Loving Someone Who Isn't Good At Loving

People who love someone who isn't good at loving can find themselves in an emotional trap. They try so hard to 'change' or 'rescue' their partner by making all manner of emotional self-sacrifices.

Unfortunately, this only succeeds in stifling their own happiness. People who are trying to 'awaken the love' in their partner usually focus on constantly pleasing the other person. This can stifle aspects of themselves which the other criticise such as: passion, fun, spontaneity, ambition.

Another rescuing trait is to be 'over-cheerful' to make up for the lack of joy in the partner or relationship. Sometimes this results in parents relying on their children for emotional joy and support, which is lacking in their marriage. Yet all this tends to bring more an more disappointment as nothing ever changes. The golden rule to remember is 'just because you love someone it does not mean you are responsible for their happiness. We are responsible for our own happiness'.


This is rule does not mean that you have to stop doing lovely things for people because you like to make them smile and feel better. The rule is about 'responsibility' or as I prefer to think about it as two words; respond - ability. We all have the ability to respond to people in various circumstances, but it is always our choice how we respond. You can keep responding the way you all-ways do and the chances are you nothing will ever change for you in the relationship.

Changing your behaviour requires you acknowledging and accepting how you are behaving at this time. Which is why the Mye Programe (Manage Your Emotions Programme) is great at helping you to discover how you are behaving at this time. What is   also important is looking at the emotions which drive that behaviour. Once you have understood why you do what you do, you can then make a choice to change. The Mye Programme, can do just that ! Visit the website to find out more www.myenow.com

Do you feel like a prisoner wanting to escape? 

Escaper Behaviour is one of the behaviours in the Manage Your Emotions Programme. As an 'Escaper' you feel that you would love to be able to escape from certain situations, from people or even from yourself!

What Escaper Behaviour is;

You feel as though you need to escape from your situation or from certain feelings.
You may feel that you have no choice other than to see things through to the bitter end.
There may be times when you feel you don’t belong anywhere.
You may find ways of escaping through various ways. These might include; over eating, drinking, smoking, having affairs, gambling, taking drugs, obsession with sex, over working, compulsive reading, excessive need to be out of the house, avoidance of certain people or places, avoiding confrontations or creating confrontations, excessive fantasising or day dreaming.
You may feel the need to be in control, because you feel so out of control.
You may not have much patience with yourself or with other people.
You may feel exhausted most of the time.
You may not feel you have the ability to make yourself ‘safe.’
You may not really like yourself.


Understanding Your Escaper Behaviour 

All your emotions are trying to help you. Escaper Behaviour is very common. All of us need to ‘escape’ at times in our lives. However, if Escaper Behaviour is a dominant way of behaving then it may cause distress. It can lead to many different kinds of avoidance which if left unattended can undermine and affect lives.

Escaper Behaviour hides very important emotions
These are: Fear, Anger, Shame and Sadness

It would be helpful for you to understand each of the emotions which are probably ‘stuck’ under your Escaper Behaviour. Emotions often work in groups: your Sadness is connected to your Anger.

Changing
It will take some effort to make incremental changes your Escaper Behaviour. Perhaps it is the way you have always behaved and it makes you feel ‘safe’. Remember, no one can change you, except you. Moving away from Escaping behaviour means that you can confront increasingly difficult obstacles in an honest and self empowering.

If you are an 'Escaper' please go to www.myenow.com and take the programme to start making the necessary changes to your life now.

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Do You Feel Like You Are Drowning?

Do you feel that you have lots of responsibilities and you cannot say ‘no’ to people? This is an example of 'Drowning' which is one of the behaviours in the Manage Your Emotions on line Programme. 

What drowning is

There are times when everything is too much for you.
You may feel as though you are drowning.
You don’t know whether to say something, to leave, to sit down and cry, you can’t decide on anything.
You tend to feel frozen as if you’re not really there. It’s as though events were happening to someone else: you don’t know how to react, so sometimes you just ‘clam up’ and look at others.

Understanding drowning

When you are overwhelmed your emotions are stuck. This means that in some way you are not allowing yourself to ‘feel’ anything.
Feeling ‘overwhelmed’ helps you to avoid things. It may happen when you are doing too much, or you feel that you have too much responsibility and you are unable to say ‘no, I don’t want to do this’.
Your body, mind and emotions will make sure you slow down. Feeling overwhelmed is a way of doing just this, to make you feel that life is happening to someone else and that you do not own your body any more. You are saying that ‘you can’t take any more and you need a break!’

Drowning behaviour hides very important emotions: Fear, Anger, Shame and Sadness

It would be helpful for you to understand each of the emotions which are probably stuck under your Drowning Behaviour. Emotions often go around in pairs or groups:  your Sadness is connected to your Anger. 

• It will take some effort make incremental changes to your Drowning Thinking. Perhaps it is the way you have always behaved and it makes you feel ‘safe’. Remember, no one can change you, except you.
• If you want to carry on behaving in a Drowning way you will always feel like you do now. 

If you feel you would like to understand more about 'Drowning' behaviour or work through the emotions which are underlying this behaviour please visit our website www.myenow.com and take part in the questionnaire.

Are you an Angry Parent?

