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subject to legal sanctions. Copy RIH two thousand twenty- four stream Lili'
s Secrets Law. All rights reserved. I' ll be straight and clear.
You have an emotional wound if you meet a single requirement that I present
to you next. You have problems maintaining healthy relationships, whether as a couple,
as a friend or as a family. You constantly repeat the same type
of partner or pattern of behavior in affective sex relationships. You have a hard
time spending time with yourself alone. You' re afraid of engagement and partner
intimacy. You feel the need to apologize for everything. You feel bad when
things get out of your control, even if you can afford it. You
make yourself feel guilty spending money on something that is not tremendously necessary. You
' re so afraid to make mistakes, you focus all your energies on others.
You' re keeping an eye on each other' s emotions all the
time. To know, how to act. You think you' re never
enough. You stay in a hypervigilance state, feeling stressed out repeatedly. You
beat yourself up and you push yourself too hard. You feel upset when you
need to talk to someone or ask for favors. You demand too much from
others. You focus on meeting the needs of the rest, ignoring yours you
have very few memories of your childhood or adolescence. You feel like you'
re wasting your time when you rest, you analyze your behavior over and over
after any social interaction. To stay calm, knowing you' ve done well,
you need the approval of others to stay calm. You live with a
very intense feeling of guilt. No apparent reason. If any of these points
have removed you or generated some interest in you. This book is for you
years ago. I understood that I had an emotional wound that I had to
heal if I wanted to live in calm, but it wasn' t until
a few months ago, when I lived a series of situations and came to
terms with reality. And now I want you to open your eyes. So
let' s start by evoking your memories, what you remember about your childhood
and your adolescence, I bet you' ve ever traveled back in time and,
wanting it or not, you' ve ended up mentally immersed in some
part of your past. Sometimes it is smells, flavors or images that trigger
memories. Other times it is stories shared out loud with others that evoke past
times. The mind treasures in its reveques, those experiences that, in one
way or another, have marked us, either for good or for bad.
I will confess that, even though the brain has an extraordinary capacity to store
negative experiences more than positive ones, the goal it always pursues in the face
of any stimulus has a purpose to survive. From the moment we are born,
we interact with the world around us and begin our first interpersonal relationships with
those closest to us, from our parents, s s brothers and family in
general, to known teacher friends. Everyone in some way is part of that
complex network, able to condition how we perceive and process everything, because the
way we see things is the one in which the environment educates us from the
moment we are born. We are prepared to begin codifying in our minds who
we are, what place we occupy and how we should treat ourselves and others.
From the moment we are born, Our brain is putting in place various
survival mechanisms that condition the way to perceive problems, to conceive danger, to
process possible threats or to respond to fear. You know what I recently remembered
was the first time I had an irrational fear. It was just one day
that I acted the same way that when I was about seven years old,
I went in the car with my parents. My father was driving me and
my mother and I were traveling in the back seat back from spending a summer
day in the country with the family. In the evening, my father was
looking for parking in the area where we lived. At that time I was
looking out the window, the few stars that could be appreciated from the neighborhood.
Suddenly I felt a feeling of anguish that I had never experienced before.
I thought about how sad it was to end that day and how unfair it
would be for everything, including my life and that of my loved ones,
to end in that instant. The restlessness invaded my body and the sadness I
felt for the end of the day. As you can suppose, it became
even darker by my mind, without coming to account, I walked the possibility
of having some terminal illness and dying. What a gloomy thought for a child.
True, I have always been a very intense person and with some speed
in the association of ideas and although at that time I was too small to
understand what was happening to me with the passing of the years, I remembered
fleetingly that moment and I could give you an explanation later, already thirty-
one years old, I would return home by train. A few days ago.
He had left town to take care of some work business. It was
night and I was very tired. I leaned my head on the window glass
so I could sleep a little before reaching destination. I was struck by the
dark eye of the night, and I looked at whether from there I could
see the stars. Immediately, my head decided it was time to recover that
childhood memory and bring it to light. Why I looked around now. Although
I had the feeling of having moved to a strange and unknown world, the
reality is that nothing had changed in the car. I put on some headphones
with music and dived deep into what had until then been a vague memory.
Most likely, my mind had related my conduct of that moment to that of
almost twenty- five years ago with the newly recovered memory. I went over
everything and found a logical explanation. A few days before living that scene,
in my parents' car, I had been present in an adult conversation about
illness and death. We had visited a shrine where people used to bring offerings
to a religious image so that their health, family, and love- related
requests could be fulfilled. These offerings were wax figures of various forms, a
heart, a kidney, a leg, human hair. According to the type
of offering and the believer' s request, the figure varied. That image
was engraved on me. I' ve never seen anything like it before,
even though it was so small, I firmly believe that I had enough empathy
to feel the affliction of all those people begging. I am sure that this
experience triggered the feeling of anguish and consequent psychosomatic symptoms such as dizziness without nausea.
I related at the end of a day to the end of life.
From that moment on, that situation was repeated every time the night arrived.
I didn' t want to feel that, I didn' t want to
think about it, but it was almost automatic. I never told my parents.
I was ashamed to explain to them what was going on in my mind
it seemed too grown up even to me and I did not want to be
asked questions that I did not know how to answer. One day, that
feeling just disappeared. I found a thought to fight me properly. The good
thing that one day was over was that in a few hours the next one
started. The funny thing is that, sitting on that train and totally unintentionally,
my head kept reminiscing. It' s what happens every time we open
a door to the past. The memories that have been waiting for years to
come out do it all to one like when you uncork a bottle of cava
and the bubbles shoot out of the inside. I managed to recover another episode
of irrational fear from my life. When I was ten, we moved into
a slightly larger house, there were four of us in the family, and
the last one was small. Our new home was so big compared to the
previous one that you gave me for thinking that in some room you might have
hidden someone to attack us or steal us. My father worked many hours away
from home and my mother spent a lot of time alone with me and my
sister. I' m the oldest of the two, so I developed a
tremendous responsibility towards her, which sometimes also freaked out my mother. That'
s why every day. For several weeks, I searched every room and closet
in the new house in case there was anyone hiding who could hurt us.
I remember that, in order not to raise suspicions, I did it singing
and pretending to play stopped because I noticed that my mother started with a certain
distrust of my behavior. No one' s home You can be quiet.
He told me one day I was terribly embarrassed to get caught because somehow I
wanted to keep pretending I was a normal, carefree girl. I think my
mother told my father because a few days later, we both took a tour
of the whole house, while he explained to me and showed how difficult it
was for someone to come into the house without breaking the door or to fit
in a closet or drawer. Of course my fear was completely irrational. In
part it could be explained by my young age, but believe me. Age
has nothing to do with you when such a powerful emotion takes hold of you
and there are times when it triggers such three that it ends up dragging you
with it to the absolute confusion and disconnection of reality from where that fear came
from, how it was born. I' m clear today. At my
young age I already needed to have everything under control and the fact that there
were things like illness, death or some external danger that escaped me, made
me feel vulnerable and fearful, which triggered my levels of rumination and anxiety.
But there is even more, when I was eighteen years old I met the
one who was my first partner and with her the irrational fear of abandonment.
This relationship marked a before and after in my life. I' ve never
had a boyfriend before and to me everything was a new and terrifying world.
Until then, I believed myself to be a strong, independent woman with good
self- esteem. In fact, by taking away some that another slipped into
adolescence, he had managed to build me a strong personality. However, in
that first relationship things didn' t go well and I could live in my
own flesh, which was emotional dependence, not just with that couple, but
with all those who came after. That bond was a great stimulus for fear
of abandonment, fear of not being enough and not being loved or accepted by
others. As I told you already in love, I love you since that
time of my life I live with anxiety. Probably until that moment he had
remained dormant somewhere in me, letting himself be seen timidly at some time,
but that was the drop that filled the glass and triggered a problem with which
I would live my whole life together. I' ve had some times of
peace of mind less badly, but when anxiety strikes at the worst of its
forms, I need to remember the work done so far and that' s
just what happened. A few months ago. I just published I love you,
I love you and I was euphoric with the tremendous reception from the readers.
Thanks again, for everything, sales skyrocketed the printing presses, did not
supply the media. They kept asking me for interviews. Travels to different cities
to meet my readers were weekly. Beautiful words came to me unceasingly. Requests
for collaborations with different entities were accumulated in my inbox. My patients and followers
were getting extra help with my written words. My social networks had an incredible
engagement. Everything was wonderful, everything I had dreamed of for years. I
was making it happen and I, however, wasn' t happy. I
felt that I had to take the size at all times to prove that I
really am worth this profession, that I could not disappoint anyone, but no
one forced me to anything. In fact, no one was pushing me,
at least no one but me during my early years at work had a hard
time. I didn' t make it to the end of the month and
desperately looked for a hole in the world of psychology. And now that I
had finally achieved it, I was afraid of losing that which had cost me
so much effort and tears. That is why he demanded more and more for
fear of returning to that hell new and greater self- imposed demands preceded the
previous ones. Ever since I realized that I had always been very strict with
myself, I knew myself that I deserved to be treated with more affection and
I took it to the letter. But those months I was again my worst
enemy and as if I had learned nothing during my years of personal work,
I again mistreated what was happening to me. Although it took me a long
time to make the move. Finally, I went to see my psychiatrist,
Alejandro Belmar. He deserves to be named because he' s helped me a
lot. It took me a bit, partly because I didn' t want
to assume I was worse than ever, but I knew I had to,
because I had a long feeling that something in me wasn' t right.
I told him what was happening to me and he asked me some technical questions
similar to those I ask my patients. My surprise came when he asked me
what I liked to do in my spare time and I didn' t know
what to answer. I was paralyzed looking to infinity as I tried to think
of something coherent from my trembling mouth. A somewhat shy walk went out and
I started to cry suddenly I realized that I barely had time off and that,
when I had it, I didn' t feel like doing anything.
I was so tired that all I wanted was to sleep or disappear. There
I understood how bad I was and how little I had heard years ago,
since the 19- year- old pandemic began. In two thousand and twenty
he had not stopped working. I felt the responsibility to be strong before everything
that was happening so I could help others and I sat so much in others
that once again I ended up forgetting about myself. The goat always throws on
the mountain and in case you haven' t noticed yet, I am the
goat and my self- exigency and desire to have everything dor under control are
the mountain. As a result, anxiety broke into my life again this time
with more force than usual. It was something I had been carrying since my
first toxic couple relationship. In case you don' t remember, the pressure
on my chest drowned me a little more every day. Nausea, abdominal pain,
insomnia, tachycardia, and ringing in the ear became constant. I got
dizzy in the middle of the mall, or I did think I would die
of shame. Irrational fears appeared and were associated with even more incoherent ones.
Just in case this wasn' t enough, the damn ruminations gave me a
terrible headache. Day if I' d go too. A few hours after
visiting the psychiatrist, I observed the two boxes of medication that I had prescribed
later. It would be added to even three tablets. Every day I'
ve never been afraid to take pills and I guarantee you this wasn' t
the first time I took them. They are useful and exes exist for a
reason our well- being. If one thing I' m clear about is
that I, to this world, have not come to suffer, but to
see myself Mary is a referent clapés psychologist in full success and with an incredible
projection taking pills to be able to cope with everything cool that was happening to
me. It made me feel even smaller. It seemed to me that the
better I went in my professional life, the deeper I sank. The people
around me didn' t understand anything, but yes, you have everything,
nothing happens to you. You have to be happy and I thought I already
know, I know I have to be happy. The problem is I want
to be, but I can' t fuck around. It' s true.
I' d been through a thousand shit years ago. Why I couldn
' t enjoy those moments that life and work well done, were giving me
away. I just wanted to be happy. I could not settle in resignation
a why to me eternal would not help me in anything. The answer to
all this was as I already feared in my history in my past. There
were the keys I needed to answer all the reasons why the little duck was
sticking out under the door of my consciousness. Day after day. That archaeology
I had done years ago with myself and I did it every day with my
patients. However, there were again the same questions. The situation was new
but my mind' s reaction was very similar to that of many other times,
so I knew it was time to get back to personal work. I
was determined to find answers and face my past medication again, as if I
had broken a foot and this was a cane that would help me walk or
watch the molecules that physiologically had become unbalanced. But still, I had to
do something else. I knew I couldn' t go with a cane all
my life. I had to relearn to walk, so I built up courage
and decided to continue against wind and tide. No. Psychologists are not exempt
from mental health problems. Any person with a brain is susceptible to them,
just as any person with a body can have physical health problems. Don'
t doctors get sick The four situations in my life that I' ve just
witnessed represent some of the many most revealing moments I' ve experienced. For
me there are more things I want to tell you on these pages, but
for me the most important goal is to provide you with those tools that I
didn' t have in your day. I want this book to help you
heal those wounds. I want these pages to help you remember and understand your
story, to know the functioning of the brain in every situation, to understand
the reality that the mind builds on what you have already experienced, to know
what aspects of life have marked you and how they have conditioned you. I
want this book to accompany you so I can answer questions like why I do
what I do, why I feel what I feel, why I think what
I think, where my discomfort comes from, how I have learned to perceive
the world, how I have learned to relate to others and to myself,
what is the origin of everything and the most important, what strategies I can
put in place to heal my emotional wounds of the past and to live in
peace my present Throughout these pages, I intend to guide you on a journey
within you. We will delve into the depths of the brain, your memories
and the scientific theories that support all my professional knowledge. I will accompany you
from science, as well as from the empathy that arises from my own personal
experience, because our lives may have been very different, but I also know
what it is like to feel lost in the dark. Let' s open
the pandora box of your life. Understanding your own story can help you heal
today, but I will be honest, though it is very worthwhile. The
road is hard. After reading this book, you will never see your life
again In the same way you are prepared important notes. It is possible that
reading what you have written on these pages removes you so take a break when
you need it. Take a deep breath and follow when you' re ready.
