity or “growing up” is all about.

Being unable to easily move toward or away from others is a sure sign that there are deeper issues going on that are motivating the fixation in either place. If you find yourself getting stuck on either end of the continuum of connection, then it is time to go get some help to discover what is in the way of easy movement back and forth.

It is also important to also remember that balance doesn’t always reflect a 50:50 split. The balance between solitude and connectedness is different for everyone, and it is important to discover what that balance looks like for you. Keep working on deepening your understanding of yourself — in this manner, you’ll be able to deepen your connections with others and find meaningful relationships in your life whether in solitude or connectedness.  

Kate Schroeder is a therapist and coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information.

Originally published on YourTango.com

Ah…happiness. The ever-elusive quest we are all on from birth… it is the one thing that drives us to be in a constant search for that “right” person, the “right” job or house or to reach our ideal number on the scale; a static goal line that once we get there, will secure this state of wellness for eternity.
​
It is the number one goal most everyone has for their life- even if their more immediate goal is materialistic, it is always driven by some esoteric belief that if they just acquire “enough” of this material item, then they will feel satisfaction or happiness FOREVER. As if somewhere in our minds, we believe that we can just unlock the secret to happiness, we won’t ever have to feel unhappy again.

Ah…what an idea. How wonderful would that be to never wake up again in a bad mood or feel disappointed by a friend or partner, or get rattled and begin to go down the rabbit hole of emotions after a difficult interaction with your child or boss. If we just…have…do…more, then maybe we’ll get there.

Trying to be “happy” and stay there is like trying to catch smoke. Impossible. Just about the time that you think you have a jar full of smoke, and open it up to see how much is in there, it all drifts out and you’re back where you started.

What an impossible idea really: to hinge our enduring well-being on a dynamic state of being that is designed to ebb and flow in its most natural form. Trying to be happy forever would require us to become robots, capable of feeling only what is programmed into you upon design.

As humans, we are wired to feel an enormous range of feelings, which creates the beauty, drama and mystery of life. Feelings, are spontaneous emotional reactions to something happening around us in our outside world. As such, when we have a particular feeling, we are responding in a particular way to a stimulus outside of us.

And in this manner, our feelings can tell us much about how we regard and consider this particular experience, person, thing, but ultimately what we need about the situation. To have our settings get stuck on “happy” all the time, would actually be a disservice to us in that we would never have the benefit of our other filters to tell us about our preferences, needs and desires, and to create the nuances that makes each of us unique, and ultimately “us”.

So, I’m going to share with you a little secret to how you can both be more satisfied, i.e., happy, in your life AND maintain your uniqueness as a human being. Are you ready? Here I go… happiness isn’t determined by how you’re feeling, it is determined by how you FEEL ABOUT how you’re feeling…

There it is folks. The simple truth about how happiness and satisfaction evolve. Or not. Now, the concept is a shockingly simple one, as you can see, but absolutely not easy to achieve. And here’s why.

At some point in your development as a small child, likely in many cases even before you began to have conscious memory, you began to be shaped by others’ judgements and reactions to your feelings. Intentional or not, how others responded to your feelings and needs, began to encourage or discourage repeating those feelings or not.

For example, if when you cried, you were responded to, enough of the time, with gentleness and patience, compassion and understanding, then it is likely that you grew up to become an adult who can easily be vulnerable and open with your sadness. If, however, you notice a hitch at all in your ability to easily be sad and openly stay with your sadness as an adult, then it is likely that you have some internal and unconscious judgment and resistance towards the feeling of sadness.

So, that’s why when you feel sad now, it feels like some kind of predicament or problem when it happens or like something that has to be hidden or stopped. And for those who have a fair amount of body awareness, you might even notice a body response when you start to feel sad: you might notice that you tense up, collapse energetically, get a headache, or even have to leave the room.

Not your fault. You were programmed long before you had the ability to have choice or boundaries against this kind of assault on your feelings and aliveness, when you were met with less than satisfying responses to your sadness. Problem is, it is still an unconscious reaction that happens inside whenever sadness begins to come up, because the earlier experiences around how your sadness were consistently met, were so unpleasant.  