We hope the answer to this is 'of course' as everyone was born with the ability to feel anger. However, it is how we react to anger which causes most of our emotional problems in our lives.

Most of a child's emotional learning takes place within the family environment. The child not only learns how to respond to the emotions of others, but most importantly how to handle their own intense feelings. As anger is the emotion which most of us have an unhealthy relationship with, it is usually the emotion which a child either learns to repress or express in an aggressive way. What they learn about Anger in the home will usually affect their behaviour outside of the home too. Children may learn to repress their anger, maybe because the parent forbids them to be angry, in which case they may show their anger through sulking, crying or by withdrawing. In teenagers they may become apathetic or 'bored' all the time. Alternatively, they may express their anger in an explosive, aggressive way, behaving in an out of control or verbally abusive manner. As adults, we too can react to our anger in the very same way.
In order for children not to fear anger or use anger in a powerful way we as adults have a responsibility to have a better understanding of how we react to our angry feelings. At Manage Your Emotions we can help both children and adults do just that!
Our unique programme helps not only adults but children to understand the message of anger and through various forms of exercises we can help people to deal with their 'anger' in an assertive way, which is what it is there for.
We like to view 'anger' as a soldier of your own boundary. Its job is to keep you safe and will alert you if anyone hurts you in any way. Anger can help you set boundaries, be heard and gain self respect. However, its is not its job to hurt anyone!
Anger wants to be your friend, not your enemy.

Relationships and Fear

Most of us agree that childhood relationships have dramatic effects on our relationships later in life. Important experiences may form the core beliefs about life in general and painful childhood relationships can become prototypical for later life relationships.

One of the outcomes of a painful childhood relationship may be the 'fear of intimacy'. For adults this may mean a preference for short-term relationships which feel safer than long term or committed relationships. Other people may tolerate long-term relationships providing they are in control and keep others at a certain distance from them emotionally. Some people fear intimacy in any form, which can lead to a sense of meaninglessness or emptiness, or a futile search for 'happiness'. Fears of intimacy can stop a person from experiencing 'love' in healthy ways. Being in a relationship with someone who has a fear of intimacy can be extremely hurtful and emotionally draining. The recipient can suffer rejection, withdrawal and isolation. It is very difficult not to take these actions very personally.

If you are a partner of someone who suffers from 'fear of intimacy' or you feel that you may be experiencing this fear yourself, you may find our Manage Your Emotions programme useful to understand your behaviour and also the messages within your emotions. 

Living With 'Over Eating'

Eating Disorders are not uncommon in our society today. Over the weekend we were told that doctors are to unite to combat obesity and that UK women are the fattest in Europe. Of course, there are lots of varying factors as to why a person can be over weight, but it makes obvious sense to me that if the reason isn't 'medical' it has to be Emotional. To be clear, in this blog I am talking about people who are suffering from over eating/bulimic rather than those who are suffering from Anorexia and whose symptoms are more to do with a Mental Health issue.


When I see an over weight person I tend to see not their size, but their emotional state. My heart goes out for these poor souls who are so insecure that unconsciously (or consciously) have made their weight their barrier against their fears, their protection against life if you like. Usually, the most weight is gained around the stomach area, which is where your gut instinct lies. As society has a great deal to gain from instilling 'Fear' into us all it is not surprising that the body weight people accumulate can be hiding their fear of; not having enough love or money, low self esteem, inability to keep boundaries, feeling powerless, rejection, childhood traumas etc.

When I have counselled people who are battling with over eating, Anger, Resentment  and Apathy are usually the key emotions which are either raging or being totally repressed. But the next big emotions to look at are 'Shame' and 'Fear'. Sometimes Shame is too painful for a person to feel and they try to bury it as deep as they can so that they appear not to have it. Some people do a really good job of this and it is almost as though they are without conscience, but rarely is this so. In fact, most over weight people are extremely sensitive, caring people unable to keep their own boundaries and are over compliant. As already mentioned,  over weight people can be Apathetic (some say lazy), but this is nearly always because of repressed unresolved feelings of Anger and Fear.

Over Eating affects all the members of the family to some degree. This makes utter sense, as we learn how to deal with our emotions through watching how our parents/caregivers handle their own emotions. It can be particularly painful for the partner of an over eater. Partners usually feel really helpless in this situation and may plead with the over eater to get some kind of help. Indeed, some may even feel they are to blame for the over eating in some way. Those partners who have lived with the disorder for many years, hoping things would change, begin to feel Resentful, Angry and mistrustful in the relationship and this can cause them to become 'policemen,' waiting to catch their partner eating what they shouldn't (which will only fuel the fears of the over eater). This in turn can mean that the partner will become the 'abuser' telling the other what they should and shouldn't do (even if it is for the good of the loved one's health) and the other the 'victim' which is a rampant archetype in an over eater. So these relationships become a self fulling prophesy.

What is really needed here to treat this issue from the inside out and I hope the Doctors who meet together to discuss obesity really understand the emotional issues. Yes, bring down the cost of low fat food so that it is more affordable and deal with other external issues which contribute to obesity, but more importantly, provide emotional support  for ALL those who are suffering.

If you or someone you know is suffering from over eating, or if you are in a relationship with a person who has an obesity problem please take a look at our programme www.myenow.com for instant emotional help!