During reading, it may happen that you realize that you need to answer
more questions than you propose, as well as to work on yourself. If
so, do not hesitate and resort to a professional. This book contains a
very novel knowledge of attachment and very valuable techniques for working with each other and
with oneself. But remember that it is not therapy and does not replace medical
or psychological service. Look at your pace, but read calmly and don'
t be in a hurry. You will need to internalize all the information you
will find in the following pages. The order of the chapters is designed to
be read one after another, so I recommend that you not skip any of
the events described in this book. In these pages you will find described strictly
real personal experiences of the author herself. On the other hand, you can
also read testimonies based on actual facts of these patients. The latter are slightly
and moderately modified with the intention of safeguarding and respecting the identity and privacy of
the persons involved. All the names used in the narrative are fictitious, so
any resemblance to reality that the reader can find is the fruit of chance about
grammar. The book uses the generic male, except in the last chapter,
which is written in feminine. You will understand why to facilitate the reading of
it, but it is dedicated to anyone who wants and needs to read it,
regardless of their gender identity and expression. In childhood, the mental health
of the adult is defined. We have to start at the beginning and the
beginning is always childhood. At this stage of life is where the most interesting
things happen. Not only do we have to go back to childhood when we
sense that we may have experienced some painful episode in our brain. It'
s encoded all the information we' ve been acquiring about absolutely everything. Therefore,
whenever we need answers, we must make a journey into the past with
the intention of relating it to our present and thus be able to explain all
the events that are taking place today. Emotional guides. You probably don'
t remember the stage when you were a baby is normal according to the latest
studies on it. This is because in this period the brain is using a
lot of energy, generating new neurons to learn and it is very difficult to
store memories. At the same time, babies and children are sponges that absorb
all the information around them, perceive moods and learn everything They learn by watching,
touching, smelling, savoring, and listening. And this means that,
according to those who are surrounded in childhood, the perspective we have of ourselves,
of others and of the world will be different. Adults are emotional guides
for the little ones. In most normal situations, these guides will be our
parents, but our closest figures and primary caregivers may also be grandparents, uncles,
a teacher, or a tutor. This learning can be explained through the
theory of mirror neurons? Mirror neurons? Mirror neurons are a type of nerve
cells responsible for unconsciously imitating other people' s behaviors. Young children are responsible
for neuronal development, which is to generate new synapses of neural connections in order
to learn about the world around them. We can visualize these cells in motion
when, for example, we yawn because we see another person yawning, when
we see a YouTube tutorial and imitate what we see, when someone we are
talking to crosses our arms and retreat back in tune with their uncomfortable posture,
or when we feel empathy for other people. Well, it turns out these
neurons are working just as soon as they come into the world. That'
s why some babies smile when they' re smiling or usually mimic the facial
expressions of their caregivers. This characteristic of our brain explains one of the forms
of learning that observation has the smallest. The other would be by trial and
error. A couple of days ago I spent the afternoon with Julia, my
three- year- old cousin, and I witnessed an instant when she learned
by observation. When I' m with young children, I like to analyze
the things they do and how they react to certain situations of the trade,
I guess, but it' s not until they happen that I pay attention
to them, and the truth is that they never stop surprising me. Julia
came to my office while her mom was having coffee with my mom in the
living room of my house and told me what you' re doing cousin and
I was just writing this book. I answered him. I' m working,
but I think I' m gonna play music to dance to her.
She got excited and told me to put on the arek of the deniey frosen
movie I put it but I also plugged in some colored lights that I have
on the ceiling and told her that we were going to turn the room into
a discotheque. The little girl was hallucinating and dancing very happy. When the
song was over, we went down to the pool, spent the afternoon in
the water and as we got back home, Julia remembered perfectly how she had
turned on the lights and went to do it on her own. I hadn
' t explained to her before how she was doing. He just saw me
do it and after a few hours he was able to imitate me. Before
I took the plug, I explained what was best for the elders to do.
So as I turned the lights back on, she screamed happy disco.
Right now I witnessed my cousin' s mirror neurons doing theirs. These cells
are intimately related to the right hemisphere of the brain, which is dominant during
the first two years of life. This time is enough to establish the type
of attachment that will define us which means that mirror neurons have a lot to
do with our future development. Mirror neurons are there doing their homework and are
the absolute protagonists of the childhood stage. During this time they have an intensive
working day, they spend hours and hours full and are, as Jayo Gome
said, in a kind of neuronal Wi FI network that communicates them directly with
their parents' WIFY network. That is why we say that when an adult
deals with a child, he throws through these mechanisms three types of message unconsciously.
One how am I perceiving you for how I treat you ergo, in
what way should you perceive yourself? Two, in what way do I perceive
the world, how do I teach you to explore it or to face the
eergo? How should you perceive the world? Three, how should you perceive
others, how do you bond with me? How are you going to bond
with the others? Imagine you could silence the story of your life. The
idea is to eliminate the sound of your childhood and adolescence and leave only the
images and sensations. Once this is done, what you have left is the
nonverbal message that your parents or caregivers gave you about the world. That'
s interesting. True, if you could do this, what would remain of
you. You' ve thought about it once we organize memories for sensations when
we teleport with our minds to the past. Rarely do we usually remember sounds
unless they are directly related to something very shocking. Most of the time they
are emotional images, although we do not usually remember the exact forms of the
message. If we remember the contents and how they influenced us, for better
or for worse I will tell you a short story with a great moral.
I once went to the grocery store and while reasoning with myself because it was
better to buy the pea breast than the cooked ham the little voice of a
child interrupted my mental movement. Dad Today at school we painted with our hands
and David stained my shirt. I told her I was going to tell the
teacher and she didn' t care. The father went to his things without
even looking at his son, the child. Meanwhile he repeated the story over
and over again behind the back of his caretaker. Dad, you' re
listening to me. It gave me the feeling that the boy was starting to
get angry and he was right, because his father was passing Olympic on to
him. Dad screamed. In the end, the father suddenly turned around and
told him not to shout loudly. What do you think the child will remember
about that situation? You think he learned not to scream, because he did
not learn two very important things and I assure you that none had to do
with the direct intention of the father. What you really processed with your mirror
neurons through your neural Wi FI network and what you will therefore remember is if
I scream they take me into consideration and I can feel that I have a
value as a person. My father doesn' t care if I tell him
my problems, which means it' s better that I don' t tell
them anymore because totally so that if he won' t listen to me And
since this doesn' t just remain in something anecdotal of childhood, we'
re going to dive into the theory of attachment to understand the extent to which
this kind of situation influences us the theory of attachment. Biyon boy Vi was
a psychoanalyst who devoted much of his life to studying development in childhood and its
impact on adulthood. His contribution to the most important and known psychology was the
theory of attachment, which defends the need to build secure links and the importance
of having a primary bond with a reference adult during childhood for good psychoaffective development.
He stated that the kind of emotional bond we had in childhood with our
parents or guardians has a great influence on our relationships as adults, whether with
others or with ourselves. Attachment is therefore also the way in which people perceive
and respond to intimacy. Safety, care and protection are the words that define
a secure attachment, the kind of bond that determines that a child feels protected
and safe in the environment so that he or she can explore the world around
him or her how attachment is built. As I explained to you in I
love you, the attachment system is activated in situations of threat to those that
the child does not know and is responsible for providing security. When activated,
the child searches for the adult through protest behaviors and, depending on the response,
the child will develop a secure attachment or end up developing another kind of
anxious, evasive or avoidative or disorganized attachment. The experiment on the strange situation
of Mary Answorth. This is one of my favorite psychological experiments to explain how
each of the types of attachment in babies looks, characteristics that will continue to
drag into adulthood. It was designed by psychologist Mary Answorth, a student of
John Bobby, with the aim of continuing to research his teacher' s theory
and classifying the type of attachment of children. It was made in the year
nineteen hundred and sixty- nine with 18- month- old babies and their
corresponding mothers. The idea was to observe how the little ones reacted to a
brief separation from their mothers attachment figures. The order of the situations was this
one. The baby and mother enter a room full of toys and a couple
of chairs. Mom starts playing with baby three. The mother sits in one
of the four chairs, the baby plays alone, five enters someone unknown and
sits in the other chair. Six, the mom leaves the room and leaves
the babies alone with the unknown person. Seven reaction of the baby to separation
and stranger. Eight the mother enters again and calms the baby nine reaction of
the baby to the king. I find ten, the strange person leaves the
room and leaves the mother alone with the baby. Eleven mom leaves the room
and leaves the baby alone. Twelve of the baby' s reaction to separation.
The most interesting thing about the study was to observe and note what the
baby' s reactions to separation were like and to meet with his attachment figure
From these einport observations I drew the following conclusions. With this data one of
the most important theories of psychology was developed in relation to established links. Later,
the fourth type of attachment that he mentioned earlier, the disorganized attachment,
was discovered. Consider the characteristics attributed to each type of attachment according to the
relationship with parents in childhood. For this I will recover the definitions that you
could already read in I love you because they seem quite complete and a good
starting point to continue deepening. In secure attachment theory it is associated with the
feeling that parents are a stable basis on which to trust. Parents of children
who grow up with secure attachment respond to the emotional needs of their children and
are perceived by them. Like shelter people. No child with secure attachment is
afraid of being abandoned by his or her parents because somehow he or she knows
that cannot happen. Safe attachment allows the child to explore, know the world
and relate to others under the tranquility of feeling that the person with whom he
or she has that bond of attachment and who he or she considers to be
a shelter person or reference to an adult will be there to protect him or
her. Safe children are children who suffer when separated from their parents, but
who calm down when they meet with them again. When this does not happen,
fears and insecurities influence how they interpret the world around them and relationships with
others and with themselves. As you will see, then or avoidive, he
associates with distant parents and emotionally unaffordable in his relationship with himself, the child
growing up feeling rejected, unloved and undervalued. It is important to note that,
even if the child feels unloved or valued, it does not mean that
his parents did not want it, but probably did not know how to convey
that affection or they took it for granted and did not believe that it was
necessary to say it explicitly. That' s why we' re talking about
the child' s feelings. As a result, he had no choice but
to learn to be self- sufficient. This, paradoxically, causes him to
show himself before others as a child safe from himself and from the environment around
him. But this behavior is nothing more than a barrier that has had to
learn to build for its own emotional survival. Apparently, children with evasive attachment
do not suffer or suffer when the environment changes or separates from parents, although
it has been shown that they do generate stress. This quality is reflected in
the emotional distance they often have towards other anxious attachments is associated with parents who
are sometimes available to their children, but it is not always related to inconsistency
in care and safety behaviors. Faced with this inconsistency, the child understands that
the environment is not stable. This makes it grow with the feeling that the
world is a dangerous place, even though nothing really has ever happened to it
and that anything can happen at any time, for example, to be abandoned
by what ultimately creates fear. And anxiety about the environment and insecurity in himself,
as the terror he develops by believing that the world is too changing can
make him unable to cope with it. Children with anxious attachment suffer a great
deal when they separate from parents and take a long time to calm down when
separation ends disorganized attachment. This attachment is a mixture between anxious attachment and avoidive
attachment, in which the child experiences contradictory and inappropriate parenting behaviors. Caregivers of
these children can sometimes express proximity and other times randomly and intermittently avoid. They
react disproportionately to the same situation. They can act aggressively or in a charming
and manipulative way. Neglect and insecurity in the care and affection received are also
associated with children who did not know how to respect the limits and intimacy victims
in childhood of painful and highly stressful episodes that are chronicled. Children with disorganized
attachment, when reunited with their primary human caregiver, as we will see below,
can react with contrary behaviors, such as looking away when they are embraced
or approaching the attachment figure in a sad or fearful way. When we are
born we are dependent beings. We need others to feed, sleep, be
clean, feel comfortable and calm our emotional needs. This dependence is necessary and
essential to become autonomous and functional adults over time. If our primary caregivers will
focus only on providing basic care, leaving aside emotional care, healthy psycho-
affective development would be interrupted, which would be tantamount to problems in the future.
Babies cannot self- regulate their emotions alone. They cannot, for example,
feel fear and calm themselves. You imagine a baby talking to himself to
calm down. Well, I know you' re scared and lonely right now,
but look, you got nothing to be afraid of, come calm down,
it' s gonna be okay. I' m afraid this is unworkable.
They need a sensitive adult who is available to meet their needs and to
co- regulate babies and children are, let' s say, designed to
broadcast protest behaviors to primary caregivers in order to get their attention and that they
meet their needs. Be these the kind of protest behavior, you' ll
be wondering what a protest behavior in I love you I wanted to explain how
this phenomenon appeared dysfunctional in adults in the absence of skills to establish effective communication
with other people. However, in babies and children, or existence is perfectly
explained in evolutionary terms. It is very common for you to give yourself every
time your reference attachment figures or caregivers separate themselves from them until contact is restored.
This behavior usually appears mainly in the form of crying and is born from
the need for proximity, safety and protection, or from the pain generated by
the separation of the figure of a loved one and the feeling of abandonment it
produces. I get bored, I cry, I feel lonely, I complain,
I don' t fly, I don' t see my primary caregiver.
I pout, I' m hungry, I scream, I' m
sleepy, I pull my hair and I cry. My belly hurts. I
cry even louder. I' m scared. I cry, I pooped and
upset my diaper. I complain again. Embedded protest behavior and children is a
normal and functional attachment behavior that is used primarily to attract adult attention and thus
meet physiological and emotional needs. The goal of this behavior is to transfer the
adult also as children can and know they need to regulate themselves. A young
man may speak and a child may not know how to express exactly what happens
to him, but both will look for ways to convey their protests and thereby
communicate their need to the adult. Crying, bad behavior, suspense, lack
of concentration, or any unusual behavior. It can also be a form of
language, as you can imagine, the goal of protest behavior is to survive.
Sn theory you' ve ever played SIMS in case you don' t
know them. This is a series of social simulation video games. The game
allows you to handle virtually anything and you can create characters in lathes and stories
and simulate an entire life at the bottom right of the screen usually appears the
character and a series of green bars that will turn red as the vital needs
of the character increase, such as hunger or sleep. The player is,
in this case, in charge of meeting the needs of the sn If he
is hungry, the player must order his character to do the eating action to
prevent him from dying if you are sleepy the same and so on, the
sim will only enjoy general good health if all the bars are green and if
he is abandoned and his basic needs are not met. He ends up dying,
because with babies and children it happens the same way. I' ll
explain if we' re strappling this metaphor to real life. Players are adults
and sims, babies and children, emotional invalidation in childhood. Some authors mention
that it is right to let a baby sleep alone and in a separate room
from six months old. They defend that, no matter how much you cry,
the baby has to learn to sleep alone and in the dark. But
you want me to tell you I don' t agree with this. You
imagine such a small thing facing alone in the darkness of the night. Of
course not, José Manuel, but if I am thirty- two years old,
if I panic when I go to the country and in the middle of
the night I have to go to the bathroom alone with the flashlight, I
always ask someone to accompany me rationally. I know very well that I don
' t have to be afraid of anything. At best I can find myself
along the way some tiny spider or a couple of ants, but the lack
of light prevents me from controlling the environment and that makes me feel vulnerable.