It’s called conditioning, and is much like when we come across a food that once made us physically ill, we have an involuntary body response towards moving away from this food because the experience of getting sick was so unpleasant. It’s involuntary and cannot be overridden by thought alone.

Anger is another perfect example. How many of you were encouraged to be angry as a child, to have a “no” or a protest towards what was happening to you or around you? If you’re anything like most of the rest of us, anger was an experience that was quickly punished or stopped. And so now, there is an unconscious association inside, whenever we begin to feel anger, that it is “bad” or “wrong” or something to be avoided or stopped, and so we often do, along with a physical body response to shut this energy down.

The dilemma around all this is two-fold: even though this shaping and judgement around your feelings when you were a child, was not your choice originally, it is now interfering with your ability to feel your aliveness and satisfaction (happiness) in your adult world. And here’s the kicker: it is also your responsibility, now, as an adult to clean this mess up, if you so choose to have more satisfaction and happiness in your life.

Really. You might have some feelings about this. It would sure make sense if you do. And the tricky part of this all is that most of how we feel about how we are feeling is unconscious. We were not born to judge feelings as good or bad, we were blank slates on which feelings just were experiences, not good or bad.

So, when you find yourself having a feeling that feels “bad” or like something you want to stop, that is a sure sign that you have some healing to do in this area. And this healing is not just a cognitive healing- that only works with your thoughts. The healing also has to encompass the body and spirit too in order to fundamentally change your unconscious response to your feelings. It is time to get out of the box with your healing.

So, happiness isn’t about how we are feeling. It’s about how we feel about how we are feeling. When we can reach a place of unconditional support for ourselves, no matter what it is that we feel, think, choose, want or do, then we begin to have more of an experience of peace and satisfaction no matter what is happening inside or outside of us.
And I cannot think of a better definition for happiness than that. Can you?
 
Kate Schroeder is a therapist and online life coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information on how to connect with your best self. 

Are you just giving up?

Have you ever, in the middle of a fight or particularly painful moment in your relationship, flashed to the idea of “just breaking up” as a way to end the problems? You just want some relief from the conflict that is going on between the two of you, and your instinct is to simply get out. 

There is nothing more painful than to be in conflict with someone you love, especially a romantic partner. Especially when it's an ongoing situation. 

Many couples have conflicts that continually resurface, and despite engaging in these conflicts over and over, the blocks never seem to really go away. There might be a truce for a while as everyone is on their best behavior, or one person in the relationship finds a way to put up with their partner’s questionable antics — but the problems never seem to go away. Instead, the problems change or shape-shift as couples learn more about each other. This is because their deepening understanding of each other allows them to arm themselves with more intricate, unconscious ways of playing out childhood issues in their relationship. But this isn't all bad!

That's because, if this is happening with you, it means your relationship is unfolding in exactly the way that it needs to in order for you to have an opportunity for incredible personal and emotional growth.

Some people believe that we get involved in romantic relationships (unconsciously) in order to heal our wounds from childhood, as this is the stage upon which all of our attachment and relationship issues from childhood are triggered and play out front and center. And doesn’t this make sense? Our romantic relationships are, generally, the closest opportunity to mirror our attachments to our primary caregivers.

Given that our romantic or closest friendships most closely resemble the intimate attachments from childhood, this is where we project all of our unfinished business from childhood.

And it generally is never a “coincidence” that our partners often have some resemblance, emotionally, structurally, or even on an energetic level, to one or both of our parents or caregivers. This is not random at all. That can make it scary to be vulnerable. So, when these ongoing conflicts arise, what they are offering you is an opportunity to learn about your unfinished relationship business from childhood, and how you are also impacting the conflict between you and your partner.

The actual dilemma that you feel, the part of the conflict that you are hung up on, believe it or not, lies within you.