I know perfectly well that being accompanied is not going to get rid of the
bite of some mosquito and, in the worst case scenario, I would not
get rid of the attack of some serial killer at maccole miers. But being
accompanied gives me security, just like when we are children, and accompanying and
emotional regulation by an adult makes us feel that we can explore the environment without
fear. Why, then, a six- month- old baby should feel
brave without that attachment figure, moving him safely with his single presence. You
would like to feel afraid to ask for help and see that even being surrounded
by people you love close the door and let you cry in the dark until
you reach exhaustion. This practice doesn' t make much sense. However,
there have always been many myths about childhood that have conditioned the way children are
raised and unfortunately, although I hope not, they are still very much present
in the 21st century and this, unfortunately, continues to lead us to experience
situations of emotional invalidity in childhood and adolescence. Here are some examples of emotional
override in childhood that I' m sure sounds good to you because you'
ve heard them or because you' ve lived them and their most common consequences
are children. They don' t know about any consequences. You end up
witnessing situations and conversations that don' t match your age. This is because
I say so. Consequences you learn to meet standards without understanding them and without
developing critical thinking. Don' t complain that in my day everything will be
worse. Consequences you understand that there will always be someone with a much worse
discomfort than yours and that you do not deserve understanding or compassion for what happens
to you. Your emotions aren' t as important as those of other people
as if they' re having a hard time. Really. This is curious,
because it determines that something will generate more or less discomfort. After all,
the emotional discomfort a person may feel is objective. In the following chapters
we will talk about this leave what weeps that if you do not manipulate to
get caught and then want to always be in arms or leave what we cry.
It' s good to cry in sáncha the lungs consequences you understand that
no one attends to your crying, according to psychologist Manuel Hernández Pacheco, one
of my current top references in the theory of attachment. If we left a
baby in the middle of a forest without the accompaniment of an adult, he
would start crying immediately after the separation of protest behavior, before the feeling of
abandonment. He would cry minutes and even time without stopping waiting and wishing that
the adult would listen to him and come to his rescue so that he could
regulate his needs. It would pass the time without the baby being able to
calm down on its own, while its needs would continue to increase eventually.
The babies would finally stop crying. Why should we imagine that neither the cold
nor the heat nor the animals could have harmed him? Why, then the
baby would stop crying. He' s managed to calm himself down. No.
The correct answer is somewhat darker. The baby has proven that crying,
the only tool he knows to broadcast his protests and thus calm his needs,
does not work. He' s exhausted and decided to stop using it.
Your need for regulation is still there. It has many bars in red,
as in sims, without the assistance of an adult who perceives them, the
baby is likely to end up dying physiologically. Speaking. Yes, it has
resulted in an exhaustion of his adrenal system. Psychiatrist Marian Rojas calls it cortisol
exhaustion, which prevents her from continuing to seek help in some way. In
the physiological plane, what happens is that the body itself has tired of keeping
alert and can no longer generate more stress. With this. I don'
t mean that a baby will die from letting him sleep alone and in the
dark, but I do believe that over the years it will have consequences.
We are talking about a person who, at his young age, is beginning
to discover that his primary caregivers are not always available. You imagine telling your
partner not to ask me for hugs, then I give them to you and
you get used to them or a friend who has a problem. She cries
like that in the lungs while you ignore her sounds pretty invalid. Not the
best thing you can do is dedicate yourself to this profession one that your parents
consider worthy consequences. You learn to pursue a desire of your parents projected on
you and not your own. And for more, sinri since they will positively
reinforce any conduct related to their desire, you will feel that good things only
happen when your behavior is directed towards achieving those goals that have indirectly imposed you.
This will make you feel good and valid when you do what your parents
want and guilty when you do something else completely different, even if you like
it and fill you more if you obey you are good or if you behave
badly. I don' t want any consequences for you You understand that for
others to love you, it' s important to behave submissively. That'
ll make you have trouble setting limits. You' ll probably end up developing
money. The so- called good girl' s syndrome. You set a
limit and they respond with indignation with what I love you and you go and
you do this to me consequences these kinds of phrases are used as manipulation.
You learn that putting boundaries in a relationship is bad, because that means you
don' t want the other person. This will be reflected in your relationship
later on and if you don' t want to give the guy a kiss,
come give him that he loves you a lot of consequences. You learn
that your limits are worthless and that it is important to do what is expected
of you. Whether you like it or not. In fact, one of
the keys to preventing sexual abuse in childhood is to respect such limits always.
A seven is a very good note, but your little friend, Jaime,
got a nine. Next time you have to study more to beat him,
look at your cousin Claudia. She' s been super good because she'
s eaten all the food, not like you or my son could already be
like yours. When adults say these things, you learn that you are not
enough and you must continually compare yourself to feel worth. This conditions the development
of your personality, since, instead of discovering who you are, you really
prefer to end up copying personalities that your environment approves. There are people who
learn this very early and develop an impressive ability to mine themselves in the social
group with which they are at that time. With all we' ve done
for you consequences. This phrase is usually used as a manipulation. The intention
is to generate pity and guilt. Your parents do for you what they want.
No one forces them to give you anything they don' t want.
That' s why it' s unfair that they' ll throw it in
your face like this. When they do, you often understand that it is
better to set aside your emotions, goals, longings, etc. To be
content don' t cry, it' s not for so much or that
exaggerated you' re consequences. These expressions determine that you think that your emotions
are not important, that it is not right to feel how you feel In
the long run it will seem to you that it is foolish that you cry
that you disturb and that you are very sensitive and exaggerated. For a child,
maintaining a link with his or her reference adults is much more important than
his or her own well- being. Therefore, in the face of all
these invalidating situations, they tend to give in and develop submissive behaviors. There
are people who stay in them all their lives and continue with that premise,
even when they are adults, so they often become victims of emotional dependence.
Good girl' s syndrome was mentioned in the previous section as a consequence of
situations of emotional impairment in childhood. Now is the time to deepen the concept.
Good girl' s syndrome occurs in those people who give more importance to
the desires and needs of others than to their own. The majority of people
who suffer from it are women, although it can also occur in men.
People who suffer from it turn to please others before they do. The same
are very helpful. They are so prudent that they prefer not to speak in
such a way as not to offend them it is hard to set limits.
They' re afraid to disappoint others. They go over the same mistakes over
and over again, especially if they think they may have failed someone. Their
personal worth depends on what they think of them. Other people leave for the
ultimate their own well- being. They often feel a lot of guilt,
avoid conflicts with others. They take what the others say very seriously. They
are often obedient and submissive. They live intensely the rejection. They sacrifice their
own happiness to build it from other people. Couples, friends and family tend
to idealize others. They consider that all people have good intentions. If they
don' t have them, you have to help them get them. They
take responsibility for this process. They think something like if I' m good,
they' ll all be good to me. When someone cheats on them,
they think they are responsible for the deception. This was my fault.
There are aspects of childhood that influence the development of this syndrome, such as,
for example, environments of great demand in which to make a mistake is
not contemplated and if it occurs, a great deal of emphasis is placed on
it from a very negative perspective, receiving phrases as with that character you will
not be loved by anyone. Those things aren' t said by a lady.
If you don' t behave yourself, you' re not a good
girl. If you' ve felt identified with this description, I want to
tell you something. You' re not a good or bad child, because
you' re not born to please anyone. You' re a person who
wants to love and respect each other and respect each other. That is why
you will set your limits when necessary, because your responsibility is not to content
others you will not carry anything or anyone that does not belong to you.
And if someone gets angry with this, then get angry, because, yes,
other people have the right to be angry, but you also have the
right to say what you think. By communicating something, your only responsibility is
to do it assertively. And yes, yet the other person gets angry,
gets angry. You can' t give in to things you don' t
want or swallow with situations that hurt you out of fear of others' reaction.
That' s why he remembers two things. People who get angry when
you set limits are those who take advantage of you when you don' t
put them that someone feels bad that you put limits says more about that person
than about you, which makes our relationships not a safe place. The first
thing we do when we process a danger is to look for contact with others,
for example, through the look and you will see that I am right
if you are with your friends drinking coffee and suddenly you hear a very loud
noise. The first thing you do is look at each other. In animals
and children it also happens, although in a more dependent way There is a
very funny online video of an elephant falling while playing bird chase. In it
it looks like the animal gets up quickly and scared, running to take refuge
next to his mom. Such conduct is also shared by humans in the face
of any danger or situation whose threat they do not determine accurately. They look
at Mom and Dad or they run next to him and hug them. This
means whatever happens. We' re always looking for a connection with others.
We know that there are many things that can make our relationship not a safe
place as we saw in I love you. There are many toxic behaviors and
attitudes that can wilt our relationship as a couple and condition our perception of the
emotional bond, the law of ice, manipulation, intermittent reinforcement, gosting,
etc. However, when we look at relationships more broadly, we see that
the foundation that feeds a sense of security or insecurity in a relationship is the
trust we have in it. And I' m not referring to the unique
and exclusive confidence that our partner does not commit infidelity. I mean the confidence
that we have a solid relationship and that the other person is our refuge.
Whatever happens, we can find a connection with her at any time and we
' ll find her. I' m going to tell you about a fascinating
concept, the circle of parental security. The safety circle is an intervention program
developed by Port Howl line uper and ken Hoffman to support parents who want to
establish a secure attachment bond with their children. But watch out because I'
m going one step further. Since my work in consultation I have found that
the safety circle is also applicable to relations between adults of any kind. The
circle is divided into three parts, hands exploration and return. Let' s
look at each of these parts in detail hands. The word hands is in
the circle synonymous with security. The hands of the adult responsible for the child
are there for what the child needs and accompany the exploration of the world surrounding
the small exploration. The child feels safe exploring the environment because he knows that
he, the adult, is in the shade available to cover any need.
In this phase, the adult should watch the child, help him, rejoice
and enjoy with him return. The child returns to the adult' s hands
to meet his needs, which can be protection, comfort, joy for some
achievement and management of emotions. The creators of this circle maintain that these three
parts are the keys to the child' s caring relationship being considered a safe
place for the little one. But I am going to ask two questions about
this. What happens in adulthood if there has been no child safety circle.
To answer, I want you to accompany me to see a couple of examples.
Arancha was a patient who came to see me at the office because she
wanted to improve her self- esteem before getting into it. I suggested to
him that it was important to know his story and understand that it had happened
years ago so that we could find out where that negative image he had of
himself came from, and so we did. We gave a review of their
experiences and stopped at a small detail that served to explain what I am telling
you today. He explained to you that he remembered quite clearly a scene in
which he showed his mother a drawing when he was barely nine years old.
He recalled the disinterest that this showed and related it to so many other times
that he had had the same reaction. That ranch. Like any child of
his age, he had come out of the circle to explore his artistic capacity.
Before the result she was proud and wanted to share it with her mother.
I' ll be back. The answer that would have strengthened the sure
attachment of the bond would have been to rejoice with the girl of triumph.
It was clear to me that one of the factors that made Arancha have a
very negative image of herself had been this. Your primary caregiver. He had
repeatedly conveyed to him the feeling that his achievements were not worth it and ended
up developing the imposter' s drome cinema. We' ll see what it
is later. Of course, Arancha' s mother had not been negligent.
I had been there most of the time in every possible situation. However,
she had never given importance to such details and that had somehow conditioned Arancha in
her perception of herself. This means that sometimes, even having good parents,
we may have experienced situations that have marked us negatively. We do not necessarily
have to have negligent parents to develop emotional wounds. Another case is that of
Rodrigo, who was also coming to therapy for a while. He had anxiety
and self- exigency through the clouds. For a long time. Analyzing his
personal history, he realized the pattern his father repeated when reacting to stressful situations.
Rodrigo told me that one day he broke his arm falling off a slide
in a playground. His father ran to his aid, though without first regulating
his own emotions, which caused my patient to return to too anxious hands.
The poor man screamed and cried probably from the scare and, although I understand
perfectly, the fear of the father might not have had the best reaction at
that time. Little Rodrigo depended on his father, an adult to co-
regulate, but he ended up infecting his emotional state and perceived the situation in
a much more insecure and scandalous way than it could have been. If the
primary caregiver had followed the parental safety circle methodology. This wouldn' t have
happened. Rodrigo' s father let my patient explore and, for things of
fate, the little one suffered an unexpected accident. That first part is phenomenal.
Yes, contrary, the father would have touched him in his exploration,
showing anxiety and fear in order to prevent something bad from happening to him.
Nor would it have been good for Rodrigo, since he would not have felt
the security and tranquility that a child needs from his reference figure to explore without
fear. Sometimes unexpected things happen, but that can happen doesn' t mean
they' re going to happen. What this example shows is that adults have
to self- regulate to be able to co- regulate children. For that
we must learn first to manage our emotions. It is understood that parents do
not always do things perfectly. There' s no perfect parenting to be good
enough. That' s good enough. It is likely that all the adults
we grew up with went through times when they were not available to see what
we needed or to provide for it when we were younger, and this is
applicable to the present. Even if today we are the adult referents of some
child. Accepting that this is so will prevent us from generating an irrational demand
for ourselves if others. The important thing is to be there most of the
time, even if we want to be perfect and not cause emotional injuries to
the little ones, that is frankly impossible. In the example of my patient,
Rodrigo, there was no type of self- regulation in the primary caregiver
attended to the child, letting himself be carried away by his own emotions which
made him feel insecure. Rodrigo ended up taking fear of the slide for a
while he did not feel safe to explore in the same place, although he
later missed it, but judging by the way his father had to react to
the danger, the way my patient had to perceive the world his catastrophic vision
of things could come from having understood the environment through his father' s eyes.
How could he have done well, if the primary caregiver had set the
parental safety circle in motion, he would have approached it in a quiet way.
The child would have been asked what had happened to him that he did,
how he did not and whether any part of the body hurt him.
The little one in the face of the adult' s calm, despite the
physical pain, would have perceived the situation in a more secure way, emotionally
without giving it greater significance. The child would have understood that unexpected things could
happen, but that the world is not a dangerous place because its reference adult
did not see it, so they could therefore continue to explore with total tranquility.
Emotional regulation or management. It' s the way we have psychologists calling
a series of learned skills that help us in times of distress. Since they
are learned, they need to be trained. We' re all born with
a nervous system. Yeah, but we don' t come into the world
with the innate ability to handle it. We need to meet him and train
him. So I' d like you not to feel guilty and not to
blame anyone if you' ve ever had the feeling that you haven' t
been understood or cared for properly. Remember to do things as you know,
if you can, that' s a lot. There is always room for
improvement and this is fine because it allows us to grow and evolve. This
theory is interesting because it seems to me that, in addition to providing a
balance in upbringing, it is also applicable to relations with oneself and with the
environment, as we have already seen in the cases of Arancha and Rodrigo,
as well as between adults. As I said before and here goes the second
question, the circle of security in adult relations is also important. The answer
is yes. We must have the feeling that our partner will always be there
waiting for us with open arms. Whatever happens be careful. I' m
not saying he' s by our side in person 24 hours a day.
I mean, we have to feel that it is, that it is very
different and not just that. We must feel that in the face of any
problems that may arise, the climate will not be one of punishment or travail,
but of interest and understanding. Imagine that a child does something wrong and
the parents approach him with screams and a certain aggressive attitude to explain how much
punished he is there, how bad he has done it. This whole thing
will process what happened from fear. I' ve done something horrible. Next
time I' d better not do anything. My parents love me, but
I do something they don' t like. Maybe they' ll stop.
However, yes, on the contrary and in the same situation, parents approach
and explain calmly what has happened? Why is it wrong what you' ve
done? And they also try to get the child to reflect with them and
assimilate the message they want to convey to him. Your reaction will be very
different. You will understand that you have done wrong, but you will not
prosecute the situation from fear. Well, with adult relationships it happens exactly the
same. For example, if I have a problem with my partner, the
way I communicate it will determine how she perceives the problem, as well as
look at the relationship in I want to talk to you about the importance of
safe attachment in adults when establishing relationships of healthy couples. If, instead of
talking about a reference figure and a child, we were talking about John and
Joan, everything would happen as follows. Juana has a problem with Juan.
Turns out he forgot to put in a washing machine and she doesn' t
have a shirt available that she needed just for that day. We could have
up to three options to respond to this situation by Juana. Answer one gets
angry with John screaming to tell him how irritated, what he is, who
always does the same thing and who is tired of his disappointments. As a
result, one, in the face of Juana' s attitude, John will
become defensive and confront her, so that he will have the feeling that the
problem is much greater than it seems in the long run. If this is
repeated, John will get tired of Juana' s outbursts of anger and will
understand that it is better not to talk to her, than to discuss it
is a bad thing and that perhaps the couple relationship is not as safe as
he thought, because sometimes Joan, the person who is supposed to love him
and wants to spend his life with him, seems his enemy. Answer two
to be angry with John without saying anything, to wait for him to miraculously
guess what happens to him so that he can explain, point by point,
how outraged he feels, not only because of the forgetfulness of the washing machine,
but because he has not noticed his anger. Consequence two before Juana'
s attitude, The consequence will be the same as the first, adding that
John will not understand anything because of the contradictory messages he has received. Answer
three, get angry with John, let some time pass to try to calm
down before reacting, once he is calm enough to tell him that he needs
to talk to him, do it by conveying his displeasure with words or see
consequence three before Juana' s attitude, John will remain calm, which will
help him to put himself in the place of his partner and understand the displeasure.
He may be feeling. Juán will have the feeling that the problem is
not transcendental, but it is important to Joan in the long run. This
way of resolving conflicts will determine a healthy and safe bond in the couple'
s relationship. The message that both will receive unconsciously from the situation will be
no matter what problem we have. We can always communicate it, listen to
each other, understand each other and solve it as a team. Discussing is
a good thing, because it allows us to evolve as a couple. We
want the answer three. It is the only one that corresponds to an attitude
proper to a safe attachment in adults and, therefore, to a healthy and
safe relationship. Emotional independence does not exist. It has become fashionable to talk
about emotional independence to refer to all two, which is not emotional dependence.
But the truth is that the opposite of emotional dependence is a healthy relationship and
in a healthy relationship, the bond that is established is interdependent. This we
can find in all kinds of healthy relationships, whether of friendship, couple or
family, and consists in sharing things with the other person, as well as
mutual space, but also respecting the time and individual space of each of the
parties. We cannot be emotionally independent, because humans are social beings and we
need contact with others. In fact, as I was saying above, we
' re looking for him. We can work on ourselves and learn to manage
our emotions, our thoughts and behaviors, but from there to yearn for independence
or total emotional isolation from the rest of people, there is a way.
Anything others do can affect us as emotionally independent as we want to be.
In fact, of this idea, of the interdependence of and of what is
supposed to be given to have healthy relationships. The concept of affective responsibility is
born that, although you already have it developed in detail in the book I
love you. I want to remind you that it refers to everything we say,
whether we do or what we don' t say if we don'
t do it, it certainly has an impact on others. For this very
reason, it is important that we have people around to make our lives a
little easier, accompanying us, listening to us and advising us in difficult times.
Sometimes a hug or the absence of this makes the difference. I think
the welfare formula includes social relationships and I think that wanting to feel good without
this variable is a utopia. Nor is it about waiting for someone to come
and save me from my discomfort and bring me the happiness that I have not
been able to build for myself, or being unable to break a relationship even
knowing that maintaining it makes me ill because that would be emotional dependence. I
' m just saying that we' re made to bond with each other and
that we can' t ignore our own nature by a fashion with an individualistic
tendency. Children need to connect with adults to determine how they should feel.
This is the main reason why adults are said to be emotionally dependent. On
the contrary, we don' t need to know how other adults react to
feel in one way or another, because we have the ability to connect first
with ourselves and then with others. But this does not mean that we can
live isolated from the rest. Adults also need to be surrounded by people who
accompany us or who help us feel that we are in a safe place,
especially when things are going wrong. This gives us confidence and allows us to
evolve imposter syndrome. I was telling you before that Arancha ended up developing imposter
syndrome. It is a psychological phenomenon which consists in the person feeling that his
or her achievements are not worthwhile, that he or she is not capable enough
to carry out his or her tasks. Impostor syndrome is characterized by why the
affected person considers that he or she does not have the skills or experience to
do something. He feels he' s a fraud. Profile of people suffering
from impostor syndrome are very demanding and perfectionist people. They try hard to get
things done. They have the irrational fear that others will discover that their success
is not real. They attribute success to factors such as luck, an easy
situation, etcetera. They think they are unable to meet new challenges. They
don' t trust themselves. They' re afraid to be judged, afraid
to let others down. They believe that the rest of the people know much
more than they do, especially at work or at school. If you feel
identified with most of the points you just read, point out these tips to
manage impostor syndrome. Identify your impostor when he comes out, do not believe
the things he tells you when he appears, because they are always based on
insecurity and fear are not rational. Make a list of your achievements to remind
you of the things you' ve accomplished with your effort and thus weaken your
impostor. Faced with the praise you receive, you simply thank them. Think
of the positive part of your track mistakes. You can always learn from them
the emotional backpack. I like to say that everything we experience throughout our life
passes into our emotional backpack. This metaphor means that emotional footprints have the shape
they have will go with us everywhere and condition our experiences. What we learn
during childhood will be reflected in adolescence. What we learn in childhood and adolescence
will be reflected in adulthood. If you were invisible to your adults, you
learned not to count on anyone. If they abused you, you learned to
distrust people. If you were manipulated, you learned to manipulate and you normalized
it. If you were emotionally invalidated, you learned to invalidate yourself and the
others. If you' ve always been demanded more, you' ve learned
that you' re not enough. If they overprotected you, you learned that
the world is a dangerous place. If they trusted you, you learned to
trust yourself and others. If they let you explore safely, you learned that
only you can. If they loved you in a healthy and safe way,
you learned to love in a healthy way. We internalize the messages issued by
our primary caregivers and grow with that perception of ourselves and the world around us.
Before I started writing this book, I felt, as you know,
the need to get back to working on myself. Brackdown, as I call
it, invited me to stop, understand the situation and accept it so I
could release the anxiety. So I went to my parents' house one day
and I started to see pictures of when it was small activity highly recommended.
If you want to work and understand your story, I spent the whole afternoon
between albums and memories. This allowed me to recover images, thoughts and emotions
from the past. I think I' ve had a very happy childhood.
My parents have always been aware of my needs. They have supported me in
difficult situations and celebrated my achievements. They' ve never gotten me into their
adult problems. In short, they have been a good emotional refuge and safe
hands from which to leave and to return. Still, at that time I
felt that I had to go into a terrain that had been waiting for my
father’ s story for a long time. My father, as I told
you in the introduction, worked many hours away from home. This was no
problem, because he then tried to make up for lost time with his family.
I remember weekends in the field, watching the stars, I bought a
telescope to show me the moon closely and told me about the vastness of space
and the secrets that night kept. I remember the mornings playing hide and seek
at home or the nights watching movies in the living room. All together.
My father is a shoe designer, so I also remember when he took me
to his studio, he explained to me that they consisted of his tasks and
then he played music while the two of us drew once watching the Yat movie
I was afraid of him, so the pary along with my mother explained to
me that Gatzi was probably a doll and behind him someone would have taken a
soda tail while enjoying his creation. That made me feel calm and confident that
I should or should not be afraid, because there was nothing to be afraid
of. One of the things that I learned from my father and that has
most positively conditioned me was to understand and explain personal problems with the help of
schemes. When I had a problem, whatever it was, I knocked on
the door of his office and said I can pass, I have a problem.
He listened attentively to me while I told him all my dramas of the
moment. At the end, he took paper and pen and began to transform
the information I had given him into various lines, circles and drawings, once
the problem was represented graphically, I wondered what you think we can do with
all this. Now that I' m older, I think that question was
asking her to come out of my paralysis and think for myself, because today
something tells me that he already knew the answer. So, he worked with
me as long as it took, made me laugh. I think because of
that, I am now able to laugh at all my dramas, something that
allows me to face them more safely. When I felt much calmer, I
ended the session, then I was happy to leave his office and ready to
eat the world. Every day. I remember this especially, because every day
I explain things to my patients with graphic diagrams, just like my father did
with me. Even sometimes I think my mind just works this way. As
you can see, my father was present as much as he could afford.
Besides, he did very well. The time he wasn' t with me,
I physically recovered him emotionally. My mother was always very present, both
physically and emotionally. I would wake up in the morning, prepare breakfast,
lunch and snack. He would take me to school and pick me up,
take care of me when I was sick, help me do my homework and
ask me every day about the studies and the school' s novelties, later
on for the high school. He also advised me, accompanied me when I
went shopping, played, danced, cooked and painted with me. He took
me to the park and explained things about everyday life to me, and from
time to time he bought me candy, he' s always been the first
person I' ve come to when I' ve had problems, because she
' s always understood me, kept secrets from me and laughed and cried with
me. Both my father and my mother have sat with me when I have
needed them, they have supported me, they have given me wings and they
have told me with or without words you can come back whenever you want.
This will always be your home. Each in his own way has known how
to be present in my life most of the time and thanks to that I
grew up with a sure attachment. I think I' ve had very good
parents. Some brawl fell from time to time. I' m not gonna
lie to you, but when we' re little, we need boundaries.
Setting limits does not rule out a secure attachment. However, and r a
rus here was the crux of the matter. My father had always been very
demanding about himself and somehow, that was what I would end up learning about
life as well. After going around a lot one day, I decided to
face the dreaded truth of working. Your own story has this that you want
to know, understand and find out, but at the same time, you
don' t want the fear of removing painful emotions. It takes hold of
you and you delay it more and more for fear that it will make you
suffer what you can discover. But you have to be brave, because then
you appreciate it. We were in the country, we had finished eating and
we were making it a table without thinking much about it I told my father
that I wanted to talk to him alone. I think I would never have
dared to utter those words if I hadn' t had to write this book,
but I wanted to tell you how my emotional work had been and for
that I needed to open that box of pandora. I was afraid for everything
I could discover and, at the same time, ashamed to express the conclusions
that I suspected, but I have always thought that there is nothing better than
working with oneself before working with others, because that gives you an excellent opportunity
to understand who you have in front of you. My father got up and
without hesitation came to walk with me in the country while we were chatting.
I need to know what your childhood was like, without understanding why I was
asking you that question, you started telling me things that I already knew I
was the oldest of five brothers who couldn' t study because his parents couldn
' t afford the studies and that he had to start working from a very
young age in footwear one of the Ilisitan sectors that at the time more work
outs. I had a good starting point, so I kept asking him about
the feeling of latent responsibility in his words. I felt it was my duty
to take care of my brothers and my family. My parents made very little
money and needed help to get us all out of it. So I did
what I thought was right. He said as I gazed on the horizon to
know that it broke my heart. Now I was beginning to understand a lot
of things. We walked long and hard as my father reviewed his life and
told me anecdotes. Being the elder had made him feel that he must act
in a certain way to fight for others, to show himself strong and to
have a great sense of duty, and that, dear reader, meant being
highly responsible and demanding with oneself. I, as a child, had observed
my father' s impeccable behavior. He never failed, he never made a
mistake. He always kept everything under control and anticipated things well in advance.
It is often said that a good tree gets a good shade sheltered and nothing
more true. My shelter was the shadow of a super tree that had striven
all his life to protect his loved ones and not disappoint anyone so much that
with me it turned out something about protector. You don' t need to
be a superfather to be a good father, but maybe there' s someone
who knows exactly how to be a good father or mother, someone who never
doubts himself and makes everything always perfect, without getting over or falling short.
I don' t know if I' d be a good mother, but
I do know that, like thousands of fathers and mothers in this world,
I' d do my best to be and I trust that' s enough.
The hypervigilance my father showed with me made me understand that perhaps the world
was a dangerous place. They didn' t let me do a lot of
things alone, and I think the word" careful" is the one I
' ve been told the most throughout my life and I really understand that I
understand it. I came into the world as a long- awaited child and
my parents couldn' t afford to lose me. I was allowed autonomy,
of course. But according to my mother, I fought well for her,
saying from a small point of view the words. I just often brought character
into the world pointing ways from a small point of view. I went over
all the nice things I remembered from my childhood with him and I said dad,
I don' t mean to throw anything in your face. On the
contrary, I admire very much everything you have done for me, but I
know that a person whose experiences have taught him to be demanding and responsible will
end up unintentionally reflecting this in the education of his children. And now I
think maybe this has had some weight in my feeling of never being enough.