Your responses and your reactions, as well as what you believe that you need from them is based upon your unfinished developmental and relational issues from childhood. Think about the last time you asked your partner to take out the trash and they didn’t do it — or acted like they didn’t hear you. The upset that you feel isn’t fully about the trash sitting in the bin for days on end.

Sure, neglecting to take out the trash might be something that you are not ok with in any circumstance, but the discontent and upset about this that keeps you up at night, or drives you to talk with your friends about it, is really about something much deeper.

Perhaps it's about how you don’t feel heard or important perhaps, or taken seriously in the relationship, and the inability to work through these and resolve them is about some unmet childhood need around this. Because if it was just about the here and now, you’d be able to work through them easily and move on with things.

If something feels complicated or ongoing, it’s because it’s the past getting projected onto the present. It’s never really just about the trash. 

You and your partner actually might be more compatible — or incompatible — than you know, but there is no way to really know this unless you are willing to look inside and examine whatever unfinished places are showing up front and center in your relationship. Both of you. And if your partner is not interested in looking inside at their own part while you look at yours, then this would be a sure sign of incompatibility between the two of you, and a great time to decide whether you are willing to take 100% responsibility for the health, well-being, and outcome of the relationship. But don't let your fear of commitment keep you from doing the hard work. And if not, walk away.

Unless your physical safety is compromised, walking away from a relationship just to stop the pain or end the problems is never going to be the solution that brings you the most satisfaction. 

It may bring you relief, but relief and satisfaction are not the same things. And I can guarantee you that you are just going to be walking into the same problems in another relationship — it is just a matter of time. Hanging in there and growing together is incredibly fulfilling and awonderful way to build intimacy in the relationship. But it takes two for this to happen. 

Kate Schroeder is a therapist and life coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information on how to connect with your best self.

Originally published at YourTango.com

"Don't take it personally!" (Yeah, right!)

How many times have you heard someone say, “just be the bigger person” or even better, “let it go, they didn’t mean it” or, “they’re just having a bad day” when someone has been unkind or as a way to explain away someone's abuse? 
And how many times, after hearing someone say that, did you roll your eyes, want to jump out of your skin, or even scream out loud because of what was done to you?

If any of these descriptions fit you, then you are not alone. Because it's hard not to take it personally when someone is being hurtful or even abusive. 

We hear time and again, "Someone else's behavior is a reflection of them, and how we react is a reflection of ourselves" —  but it is virtually impossible not to have your self-esteem be affected by someone else’s bad behavior.

And in many cases, it's even more impossible to not react. Not getting derailed by others’ behavior begins by discarding the expectation that you can reach a point in your life where you will not be impacted by anyone or anything going on around you. It's not realistic. The only way to stay completely unaffected by others would be to find a way reach inside of yourself and dispose of your most vital organ —  your heart.

As long as you are striving to stay connected to yourself and to live in a meaningful, confident and heartfelt way, you will be affected by all that life has to offer you. That is a given. If you have a heart, let yourself off the hook when it comes to not being bothered by what others do. But that doesn't mean you have to let every thing others do have a huge impact in your life or ruin your happiness. 

To find some balance, here are 4 ways to protect yourself from taking the blame for the abuse of others, while also being kind and compassionate toward your feelings. 

1. Admit that something just happened.
Learning to validate your experience is a key piece to avoiding getting derailed by others’ negativity.
This starts by acknowledging that something has happened, and has had an effect on you. Get real about what just happened and that you feel impacted by what has just been said or done. You can express this either quietly inside or say it out loud to yourself or a trusted friend.

Validating your experience is an important part of staying separate from others’ negativity. So, take a breath — a deep belly breath — and acknowledge that something just happened to you that didn’t feel good for your self-esteem.
A simple thing you can quietly say inside as you breathe is, “Something just happened here”.

2. Trust your gut.
Another important part of protecting yourself is to trust your perception. True or not, you’re making an assumption around what has occurred. If the other person is in a rational place and open to having a conversation so that you can check your assumption out, that is a wonderful thing — and the first thing to do. In many cases, though, they are not and you have to trust that something just happened that did not feel good to you, and recognize that you are drawing conclusions based upon your interpretation of the events.