He breathed deeply, nodded and with weeping eyes. He told me I just
wanted to do things right without being able to avoid it. I started to
cry, just like I' m doing now while I wrote these words and
answered him and I just wanted you to feel proud of me and see that
I can. I think exchanging those words was like burying the axe of war
after so many years, because I fought with him many times for my independence.
During my adolescence I felt isolated and drowned on several occasions I felt that
he wanted to protect me so much that he invalidated me hundreds of times and
unconsciously moved me the fear that he had that something would happen to me,
which caused many times I was afraid that something would happen to me or to
my loved ones. He often fell into catastropheism trying to avoid me problems and
warning me of the possible consequences of my actions, which made me cuddle things
over and over again until exhaustion. I didn' t want to see myself
suffer, I didn' t want me to be wrong, but being wrong
and suffering was also part of my personal development. How I would learn to
face adversity alone. If not, so I won' t deny that as
an adult many times I analyzed my own frustration by blaming him for everything.
I did it alone mentally, because it seemed unfair to come and let him
go He' s to blame for everything that happens to me now. Actually,
I felt that wasn' t quite it. So, I sensed that
there was a piece of him. I thought I was missing, so I
couldn' t draw conclusions in such a hasty way and more, knowing that
with the past nothing can be done and the only thing that would generate in
it would be a great feeling of guilt. I had the impression that more
than his job, it was my job and I wasn' t wrong.
We both hugged very hard for a long time. When we separated, he
answered me trying to smile already. I' m so proud of you for
me. You can stop now. Hey, I laughed and told her how
bad she was having a hard time those last few months. I talked about
anxiety and tiredness and confessed that I couldn' t do it anymore. To
my surprise, we had in common many more things than I thought he had
also suffered anxiety years ago. Therefore, as a person who has been able
to give a positive sense to his experience and as a father, you are
the first thing that you do not forget when I am thirty- two years
old. There isn' t yet. My father continues to catastrophe from time
to time, but now I understand that he does so with his best intention
and with a clear aim to protect me. So whenever I hear you predict
an extremely negative result about something, I tell you it' s true Dad
I' ll take into account everything you' re telling me and with that
I get him to stay calm. I could give you a more terclas about
fear, worry, catastrophism and anxiety. Tools and co- educational ones I
' m not lacking, but I can' t do it. He'
s my father. I am not the one to teach him lessons from anything
in a family or system whose roles are well- marked. Parents act as
parents and children act as children. Taking on the role of father to teach
him about things in life would create an imbalance in the system uncomfortable enough for
him to pass through the arc of triumph what I tell him and keep doing
it himself forever. Parents have to be parents and children have to be children.
The day my father needs to talk about fear, I' ll talk
to him. In the meantime, I' ll stay out of it and
at most, I' ll suggest something subtly Dad I' ve read this
book, very good book about anxiety, fear, etc You want me to
leave it to you and keep an eye on it within these subtle suggestions.
I' m allowed and allowed to joke, so sometimes I scream. The
end of the world is near or I tell you it would be super good
scriptwriter for the final destination movie. Other times I laugh and answer with good
vibe. Dad, I' ve been living alone for a few years and
I haven' t died yet. I think I take care of myself anyway,
far from getting irritated like I' d done before, I now perceive
your attitude differently. I just remember why he' s acting like this.
I accept your emotional backpack. I accept him and accept me to understand his
story. It allowed me to understand why he behaved like he did with me
and I was able to transform my thinking, my emotions and with it my
relationship with him. I firmly believe that this is the key Sometimes we sin
to idealize dad and mom and when they don' t do the things we
hope they do, we get angry, but we forget that they are also
human, that they have their stories and emotional wounds and that they can fail
or just act as they believe and not as we hope they do. Now
I remember the times I witnessed moments of emotional invalidation towards my father all my
life. I heard the others telling him how exaggerated you are always and this
out of empathy for him. It hurts me because, although I know that
this exaggeration was part of the overprotection that I reflected in me and that it
affected me so much, he never had someone to tell him. I understand
that you care about your daughter, you love her very much, and you
don' t want anything bad to happen to her. I never complained of
invalidation towards myself, but he also lived it all his life. I told
you this wasn' t easy. I understand that there are very complicated family
relationships and I do not intend to compare myself by telling my story or pretending
to do what I did, but I would like to move you with this
story to something that for both me and my patients, has marked a before
and after the ability to know, understand and accept the emotional backpack of those
around us. It is necessary to forgive others. Forgiveness is not always forgetting.
Of course, it never requires justifying or seeking an excuse for the harm
they did to you. Nor does it imply reconciliation with the person who hurt
you or should there be no consequences. Forgiveness is being able to leave behind
what damaged you, close a door to the past and continue with a life
free of emotional burdens. Forgiveness is letting go of the damage and this is
sometimes not easy. I have patients who, after trying to make it impossible
to reconvert their relationship or put all kinds of limits on their family members,
have decided to break ties. They understand logically and emotionally how they could feel.
Their relatives know their stories, although this has allowed them to forgive them
they have decided not to forget because they believe that the damage caused is too
intense to try to recover the bond. In the end, everyone owns their
lives and knows what suits them and what does not I have also met people
who did not want to empathize with their parents, since they felt that they
could not generate any kind of harmony with them for all the damage they had
received from them throughout their lives. They were victims of negligent, violent and
highly manipulative parents. Not being able to empathize when you' ve been hurt
so much is normal in extreme situations. The human being is incapable of it.
Doing so would put us in conflict with our values and lead us to
a confrontation with one' s own being for which no one is prepared.
However, these people decide to forgive and with them release to free themselves from
the yoke with which they lived for so many years. He' s done
me enough damage my whole life. I' m not going to let your
memory keep doing the same with my present. Alicia told me before she let
go forever of the great emotional weight with which she lived so many years because
of her mother. Family relationships, such as couples or friends, can also
be toxic relationships. The management of these intimate ties is very complex and many
times, even if a monumental work is done about it, the people affected
decide that it is best to put a point and end and there is nothing
wrong with it. It is respectable and sometimes best to forgive whoever we have
with that person. The kind of bond we have requires time and a lot
of personal work. In the end, we talked about moving on, moving
the emotions that anchor you into the past and deliberating burden into your emotional backpack.
But if you' re looking for calm, you need to forgive.
I think even the most intense pain can turn into nostalgia. And I remember
when we allowed ourselves to move forward and give up revenge. Don' t
forget if you don' t want to, don' t act like nothing.
When you come across that person, if you don' t feel like
it, break ties, if there' s no other option, set definitive
limits if you think it' s necessary, but forgive me, because the
grudge is gradually gaining ground until it catches you completely. And when you'
re trapped, the only person who gets lost is you. The wound emotion,
Emotional wounds are psychological sequelae that experiences leave in us. They are wounds
without swearing that we carried in our emotional backpack and that originated when we still
did not have the tools to be able to face complicated situations. Sometimes they
have nothing to do with what happened objectively, but with what we interpret from
that experience or the loneliness with which we live it. To understand this,
we must first know that we can divide things that happen inside and outside people
into two groups. Internal factors. It refers to what we have innately our
own personal characteristics, such as the biologically determined temperament and the genetic predisposition of
each individual. External factors are influencing us from the outside, such as the
family, interactions with others, events, etcetera. Both have a lot of
weight, but whether it affects us or not will depend on the interaction between
them. I' m going to tell you a metaphor that I love because
it explains how external factors and internal factors influence us. The glass of water.
Imagine three glasses filled with water, each at different levels. The first
one has a toe of water, the second one is in half and the
third one is practically full in the absence of a couple of drops. The
glass is us in three different situations. The water in each of them symbolizes
the innate factors with which we come into the world, such as the predisposition
to different physical or mental illnesses and temperament. Internal factors can be a real
lottery. You got what' s on you and you can' t change
it. Now imagine that a jug of water appears on the scene. The
pitcher will represent external factors. Water can fall into any of the vessels in
more or less quantity. However, the amount of water already in it will
be an important condition to know how many boots will end up filling the glass
or how long it will stay. Without overflowing in this case, that water
spills would amount to triggering some kind of emotional problem, attachment, insecure,
anxiety, disorder, obsessive, compulsive, depression, anorexia, schizophrenia, bipolar
disorder, etcetera. Imagine that we poured ten drops into the first glass,
since the glass had only one finger of water. We' ll barely notice
the difference. Now imagine that we put half a jug in the same glass
that would come to be I don' t know three zero drops. Completely
random data that I just invented so you can understand the example. It has
been too many external factors that the person has had to endure, which means
that the vessel will end up overflowing and the person will have to live with
some kind of emotional problem. This image could be a proper representation of people
who have had a very hard life. Now let' s do the same
thing with the second glass, the one that was half full. Let'
s see you in the ten drops, just like it' s happened to
us before. With the first glass, we' ll barely notice the difference.
However, in this one it will not be necessary to pour half of
the pitcher so that the water overflows with just a little trickle. Two hundred
drops, for example, will suffice. Which means that a number of complicated
situations will trigger an emotional problem. Let' s go with the third glass,
the fullest. You know what' s going to happen. With ten
drops of water or less, the glass will overflow. This means that in
situations where the person is born with great predisposition the drop that fills, the
vessel can be any external factor. This would also explain why there are people
who never present any problem notice how interesting My little sister, even having the
same parents as me and growing up practically in the same context, has a
way of seeing and dealing with things completely different from mine to show a button.
When he read the introduction to this book, he was very surprised with
the three situations of irrational fear and told me I didn' t even think
about all this stuff you' re talking about. When I looked at the
stars from the car, I felt protected. In fact, it was something
that made me feel really good. I loved the new house and although I
know I' ve seen them, I don' t even remember those shrine
wax figures. It is a demonstration of the theory that the same situations can
affect us in different ways depending on the personal characteristics of each one. Two
people can start from the same point and reach a totally different point, or
start from a totally different point and reach it. Because even though what we
live through is important, it is even more important how we live it.
On this same line. I want you to know that there are more and
more researches that relate to having a kind of unsafe attachment and therefore emotional wounds,
with anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, depression, personality disorders, etc.
The case is that complicated situations often cause a break in the psychological balance,
to which the mind must respond by restoring it with the tools at its
disposal. These are not always the same for everyone or the most adaptive or
suitable for the end that we pursue, for example, avoiding everything that scares
you to not feel that you are in danger, to use drugs to regulate
emotions or to have many sexual relationships with the aim of finding love. But
after all, they are the ones we possess at that time. Depending on
what kind of stressful situations. They occur when they are given and those we
are surrounded in that phase we will have some tools or others. This reminds
me of the case of Daniel, a twenty- five- year- old
boy who came to see me to work on a recent break- up with
Christian of twenty- six. For Dianio it was very important to find out
why his relationship had not worked. I needed to name things to understand it.
Happened, accepted and released into sessions. My patient used to relate conflicting
situations that she had lived with her partner. While he was talking, I
was analyzing the behaviors that occurred between the two of us. I always had
the feeling that Christian was manipulating Daniel and that' s why he felt confused.
Every time I tried to tie things up. Why I couldn' t
figure out he was manipulating me. Now that you tell me, it'
s so easy to see him He told me one day. Now that I
know this would have taken the conversation anywhere else. Daniel, don' t
be so hard on yourself. I answered you. I just explained the situation
from another point of view and now you understand why it was given to you.
I have given new information and with it a new tool. That'
s why you can see it so easily and look for other solutions. In
the past you didn' t have this tool and you did what you could
with what you knew. That' s the way it is, dear reader.
Information is also a tool. Information is power. That' s why
I focus so much on always explaining things, understanding helps to tie things up.
It comforts us and also allows us to move forward and improve. I
told you in the previous chapter that babies and young children have mostly crying as
a tool to attract the attention of the adult, with the aim of helping
them to correct their emotions or solve an uncomfortable situation. I think you'
ve already realized that childhood is the most delicate stage, because that' s
when we have fewer tools as we grow, we are acquiring new ones,
mainly those provided by the adult and once we enter adolescence, although we still
need parents or caregivers, we have more resources, so the dependence to face
the world is much lower. The same happens during youth or adulthood. Over
the years we become more knowledgeable, but that does not mean that over time
we are cracks and know how to face difficult situations. We are in continuous
learning and I think most of the time we are not always lucky enough to
have tools that allow us to solve something perfectly. That is why I like
to say that we face the problems with what we know and have at that
time. The wounds derived from the highly stressful moments in the emotional sense,
will be traces that will condition our quality of life. Once we become older
than childhood, they will be the ones that make the most of us,
since it is the most delicate stage and the brain is in full development.
However, Manuel Hernández Pacheco theorized about the high probability that human beings will suffer
injuries, that they will change our type of attachment to any age, and
not only when we are small, since stressful events can occur at any time.
Makes sense. The years pass, people grow and life continues to give
rise to adolescence, youth and adulthood stages in which we continue to relate to
others and things continue to happen to us. This is why we know that
attachment is not unmovable and can vary from childhood when it conformed as you were
told, I love you, a person can make and grow with a totally
secure attachment, but after, for example, a toxic relationship, it will
change one of an anxious kind. Likewise, it may be that someone develops
an anxious attachment in the relationship with their parents, but thanks to their personal
work and experiences, changes to a certain type of attachment. And it may
also be that someone who conforms in childhood a secure attachment and keeps it for
the rest of his life. For example, a child may grow up with
a secure attachment, but at school he or she will suffer bullying and move
on to any unsafe attachment. It can also happen that you come from an
anxious attachment and, after a process of therapy and healthy linking experiences, change
to a secure attachment. If we know this and understand that at any time
a highly stressful event can be experienced, we will understand that the rest of
personal history also influences the type of attachment of adults. As I will show
you now, the characteristics of attachment resulting from all things lived will be what
is reflected when dealing with emotional conflicts in relationships of any kind friendship, couple,
family, etcetera. The four types of attachment in adults. Let'
s see what adult attachment definitions are like. For this I will recover some
of the information that you can already read in I love you, although this
time you will find it enlarged and updated attachment. I' m sure it
' s easy to be loving to your partner and enjoy intimacy, without over
- concerning the relationship. You feel confident and comfortable being a couple, but
you also enjoy your independence and give it to your partner. You like to
share time with your partner, but you also know how to give him his
space. You feel reciprocated in your relationship. It doesn' t make you
uncomfortable to deal with emotional conflicts and take it easy to deal with any issues
in the relationship. You can communicate your feelings and needs, as well as
respond to your partner' s. You' re not afraid of abandonment.
You trust the relationship and you know that if one day things don' t
go well, you' ll have to accept it. Even if it hurts
you get close to others when you need support and offer yours when it is
neo necessary anxious attachment. Couple relationships tend to consume much of your emotional energy.
You' re doing everything you can not to be alone. You need
the attention and approval of others constantly and validate your own emotions and needs and
focus on caring for others. You' re willing to do whatever it takes
to feel valid and accepted. You tend to impulsiveness. You have a hard
time wanting to accept and take care of yourself when you' re wrong.
You' re very heavy at fault, you' re often constantly worried about
your partner relationship, which makes your world dependent on it. You have very
low tolerance for frustration and uncertainty. You fear that the person you are with
does not have the same expectations as you in the relationship, and that creates
fear of abandonment, loneliness and rejection which makes you develop excessive attention to small
details such as mood swings, gestures and behaviors. You feel very well the
attitudes of others, but you usually take them personally, and that' s
something that loses you because it makes you angry easily. Also, you have
a great difficulty controlling your impulses and you usually mess it up, although then
you repent and feel guilty. Often you discover yourself looking for problems where there
are no problems, which responds to the typical concern of anxious attachment you suffer
the paradox of fear of abandonment. Right after this section, you have explained
that it is you possess a huge empathy, you have a lot of ease
to intimate deeply and you are always looking for emotional intimacy, even if the
other person is not yet ready for it. Sometimes this makes you think the
couple doesn' t love you the way you think they should. You feel
miserable when you don' t have a partner. It' s really hard
to leave a relationship. You suffer a lot from a breakup. Your longing
to create close ties. Sometimes take away your suitors or couples. You rely
heavily on the approval of others and often doubt your own value. You tend
to idealize your partner, you usually let others mark the rhythm of the relationship
during a discussion. You need to resolve the conflict immediately. You can'
t lie down at night if you know that you and your partner are angry.
If your partner gives you a great deal of attention, peace and security,
you put aside your worries and feel comfortable tending to codependency. Your mood
depends a lot on the people you love. Evasive attachment, avoidative. He
' s usually a distant, cold person. Although you' re not afraid
of buying and you like to generate intimacy with the couple. It overwhelms you
to do it. That' s why you usually send her confusing messages.
You find it uncomfortable to be emotionally close to or trust other people, so
you often insist on the importance of setting limits. People around you often complain
that you usually put emotional or physical distance. You have a hard time expressing
emotions, I want to tell you. It can become a challenge to talk
about emotions, expectations thoughts or the trajectory of your intimate relationships. Whether it
' s friendship, couple or family, it' s complicated for you.
You consider yourself emotionally self- sufficient, although you can become very fond of
someone. Couple isn' t usually your priority. Couple relationships don' t
give you much concern. If any of them go wrong, you don'
t stop to be sorry too much. It' s hard for you to
generate emotional intimacy, so most of your relationships are usually superficial. If they
turn you down or hurt you. You usually walk away. You tend to
put yourself on the defensive, to the slightest hint of control or invasion of
what you consider your territory by the couple. You value your independence and autonomy
very much. You usually idealize your mates during a discussion. You need to
get away. You don' t usually understand the emotional reactions of people around
you when they' re not logical for you, so you usually consider that
the issue in question isn' t so much a problem when it comes to
managing emotional conflicts. You feel out of place. You' d rather avoid
them and not talk about them. You get frustrated when you feel that a
family partner or friend depends on you, or when you feel that you depend
on someone. You find it uncomfortable to feel that you need someone' s
help to handle some emotional conflict with yourself or others. Disorganized attachment. Your
relationships are of love hate, Your reactions to conflicts are very explosive, even
if they arise from tranquility. You have an aggressive attitude. Your relationships are
usually very conflictive and dramatic, unstable and with emotional ups and downs. You
' re so afraid that they' ll hurt you and not respect your limits,
you' re afraid they' ll betray you. You' re constantly
defensive in your relationships. In your relationships you stay alert and hypervigilance to avoid
betrayal you relate to others. From mistrust, you try to control everything to
lessen the danger. Control will be your greatest tool in managing jealousy. Sometimes
it may seem like there' s no connection between what you do and what
you feel. You don' t understand the limits of others. On the
one hand, you may be afraid of being abandoned, but on the other
hand, you find it hard to be intimate. What is the paradox of
fear of abandonment? The paradox of fear of abandonment occurs when behavior is conditioned
by an obsessive idea. When someone is afraid of abandonment, he sets in
motion behaviors that seek to prevent the person with whom he or she maintains the
bond from leaving it. These are ways of proceeding that aim to control and
check everything the other does. On many occasions, harassment is the case,
for example, by conducting accusatory interrogations, obsessively checking their social networks, or
by snooping their computer and mobile phone. According to a study carried out by
the Reina Sofía Center on Adolescence and Youth, sixty- two, coma nine
percent of young people aged fourteen and nineteen, meet girls who check their boyfriend
' s mobile phone and fifty- eight coma six percent. Meet guys who
check their girlfriends' cell phone this same study picks up that most often it
' s the guys who tell their girlfriends who they can talk to and who
they don' t talk to the other person in the relationship, whether it
' s a couple or friendship. Although this happens more frequently in couple relationships,
this behavior causes him distress so he ends up abandoning the relationship, thus
increasing the fear of abandonment in a kind of self- fulfilling prophecy. On
other occasions, breaking the relationship is a very recurring defense mechanism. This is
an unconscious reaction to an emotionally difficult situation, that is, to the lack
of control of the environment. These people prevent catastrophic links and prefer to venture
to break the relationship before trusting the other side and facing their fear, for
example, as a measure of prevention against the suffering and emotional pain that can
occur from a possible abandonment. I make the decision to abandon this person.
I first and before my partner stops loving me and goes away with someone else,
I break the relationship and thus eliminate the likelihood of suffering. And this
happens without any indication other than the very suspicion that it is born of emotional
wounds or irrational beliefs about love or friendship. I grew up with a certain
attachment. In spite of all the past, the relationship with my parents was
safe. However, the consequences of overprotective brushstrokes were kept within my subconscious.
So, when I had my first couple relationship, I responded to my ex
' s evasive behaviors with the only tools I had at the time to give
everything for others, just as my father did and as I had learned myself.
This wouldn' t have been a problem if my partner back then hadn
' t had an evasive attachment, but as if I had it, my
behavior ended up overwhelming him. In fact, he was telling me that I
was a very dependent person. It' s funny, because I hadn'
t had any dependent relationship until that moment when everything exploded my interest. He
woke up in him an evasive behavior that in turn made me even more worried
about him, which made him more distant from me and thus to infinity.
Actually, it' s not that I was a dependent person, it'
s that your lack of emotional responsibility and evasive behavior awakened my attachment system.
There are people with evasive attachment who throw the balls of responsibility out blaming others
for emotional dependence, when it is they who are not able to assume their
share of affective responsibility in the relationship. I was a dependent person. Yeah,
but only after that relationship and not before. Perhaps that same behavior toward
a person with sure attachment would not have been so overwhelming. The thing is,
for me this situation with my ex- partner was the drop that filled
the glass. From that catastrophic relationship. I would suffer for many years all
the consequences of an anxious attachment system and for that and for all the beliefs
about love that I had dragged for years, I would end up experiencing so
many dependent relationships. What is emotional trauma? It' s the first time
the word trauma has appeared with all its lyrics, but I want you to
know that I' ve already told you about it. I know it'
s a little scary to read it. We usually associate with very serious events,
such as rape, accidents, natural disasters, sexual abuse or physical abuse.
But the truth is that this word can be used to define any experience
of high emotional intensity that we have not been able to integrate into memory as
a learning, that is, as something that has made us wiser and stronger,
but as an event that has marked us and, therefore, will negatively
condition our life. The word trauma comes from the Greek etherus, which means
hurt, because that' s what an emotional wound is. You see how
I' ve already told you about this concept. That' s the amount
of deepening it. Some carry emotional injuries all their lives. You' re
still bleeding as long as it happens and as many good things happen to you.
Let' s look at a couple of metaphors to understand well what this
is about trauma and how it affects the infected cut. Imagine that you are
cutting a tomato to make a salad and that in an oversight this slips and
you cut yourself in a finger with the knife. The wound looks deep,
but you decide to heal yourself at home instead of going to the hospital with
a kitchen cloth. You manage to stop the bleeding and put on a little
bandage you had at home after a few days. The wound hurts a lot
and you realize I' m infected, but you still think you don'
t need to go to the hospital. The wound is getting worse and it
hurts more and more, but you continue to insist on doing things for yourself.
The days pass, although your wound is getting worse and worse, you
pass Olympicly from it and try to make your life as usual, though with
clear pain. One day you notice that the wound prevents you from leading a
normal life. You' re afraid to meet the person you like in case
it starts to hurt, it gives you palover because they don' t know
you have an infected and very bad wound. Sometimes it also hurts a lot
at work and you can' t think clearly. There are even times when
you can' t feel anything other than the pain the wound causes you Actually,
I think no one would get to this end when they see that the
wound is infected, we would go to the hospital. It would be very
painful to live with something like that. It turns out that traumas work the
same way. These highly stressful episodes are wounds to our memory that our brain
has not been able to heal on its own. And you know that the
pain of an emotional wound can become even more intense than it is from a
physical wound. But as you can' t see, it doesn' t
seem to exist. It is known that not necessarily, all people who have
gone through highly stressful situations will be traumatized. Remember the subject of each one
' s predisposition and tools, but in one way or another, we all
have emotional wounds. What varies in each of us is the intensity of trauma.
Some people can' t remember their traumas. Oblivion, in this case,
is a brain defense mechanism to protect you from pain. And there are
also those who cannot stop recreating them in their minds. But in any case,
all people with emotional injuries always perceive these situations as painful and unpleasant.
There are no traumas of positive experiences, because although it is true that these
leave us with very good memories, unfortunately they do not mark us as much
as traumas. This is for survival reasons. The brain needs much more to
remember the situations that put it in danger, in order to avoid them that
those who like trauma victims can be people who have witnessed them or a loved
one, a violent or tragic act, or who have suffered. The death
of a loved one, animal or person, the bite of an animal,
long hospitalizations or long seasons in the incubator, a rape, a very large
personal failure, a robbery, a traffic accident, an abortion, a toxic
relationship, times with serious economic problems, instability or harassment at work, a
period of very high stress at work, as happened to many of the health
- care providers who had to deal day and night with 19 patients, as
well as people living with incapacitating diseases, who have been victims of a natural
disaster, who feel betrayed by someone whom they loved a lot of infidelity,
for example, who face removal, who are separated from friendships, who suffer
from occasional episodes of bullying, as well as children who have suffered neglect,
sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse repeatedly by their primary caregivers or other family
members, or who have witnessed domestic violence, but also adults who have experienced
domestic violence for a long time, people who have suffered serious bullying or have
lived in a refugee camp, etc. Victims of chronic or repeated traumas over
time have no room to regain the emotional balance between events, which leads them
to live in a state of hypervigilance and constant concern, devoting to the energy
they could use, in other things, to defense and survival. A trauma
is considered more complex and therefore serious, the smaller the victim. Remember that
children have fewer resources and tools to deal with different situations. That' s
why everything affects them more. Evidently, the consequences of having experienced trauma always
have some impact on the individual. I tell you this because many evidences have
been found that the person responsible for the type of attachment changes is always a
trauma, especially if it is related to the links situations that change our type
of attachment. What situations in childhood can be so traumatic as to develop a
different attachment to secure attachment Here are some examples of children who are not heard
or are emotionally invalidated. This implies an emotional abandonment in a real or felt
way. Consequences learn to inhibit their emotional discomfort because they feel that by expressing
themselves they are a burden or discomfort, so they simply do what is expected
of them. This leads them to generate a need to control the environment.
If I look at what my parents want and do, they get happy and
I avoid discomfort. This works for me, because I don' t need
to express anything, because if I express it, they invalidate me or ignore
me and that makes me feel bad. They will learn to relate superficially for
fear of another abandonment. The message they receive unconsciously is you have to regulate
yourself, even if you tell me what you think or feel. I don
' t care what you feel. It' s not right. There'
s something wrong with you Your opinion doesn' t count. I don'
t care about children who are physically or emotionally abused or who are victims of
rape or sexual abuse consequences. They learn not to trust anyone, even if
at the same time they want to trust them they usually feel for their most
intimate ties a mixture of love you and at the same time I do not
love you in case you hurt me. They learn to submit to figures of
authority and understand that to be accepted they have to suffer. They assume that
not feeling valid is normal. That is why it is very difficult for them
to perceive themselves in a minimally positive way. They generate a lot of anger
and disgust towards themselves emotions that their abusers, rapists or abusers project on them,
do not identify well their own limits or those of the other people they
relate to. They often have a lot of trouble connecting with others throughout their
lives. They take extreme patterns of behavior or show themselves very close and dependent,
or are very cold, evasive and emotionally remote. There is no organized
and coherent attitude. The message they receive unconsciously is you' re insignificant,
you' re worthless, you don' t deserve to be loved. Don
' t trust anyone. Compadre children who are very demanding of themselves or their
children, learn that they are only valid and successful in their tasks, so
their feeling of sufficiency goes hand in hand with that of productivity or success and,
since neither one or the other never has adult limits, they can be
very demanding and develop dependence, work addiction, anxiety, frustration and low self
- esteem. The message they receive unconsciously is never enough. Overprotected children,
learn that they are people who depend on others, feel that they cannot face
the world alone, and that their ogre capacity is low. The message they
receive unconsciously is you alone cannot be insufficient. Although the intentions of the adult
are good and the intention is to remove the child from the emotional discomfort caused
by failure, what is really done is to prevent him from learning to face
alone the challenges and complicated situations through control. Children who have excessively fearful parents
learn that everything is dangerous, that they need to be very careful and very
careful about the environment and behavior of others to avoid serious problems and situations.