How you live out your assumption is going to make the difference between getting sucked into their negativity or supporting yourself in a different way. A simple thing you can say quietly inside as you breathe is, “I didn’t like that”.

3. Get validation that what you're feeling is normal.
Validating your feelings about what just happened is another important piece of support to bring in in these kinds of situations. This would be the point in which you identify what you are emotionally feeling, and get validation for those feelings either from yourself or a trusted friend. For those of you who struggle to recognize or experience feelings, you might want to start by learning about the various different feelings that are possible, and how to begin to recognize them when they are happening inside of you.

This might take some help from a friend or even a therapist who can guide you through developing a deeper knowledge about this part of yourself. But take the time to locate what you are feeling and give yourself room to feel that experience through the initial rush of intensity.

Responding from emotion is generally never a good idea, and often it's the point at which we begin to derail. Especially if we are dealing with an irrational person or situation. So again, take a breath. As you breathe, you can say to yourself, “I feel mad [or sad or scared] about what just happened.”

4. Let yourself feel your emotions.
Determine what you need from how you are feeling about what has just happened.  If you are feeling scared, you might need some space or protection, until the rush of emotion slows down. If  you are feeling angry, you might be experiencing a sense of violation and may need a boundary. If you are sad, you may need some comfort and support before beginning to get clear about next steps for you. Whatever you are feeling, let yourself feel it. Because on the other side of that feeling is your road map about what you need in any given situation. And if you need help to get clear on what you need, don’t be afraid to ask for help. 

When someone is treating you badly, it is a direct response to something happening inside of them, emotionally, that feels intolerable. That is why they lash out: it is easier to blame someone else for a negative feeling inside than to breathe down into the experience and contain their reaction. If they have little tolerance for their own feelings, it is always going to come bursting out onto others, and usually in an unhelpful way.

So, let yourself off the hook for being able to do this perfectly.

Our ability to not be derailed by others’ behavior, and to instead stay focused on our own response, starts in childhood and is entrenched very early on in our lives. It takes time to rewire our brains and our bodies into responding responsibly when we have been treated unkindly or abused by another person. Creating a different response to others takes a lot of mindfulness, patience, and guidance as we begin to rewire our responses to the world around us. This is like any other practice: it takes repetitive practice and coaching, as it is much easier to lash out at another person or to engage back in irrational behavior than to breathe into our own experiences inside.
Especially if we have never seen that done before. So be gentle, breathe a lot, and reach out for support when you need it.

Kate Schroeder is a therapist and life coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information.

Originally published at YourTango.com

As children, we often did not get the type or amount of emotional support that would have felt satisfying for our heart. As a result of this, we also did not receive the support required to develop a solid internal emotional support system of our own, which is the part of us responsible for allowing us to move through the world freely and easily, reaching towards what feels satisfying and moving away from what is dissatisfying. This internal support system is also responsible for allowing us movement towards and away from people/situations/things, according to our own specific and calibrated needs. That is why in the here and now, as adults, we can struggle with “hard” feelings and not always know how to support our self in a way that brings comfort, encourages personal growth and resiliency, and alleviates distress.

Because of the heart wounding and trauma in our childhoods, many people do not yet have a fully developed internal support system to allow us to easily move towards and away from what we need, nor are they able to maintain the degree of realness/power/genuineness or openness that we often attain in our therapy sessions when given adequate support for our needs. As such, we can easily “slip back into the old ways” after our session or find ourselves responding to others or our own distress in the same old dissatisfying ways. Without a solidly developed internal support system, we have to rely on the old childhood supports- that’s all we have access to in the moment.

We also need bonding in every moment of our lives, so if we are in a piece of “the old bonding” from childhood (which is likely the case if we are having an experience that we want to change or feels intolerable inside of us), then the way that we are going to support our need for bonding is going to be based upon our rudimentary and likely dissatisfying childhood supports, and why we cannot seem to alleviate our distress, in the long term, around the experience. So, if a piece of this old bonding is in the way, (i.e., we are getting victimized or in an assault) then this is going to block our ability to fully be in the present moment and adult part of our self, and render us unable to connect to our experience in the present moment or reach out to get our needs met in a satisfying way.