They feel that the probability of bad things happening is mons and high, so
they usually generate quite anxiety and a high need for control. They usually ruminate
a lot and worry about everything too much. The message they receive unconsciously is
the world is a dangerous place. You just can' t be vulnerable kids
who barely see their parents because they travel, work a lot, or are
hospitalized for a long time. Consequences learn that they cannot count on anyone to
cope with them in life and that they must self- regulate emotionally are adults
before time. The message they receive unconsciously is that you have to be self
- sufficient. Unwanted children in the family. Consequences learn that they are neither
valid nor dear. They grow up with very poor self- esteem, as
they assume that they are a burden or a nuisance. The message they receive
unconsciously is that they do not belong to this place. You can' t
connect with us. There is something wrong with you compadre children who untiringly argue
and lack respect or who live in a traumatic way the separation from their parents.
Consequences learn that anything can happen at any time, so you should be
alert and alert to the relationship and emotions of your parents. They are children
who end up taking responsibility for things that do not belong to them. They
' re adults early. The unconscious message they receive is your fault. Children
who experience gender- based violence consequences, learn to read expressions and be constantly
alert to any stimuli, noises, gestures, tones of voice, etc,
that may mean a change of emotion in those around them. On many occasions
they end up repeating the patterns of their parents, being future abusers or victims.
The unconscious message he gets is your fault. Don' t relax,
you' re never worth children who are victims of fatophobia in the family environment
consequences develop a bad relationship with food and with their own body and personal worth.
The message they receive unconsciously is your body is wrong you are a disgrace.
If you are not thin, you are not worth children whose parents have
some psychological disorder or addiction consequences they usually learn and depending on the illness one
or both parents suffer, who must protect and cheer their parents, as well
as improve their quality of life, become involved and responsible for many of their
parents' problems. They acquire high responsibility ahead of time. The unconscious message
they receive is power with everything. Your mission is to save others so that
your family loves you. Everyone has to be happy. That' s how
they' ll thank you with love. Children who have a totally unbalanced relationship
with their parents, for example, parents who victimize themselves, have no skills
to cope with complicated situations, family triangulations, etc. Consequences learn that they
must assume the role of adult and end up playing parents and parents of children.
In these cases there is an inverted attachment relationship to which we technically call
parenting. The unconscious message they receive cannot be weak. Children who had to
take care of their younger brothers as if they were their children, learn to
take responsibility for something that does not come up against them. They carry their
emotional backpack with concerns that are not age- specific. Instead of spending that
time on what it really should be like to play and worry about everything that
doesn' t involve doing the chole' s homework or thinking about whether you
like yellow or green more. The conscious message they receive is you are not
important. Some messages are repeated because the damage to the attachment system is similar,
although the situation of origin is different. All these situations generate a high
level of stress that is difficult to manage in a healthy way and, in
the vast majority of cases, the consequences will end up dragging to adulthood.
I propose an exercise to apply this knowledge. The exercise of the plasticine ball
takes a ball of plasticine, make it as round as you can work its
surface to make it very smooth. Now I want you to imagine that you
are twelve years old and you have to live a particularly difficult situation, like,
for example, changing schools, leaving your old friends behind and having to
get used to a place. I don' t do with people you don
' t know, but you have to deal with if you want to have
new friends. Make a mark with your fingernail on the plasticine ball. Wow,
it' s not so perfect anymore, but if you turn it around,
you can barely see now imagine you' re living another highly stressful situation,
like bullying at school. For example, Goa are already two marks on
the plasticine ball, but nothing happens. Life goes on. Imagine your father
has been emotionally absent. Most of the time. He works hard because he
has to bring money home. Your mother is very tired because at night she
has difficulty falling asleep due to the stress of taking care of your grandmother,
who has a chronic incapacitating illness for several years now because of the economic instability
of the country. Your father gets fired because of an ere in his company,
he' s wrecked. Neither one of you has time for you so
you live the bullying in silence, hoping your parents won' t find out,
because that could cause them one more problem. If you don' t
want them to feel sadder, it' s even better not to be a
hindrance, so you focus on your studies and try to get very good grades
so that they get happy and feel proud of you mark with a nail the
ball of plasticine three times more by your father' s emotional absence, by
your mother' s emotional absence and by living the school harassment in silence in
the first grade in your new institute, you get an outstanding in all subjects.
You show your parents the notes and they get very happy. Congratulations on
the lack of an adult to help you create security regarding IT and the environment.
You found a shelter in your studies. This isn' t going to
help you be happy, but at least you feel valid. How cool to
make another mark with your fingernail on the plasticine ball. Sometimes your parents argue
out loud at home and listen to them, but you have noticed that if
you interrupt and call their attention somehow. S s s are the one that
gets into you and stop arguing great you just discovered that if you take responsibility
for your parents' emotions, everything goes well and for that nothing better than
constantly being aware of them, their gestures, their tone of voice, especially
what they say. You need to know if it' s time to intervene
or not to stay alert. It' s a great tool that you'
ll always set in motion. From now on, make another mark on the
plasticine. Your grandmother dies, make another mark. That' s how the
years pass. Your father. Finally find a job, although it is much
more precarious than the previous one. The economic crisis is wreaking havoc, but
it seems that better times or at least not so bad ones are coming.
Your demanding student routine. He has added a strict diet and a lot of
sport. You are very responsible and a person worthy to admire. S or
so the others say, because you feel quite mediocre. Weaknesses, a few
kilitos, and you earn some muscle. People applaud you and the likes in
your ens that cram increase. So far you' ve never had friends because
everyone was messing with you in high school, but in college it seems like
everything' s going to change, because you get very positive reviews from the
people around you. It looks like you' re finally starting to fit in.
You' ve found another refuge from your discomfort. The acceptance of others
you need to feel good. Okay, but what' s the difference?
Make another mark on the plasticine. It looks like you' ve met someone
you like how well you can finally be happy. That' s not really
what happens in the movies. Ah no your partner leaves you because he says
you' ve burdened her a lot with your interrogations. You don' t
understand what happened. If you just wanted to know if I was really gonna
be with you. You were forever afraid that I would disappear or abandon you,
as your parents did exactly. Make another mark on the plasticine ball,
you find work. It' s nothing of the other world, but it
allows you to earn a salary congratulations uff The breakup has been horrible. He
needs to raise your morale. You hang a sexy photo on social media.
Five hundred liikes, what a triumph. You' ve met someone else who
fills you. This is really gonna be the ultimate, but you don'
t know why you feel like shit? You don' t understand. If
everything goes well, the studies, the work, the friends, the couple
above you are more fit than ever, why you feel without wanting anything,
you don' t feel like seeing anyone healthy gan overwhelms you no longer enjoy
the things that previously motivated you and made you feel good, Sometimes you feel
sad and so you also feel some pressure on the chest, but good must
be normal, because you have felt it since you were little. Triangulation.
Triangulation is a form of emotional abuse in which a third person is used to
manipulate someone. Triangulation in the family. Nacho is a 17- year-
old boy and one day his mother tells him she has a problem with her
father However, time goes by, the problem is not solved and her mother
keeps telling her son how badly she treats her father. In the triangle,
the mother is using Nacho to somehow confront the father without speaking directly to him.
The problem with this dynamic occurring in the family is that the mother places
the child in a situation that does not belong to her. The mother is
placing in Nacho a responsibility that neither does nor does come to her, and
without realizing it, she is giving her a power within the family system that
may be too great for her. The power it gives him would fall to
the father as a couple of the mother he is, and not the son.
This role change, which may seem harmless, is capable of altering Nacho
' s type of attachment. Suddenly, the son is burdened with the father
' s responsibility. The logical thing would be for the mother to talk to
the father and manage among them without having to put her son in. Another
day, Nacho and his grandmother agreed not to tell their mother anything about a
family secret. Grandma says we' re not going to tell your mother,
that if she finds out celia, then Nacho is above her mother in the
family system. The problem here is that that is not the logical order,
but that the mother must be above the child and the child dedicate themselves to
his or her things without having to assume burdens that do not correspond to his
or her role This may also be to send the type of attachment. Nacho
' s parents finally split up and the father tells his son that his mother
goes on vacation with her new boyfriend without you nacho, because surely your mother
doesn' t love you as much as I do your father. This case
of triangulation is repeated in many families with separated parents. Trying to put the
child against the other parent is again to give the child an emotional burden that
does not touch triangulation in the couple. Couple triangulation also exists, especially in
couples with toxic ties or abusive relationships. Isabel is a 23- year-
old girl and has a couple relationship with Alfonso. She sees that he shows
up very affectionately with another girl at the disco and asks her about the situation.
Alfonso quickly comments that it is the other girl who has approached him and
that he harasses him because she is obsessed with him, making him see that
the other girl is the bad girl. Alfonso manages to attract Elizabeth more to
him together against the world. On the other hand, by yielding to manipulation,
she is more trapped in the relationship that is already seen from afar,
which is not very healthy and if these kinds of situations are repeated, she
can often come to think that everyone is bad except Alfonso. This continuous manipulation
by the couple can also cause a change in the type of attachment triangulation in
friendship. Imagine that Clara, Nuria and Almudena are friends one day, the
last two become angry and Noria starts to speak ill of Almudena to Clara so
that she joins her and distance herself from Almudena. This type of manipulation can
also cause a change in the type of almudena attachment is the triangulation that is
usually given in bullying. As you can see, in all cases, the
third person is only a figure alien to the objective of the person who manipulates,
but his or her existence allows him or her to feel that he or
she controls the situation. How can we differentiate a triangulation manipulation from a vent.
It' ll be manipulation when whoever' s telling you something about a
problem with a third party doesn' t do anything to solve it and just
dedicates himself to telling you how bad a person he is. It will also
be manipulation when you feel that the person is using a third party to make
you feel guilty about something. Fear and stress. I need to talk to
you about fear and stress, because they are and will be the ultimate protagonists
of many of your cognitive, emotional and behavioral physiological responses. Fear is the
emotional response to stress, which is the physiological response that triggers the body when
we process a dangerous stimulus, real or imagined. That physiological response corresponds to
the activation of our sympathetic branch, the nervous system. So, when we
' re calm, our nervous system activates the branch' s responses for nice
and when we' re comfortable with the sympathetic ones. In principle, both
responses are adaptive and functional. Example, of a lion. Imagine that you
are calmly in your home, studying, reviewing, e- mails, preparing
the food, that I know you are in your sauce, your breathing is
calm and your heart beats normally. Suddenly a lion comes into the room looking
like he' s really hungry. Let' s look at two different answers
to this situation, functional and functional dysfunctional. At that moment you open your
eyes well. Your pupils are dilated to better observe the threat and ignore everything
irrelevant in the eye field and you realize the danger your life is in,
you get to say, you get in a state of hyperactivation and your body
prepares for two types of response, the struggle or the escape. Appreciating the
situation quickly, your instinct helps you understand that fighting is not a viable response,
so you decide to run away. Your pulse is accelerating, your breathing
is shaking, your body is activating the sympathetic system and it' s getting
ready to run as if there isn' t a morning you shoot out and
you manage to get safe. Since you see that the friendly system is activated
in the face of dangerous situations is not a problem. On the contrary,
we find it very useful dysfunctional at that time. Instead of activating the sympathetic
system, keep your parasympathetic system active and quietly recite Chinese proverbs. The one
who says the most is not smarter, but the one who shuts the most.
Your will must be more powerful than your desires. The worst enemy is
the one who doesn' t go straight. It' s okay. If
you go slowly but don' t stop yourself, it seems that Leon doesn
' t like your proverbs because he has pounced his prayer on you and ate
you. Why, if fear and stress are so good, we suffer so
much when we feel it in principle. This suffering is the way the brain
has to tell us to move and act. The problem comes when these States
generalize situations that do not pose a real danger, given that irrational fear is
generated. We' ll talk about this later, or when that fear is
so but so intense that it becomes something much worse, in panic. In
this chapter we will focus on this emotion, not emotion. In the example
we have seen that the best option to face a danger is that your brain
automatically activates, the sympathetic system and with it your instinct chooses the answers of
struggle or flight. Right Well, there' s a third answer. Blocking
or osok something that has a lot to do with trauma and emotional wounds dissociation.
What if before Leon you were so afraid, you couldn' t react
and you could only tremble and pee on yourself. In that case, dear
reader, we would be talking about panic. Fear moves us and panic blocks
us. Let' s imagine that, despite the paralysis, he survives Leon
' s attack. What happened to your brain in the face of such danger?
Your mind has generated a state of overactivation at a very high level,
so much so that it has not been able to withstand and appetize until later.
Mari Carmen your Brain, who no longer wants to know anything about the
matter in which you are involved, has disconnected and has turned off the control
tower eyes that do not see heart, that do not feel and dissociation that
you take like this is you just dissociated. I' m going to dramatize
the steps your mind has taken so you know exactly what happened. Your brain,
lol go lion. This is dangerous. I' m not going to
activate the friendly system. You' ve got a lot of eggplant we'
ve gotten ourselves into. Bro Brain, I have a bit of a must.
You' re okay, you, shut up, I think it gives
me something. This is very dangerous. Holy shit and so much, in
fact I think we' re going to die You, so give me a
fucking hand. Brain, I' m trying, but I don' t
know what else to do. You, I don' t know what to
do, but do it now. Brain, ha ha ha doesn' t
work what I' m doing. Save me who can as long as he
walks away. You, I think I pissed myself. Brain, you,
cele brain. Brain. You' re there now for real. Your brain
has processed a danger for which it has activated the four behavioral, emotional,
physiological and cognitive response systems, and has generated so much, but so much
fear that it has transformed into panic and the mind has not been able to
withstand it. Why I say panic is an emotion, not emotion, because
all emotions are useful and functional. Except for this one. Panic is nothing,
emptiness. It' s the non- emotional emotion that triggers. One
of the most powerful defense mechanisms in our body to survive highly stressful situations.
Dissociation. Traumas disfigure the brain. When we talk about dissociation, in this
context, we talk about a brain that hides and closes the chiringuito. But
where it goes, then, to organize its content in two parts, the
seemingly functional part of the nuno, recognized by its acronym PAN, and the
emotional part with the acronym P. We can also call them dissociated or conscious
parts PAN and unconscious P. The case is that, from the moment a
dissociation occurs, the person will have his PAN and his P parts that make
up what psychologists call primary structural dissociation. PAN is visible to others. It
' s the part of your personality that works, studies, stays with friends,
partying, etc. In short, the one with which you are in
contact every day forms the traits with which you would define others. For example,
I am a cheerful extroverted, hardworking and sociable person. P is the
part where you keep emotional wounds. It is not visible to others, but
it is what the person who possesses the emotional wounds feels. It' s
the part of your personality that suffers and cries, that remembers painful things.