In this case, we have to rely on what is there, the old supports which were never satisfying but are emerging in the moment because that is all that we have access to. All we have to rely on is the support that is there, the old childhood support, that is blocking our path towards present day satisfaction in our adult life. So, when this is happening, combined with our constant need for bonding, then we have to do the work to clear out this next piece of trauma that is blocking our ability to access new supports, which is why therapy is essential: it allows us the opportunity to continue clearing out blocks to satisfaction.

Without a fully developed internal emotional support system that we can easily access whenever we are in distress or need of emotional support, we move back to whatever is available at the moment, and if we are triggered and in another piece of old trauma, what will be available to us is our old childhood supports. And we move back there because the old supports are familiar and our spirit wants us to heal another piece of trauma.
​
This is why we need to be in ongoing therapy: to keep working on building our own satisfying internal support system, and this takes time and patience. If we are to truly learn how to support ourselves in a more deeply satisfying way, then we have to commit to ourselves and our healing in a deeply ongoing way. The way that we discontinue using old childhood supports, is when we have a repertoire of new satisfying support to take its place. And this takes time. 

There's more to healing than talk.

Have you ever had the feeling of frustration after leaving your therapy session, wondering (again) why you are spending your hard-earned money and limited energy on something that only leaves you feeling stuck, or in the same place as you were before you started?

You may even feel a bit lost about what to do next to get out of this dead end called “Your Life”.
​
This isn’t what you imagined when you were a child or even young adult, and yet despite being in therapy (which is supposed to help with these exact kinds of situations), you’re at the point of wondering if it’s worth continuing, or if it's time to find another treatment. You may even feel discouraged, wondering if this is all there is. Perhaps all your childhood dreams about the kind of life you wanted when you grew up were just fantasy, and this “dead end" called your life is the “real world” that adults used to lecture to you about.

Well, I’m here to tell you that this is not all there is to your life, and that it is possible to reach great satisfaction in your life as an adult. In fact, your dreams and happiness can come true, and non-traditional therapy, which is more experiential and not cognitive or talk-based, is one of the ways that you can find more satisfaction in your life. There are countless “lost souls” who cannot seem to figure out how to obtain personal happiness, and through non-traditional therapies, have found incredible satisfaction in their lives. This happens through a commitment to their heart, and a willingness on their part to deeply dive into their own personal growth process — and their willingness get outside of their usual box, emotionally.

Here are five reasons why you might feel like you’ve reached a dead end in your life, and why the therapy you've tried up until now may not be helping you at this particular time. 

1. You’ve grown emotionally, as much as, or past your therapist.
You might be wondering: “How could this be possible? Aren’t all therapists supposed to be evolved? How can I have grown more, emotionally, than my therapist? They went to training for this, aren’t they supposed to know what to do in these types of situations? Isn’t my therapist supposed to be emotionally stronger than me?” Well, sure, in a perfect world. The reality, though, is that not all therapists are committed to their own personal growth like you might be. No one can guide another person somewhere where they have never been themselves. As such, if your commitment to personal growth and healing is greater than that of your therapist’s, then you will, in fact, reach a point where the process halts, and they cannot take you any further in your process. It might be time for a new therapist.


2. It’s the wrong kind of therapy for you.
Not all types of therapy are made equal. Some approaches, such as talk therapy or cognitive therapy, focus on strategies such as stopping a behavior or changing a response or perhaps adjusting your thoughts about things. In these cases, your growth is going to stay relatively superficial. These types of therapy believe that change begins outside of yourself, and don’t bother much with deeper inside-world kinds of transformation. I tend to believe that deep change first happens inside and once established and supported, begins to radiate into your outside world organically. I have seen this happen time after time for many individuals who have come searching for body-mind-spirit approach therapy. This kind of experiential therapy leads to deeper fundamental changes, which is the only way to experience greater ongoing satisfaction both in one’s inside and outside worlds. If this is what you’re searching for, then it sounds like it might be time for you to find a different kind of therapy.


3. Maybe you need a new definition of being “stuck”.
Not every moment in therapy follows a direct or linear progression towards happiness. In fact, feeling frustrated is a part of the growth process. Frustration is one of the most powerful motivations for growth — without this experience, none of us would seek out therapy or even feel compelled to grow. A tiny seed that gets planted in the ground spends the majority of its energy pushing through the dirt, with no light or air around, until one day it pokes its tiny head up and out of the ground and can feel the sunshine, and all the while we would still say that it was growing. Such is the therapy process. Sometimes “stuck” is a good thing, it motivates us to grow towards our light and make changes for the better. And when we are in that place in our growth process, we need different kind of emotional support than your therapy might be able to give you. Without this specific, tailored support, our growth will halt.


4. It might not be time yet for your next piece of growth.
How can this be, you ask? Well, believe it or not, our brain is not responsible for dictating our emotional growth, rather, our soul and deep wisdom inside of us determines the pace of our personal healing and growth process. As such, this deeper spirit inside of us does not operate on a logical or linear time frame, nor does it quantify or apply logic as to when our next piece of growth needs to unfold. Growth happens when we have enough emotional supports inside to deepen into more of our heart and feel more of the unfelt feelings from our childhood. And it takes time to build those emotional supports, especially when support like this was not modeled or supported in childhood. In these cases, I like to think of stuck as being a place of “actively waiting”. Much like a mountain climber who is spending time at base camp to let their bodies adjust to the altitude, in these places in our therapy process, we are emotionally acclimating to a deeper level of consciousness, and readying ourselves to feel more of what we could not feel when we were younger. We cannot move until our spirit determines we are ready. Doesn’t always make sense to our rational brain.


5. You might not want to be in therapy right now.
Think of it like this: none of us sits down at the dinner table and eats non-stop. There comes a point in time where we our bodies feel full, and we get up from the dinner table and move away to digest what we’ve eaten. When we’re ready to eat more, then we move back towards the table and begin to take in more food until we feel full again. There is a natural moving towards, taking in, and then moving away to digest, and this cycle continues each day throughout our lives. Therapy is similar in this way. For some people, they may need a break from therapy so that they can digest what they’ve learned and how they’ve grown, try some things out on their own, and then they come back to therapy when they are ready for more. So, occasionally, feeling “stuck” isn’t about a dead end in therapy, but actually is a message from our deeper soul wisdom, communicating to us that our next piece of growth actually looks like having our “no” and taking a break from therapy for a while. And this boundary needs incredible support from a therapist, otherwise, our growth is undermined and we fall back into a dead end place in our life. I work from the notion that absolutely everything that happens in life is important and necessary, and always has an excellent reason behind why it is happening, even if our logical and rational minds do not always understand. And this is where the right kind of deeper experiential therapy can help — it helps us decode what is happening in our life from moment-to-moment, and learn how to meet our needs in a more satisfying kind of way. And this is how we feel more satisfaction and happiness, more movement in our life, by learning more about what is really going on deep inside of us. 

You do not have to feel hopeless if traditional talk therapy is not working for you. There are other ways that you can work on getting what you want  in life. Your frustration might be your clue that it is time to get out of your box and begin experimenting with other types of support that feel meaningful to you. This exploration will be the beginning of feeling more satisfaction and creating the life that you have always wanted! 

Kate Schroeder is a therapist and life coach who utilizes the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator ® and the Enneagram, as well as body-mind-spirit healing practices to access one’s inner wisdom in order to create a life filled with satisfaction. Start changing your life today by downloading her guided imagery program, Soul Meditations: Building A Relationship That Lasts, or visit Kate at Transformation Counseling, LLC  for more information on how to connect with your best self.

Originally published at YourTango.com