She misses family, friends, or couples. It' s what you carry
inside and you don' t usually show others unless you have a lot of
confidence with them. Imagine you' re cooking in your house and you'
ve got the ceramic hob, the smoke extractor, the oven and the microwave
on. At the same time you' re preparing a lot of dishes At
the same time you' re all very hot, so you turn on the
air conditioning and by the way put a washing machine and a dryer. Your
electrical installation can' t last that long, so before the pete system and
your house burn down, skip the automatic so there' s no disaster.
You look for the picture of lights in the middle of the darkness so you
can activate it again. When you manage to slide the tab that restores it.
You realize that magically, your house is neat and clean, well,
more or less. The pan is placed in the fridge, the microwave is
open, the oven has the door broken, the washing machine has thrown,
the water out and the clothes have come out dirty. What happened here.
If your home were your mind and the automatic defense mechanism, we could say
that your Brain has been organizing the catastrophic content as well as it could.
Those things that are so out of place in places that they don' t
touch will be emotional wounds. The treatment of all of them will consist in
organizing the house, fixing the relevant appliances and placing the utensils in place.
Let us recapitulate the order of things with a clarifying image. In the lion
' s example I have described a rather traumatic situation, but I have reduced
a little bit to absurdity to make it an emotionally neutral example for everyone.
And so you can understand in a very eight easier way. It is quite
unworkable and unlikely for a lion to appear in your home unless he lives near
the jungle or a sun, but remember the situations he described earlier as very
stressful for a child. Those are the typical ones that trigger an emotional wound.
Powerful enough to condition an entire life. For example, an adult can
think of something as if my parents pass on to me, for nothing.
I make my life and do not process the situation as a trauma, either
depending on the coping tools I possess. But it' s very likely that
a child will perceive it as my parents are going to pass on to me,
what I do. If they are my reference in this world, I
without them do not know what to do, because I am a dependent being.
I' m so scared. I don' t understand what' s
going on. Thus, it is not necessary to go through a life or
death situation in order to have an emotional trauma or injury. It is enough
to experience any situation with great fear or loneliness. And this is any age.
In the most serious cases, dissociated parts may also be re- dissociated.
For example, in so- called secondary structural dissociation, P can in
turn dissociate itself. This occurs in early, prolonged or repeated traumas over time,
such as those that cause complex trauma, and in the most extreme cases,
not only does the P divide into several parts, but also does the
NAP, establishing what we call tertiary structural dissociation and resulting in the dissociative disorder
commonly called multiple personality disorder. To answer this question, Anzigo' s doctor
created a very interesting concept, the stress tolerance window. According to this theory,
the tolerance window is a small margin in which the tools and skills we
possess are sufficient to address a stressful situation and manage our resulting emotions which are
what they are. We all have our own, because we can all endure
a certain amount of stress. For example, most people can endure the stress
of a change in last- minute plans, go out of time to catch
the bus, or take an oral exam. I can easily handle my emotions
when I' m in front of thousands of people, because it' s
something I' ve trained many times. Over time I have increased my tools
and confidence in myself and, therefore, widening my window of tolerance. But
the first time I got on a stage, I was shaking to the DN,
which means that my tolerance window was stuck in front of that situation.
When the stress tolerance window becomes small, when we cross its thresholds and face
an emotional kidnapping, that is, when emotions take over our being, our
logical part disconnects and we do not have enough tools to address a stressful situation,
such as being a victim of infidelity. The tolerance window can be worked,
but there are things that we will never be prepared for. For example,
no one is prepared for the death of a loved one. True,
the fact that my first experience as a couple was a toxic relationship overcame my
stress tolerance window. I have always been a person who has handled stress very
well, but the uncertainty that that relationship implied me exhausted all my resources.
Maybe someone else wouldn' t have done so much emotional damage. But,
as I say, everyone has their tools, their history and their window of
tolerance. That' s why neither I nor anyone can define that it'
s for you something highly stressful you' re going to fipar. But there
is evidence of people who have stayed inside their stress tolerance window, being in
hallucinating Nazi concentration camps. For a child, the tolerance window is always smaller
than for an adult, and for a person with secure attachment, it will
always be greater than for someone with an unsafe attachment. Even so, this
ce window may be shrinking or widening, depending on our environment. If we
surround ourselves with people who do not provide us with security, the window will
become smaller and smaller. And if we surround ourselves with people who bring us
peace of mind, the window will grow bigger and bigger. A large tolerance
window is like a well- knocked mattress that protects us from pain. In
this book, as you have already seen, there are many examples of stressful
situations with which you can feel identified or not. But part of the self
- knowledge work I' d like you to do is precisely this to identify
what were the situations that caused you high stress throughout your life. If there
were situations that you lived as highly stressful, then they were. We have
three brains. Yeah, yeah, as you read n n n three,
well, three in one according to Paul mcne' s theory, emotional and
rational reptilian. I know these names are a little weird and it looks like
he' s talking about aliens on the Max Channel, but Makan decided that
these were going to be the names with which he would baptize every part of
the brain that we all possess according to their function. The truth is that
these brain divisions help to better understand the differences between the conscious and the unconscious.
The three parts are connected to each other, but each is responsible for
a different objective and for processing reality in a different way. Reptilian is the
most instinctive and primitive part of our brain and is responsible for regulating aspects related
to survival, such as breathing, temperature, digestion, and attachment reflexes in
terms of survival, it does not have a very intermediate. It reacts with
we' re going to die. It' s all or not. Reason
that takes care of another part of the brain appears when we' re still
in our mother' s belly. Brain stem anatomy, unconscious part. Emotional
is the part of our brain that allows us to feel emotions like disgust,
fear, anger, sadness, surprise or happiness. It appears between the last
months of pregnancy and the first two years of life. Limbic system anatomy.
The most important thing about the emotional brain is its control tower. The tonsil,
closely related to fear and attachment. It has several functions, but the
main one is to activate the sympathetic system and pass the information on to his
colleague, the hippocampus about dangerous situations, in order, between the two,
to remember everything that has been a risk in the past and thus to be
able to face together the possible threats of the future. Rational unconscious part is
the most evolved part of our brain. He takes care of tasks such as
speech, thought, understanding, reading, reflection, logic. He' s
kind of like the father of the previous brains. It appears about two or
three years of life and does not form completely until after adolescence anatomy Neocortex conscious
part. There' s a couple more facts that are interesting. The brain
is developing throughout our entire life, from being a fetus to adulthood and going
through the same stages that our evolution has been going through. As a species,
the reptilian brain develops first, then the emotional and, finally, the
rational brain. That the rational brain does not begin to develop until the age
of two, means that all the learning that we get those first months of
life is purely emotional, that is, unconscious and a couple of notes regarding
the theory that deserve to be mentioned to avoid confusion, the brain is composed
of a multitude of organs, each with a different function, but related to
each other. This theory is used to talk about the different functions of the
brain in a simple way. It does not mean that each function is perfectly
delimited to any of the three areas, but there are parts of the brain
that deal with specific functions that coincide with the activation of the areas mentioned.
Obviously, people only have one brain, the human brain. Speaking of reptilian
brain doesn' t mean we have a reptilian brain as I say, it
' s just part of the nomenclature that' s used to better understand theory.
Now let' s see how these parts of the brain relate to each
other. You' ll see the party they' re having. The emotional
brain is the one that almost always led her. The tonsil has a very
strong temperament and usually reacts impulsively to things. However, the hippocampus is quieter
and likes to have gone too far. One of its functions is to activate
the parasympathetic system. When the tonsil perceives it in danger, it becomes defensive
by activating the sympathetic system. But the hippocampus, which knows it well,
intervenes by activating the parasympathetic system and regulates it by telling and guiding you are
passing. Don' t get so nervous that I remember perfectly that this isn
' t as dangerous as you think. Then the tonsil calms down and doesn
' t overactivate. However, when the hippocampus does not intervene in that reaction,
the amygdala comes very high and over- active the sympathetic system and,
as we saw in the previous chapter, trauma occurs. The friend reacts with
ease, although it can be said that in some people more than in others,
but in any case, each time it is activated it reduces more the
stress tolerance window of the person in question. This, in turn, makes
the migda gain more sensitivity and reactions more exaggerated to situations that would not have
to activate it. When the amygdala is continuously activated, these are the consequences.
Difficulty in controlling impulses, inability to delay gratification, difficulties in making decisions,
emotional overflow in adverse situations, lack of concentration, difficulties in thinking clearly,
lack of empathy or capacity for social interaction, problems in becoming assertive.
Therefore, an active tonsil is the reason why you cannot ask an angry person
to calm down and reason for a certain situation. So sn N s NS
same in his anger with his friend the atope and will not attend to reasons
nor be able to empathize. Until she calms down how she will be able
to empathize a person with the pain of others, when she also feels pain,
when she stops feeling pain, she will be able to empathize. That
is why it is sometimes necessary to leave important conversations for another time. The
rational brain or the father of the other two, only intervenes in the movements
of the tonsil and hippocampus when it has not allied it to the maximum.
When the hippocampus does not intervene and the tonsil has come up, it starts
to scream and the rational brain cannot think clearly. Come on, when the
amygdala is activated to the fullest, we suffer the emotional kidnapping that I was
talking about in the previous chapter and our rational brain goes out. The reptilian
brain. He is the older brother of the Migdalai. Every time she listens
to me because her sister' s out of her mind, she goes through
her room and says lon and she' s moved, but she didn'
t urinate. It' s time to find out what' s going on.
So even though he hears bells, he doesn' t know where they
come from, he has no idea what' s going on, but he
knows that something very strong happens at home and that he has to keep it
in mind. That' s why your best tool is to change the type
of attachment. But this doesn' t. Every time there is a highly
stressful situation, remember that you can' t change the type of attachment intermittently,
but change it safely and insecurely or any of the other three. And
it stays there forever, unless a job of integration is done later, which
we will see later explain to you all this brain movement. It helps me
to understand that sometimes highly stressful situations cause this chaos between the different parts.
So, during dissociation, the part of the brain that organizes the information could
say that it is the mother cannot work clearly and ends up placing the pan
in the fridge in situations where there is no real danger, but yes sense
is that n or c is also given. In my past. My tonsil
had been activated many times in the fear of not being enough. By understanding
my story and that of my father, I could understand that somehow he had
pierced his cause to me and that had caused my brain to organize such a
thing. He did what he could with what he had and I too the
mind remembers. Neurons are the largest cells in our body. They are formed
by a nucleus and a series of extensions that serve to connect with each other
forming a neural tissue or network. We have about 100 billion neurons. It
' s all right if we lose one on a crazy night of alcohol and
unbridledness, but we don' t miss it either if the communication between them
all looks like patio radio. They love to know and store information and then
draw their own conclusions. They keep everything in huge filing cabinets. Some have
them in the conscious part of the brain and others in the unconscious part.
They catalog the information into memory types according to their importance and you know which
one is the most important. Just the archiver in the amitala room is,
as we know, storing information related to survival and it doesn' t matter
if the dangers it has recorded are real or imaginary. The fact is that
there are files that have a special interest for the whole brain, those that
contain information about suffering and emotional wounds or trauma. In gram is the term
to designate the neural networks that keep the information of the emotional wound. The
brain understands what the engram contains as dangers that we must avoid in order to
continue with our existence, but it is completely amenable to the disorder that involves
having that stored only in the emotional brain without integrating it with the other parts.
Although on the outside things happen that a priori have no direct connection to
the emotional wound. If the migda finds it a small similarity between that and
the information the neurons keep about it, neither hippocampus nor anything goes wrong.
The amygdala is activated as it was activated at the exact time of the trauma
and puts the emotional part into operation. A single stimulus is enough to reactivate
the whole system, relive trauma, and remove old emotional wounds. Why this
is happening. The brain brings out the memory of trauma, but it doesn
' t differentiate between past and present. In fact, this part of the
brain where the engram resides, does not understand of any time more than of
the present. So every time he processes a minimally similar stimulus, he deduces
that everything bad that happened a while ago is happening again now. Sometimes this
triggers symptoms like feeling upset without apparently coming to account, which we end up
paying with those around us, because we don' t know how to manage
nightmares or flashbacks a move. The body always remembers this feeling of discomfort without
apparently coming to account. It happened to me the other day. You remember
the traumita of the wax figures that I saw in a shrine that I told
you about in the introduction. For attention to this coming now I went so
quietly walking through a village I had gone on a field trip with my partner,
when suddenly we saw a very nice candle shop and decided to enter it
knew it in many colors, sizes and shapes, and they were all beautiful.
As a result of the work of a craftsman whose workshop was inside the
shop. The smell of wax permeated the entire space. Suddenly I started to
feel bad, feeling nauseous and a tremendous anxiety in my chest. At the
time I didn' t know what it was about, but I looked at
Alberto and told her very overwhelmed. I' m going out on the street.
I feel bad. My partner got scared and accompanied me outside what'
s wrong with you. He asked worried. I don' t know.
I think the store has given me a hard time. I said walking aimlessly
and staring down on the ground. I was pretty nervous, but everything was
nice. I don' t understand. Alberto put his hands on my shoulders
and looked into my eyes to see for a second. That gesture brought me
back a little bit to reality. I don' t know what part of
my head was in, but a moment later I knew exactly what had happened
to me. My body had reacted to the smell of wax that carried my
mind to that altar of my childhood with wax figures, the pain of those
people, sickness, death. Instants later it all went online. My conscious
mind took a little longer to figure out what was going on, but my
body knew everything from the first second how strong truth. In relation to this
I will now tell you the case of Carolina, a 30- year-
old girl who came to me for lack of sexual desire and vaginal pain during
intimate relationships with penetration. You will see sometimes in sexual intercourse there is lack
of desire, genital pain, problems with excitement or orgasm, etcetera. I,
in any case, always like to know how my patient has lived his
sexual encounters from the first to the last. It is not necessary to give
many details or to relate to relationship, of course, but I am interested
that in his account he stops to observe the changes and evolution that the experience
of his sexual encounters has had throughout his life. And so did I with
Carolina. She had had a couple of partner relationships before she met her current
life partner. In the account of the first relationship I did not notice anything
remarkable, but when we went into what was his second relationship I found what
was supposed to me to be a very unpleasant sexual experience. My patient spent
two years dating a guy who made her feel terrible. He was messing with
his physique and his way of having sex. I' d manipulate her to
have sex, I' d tell her if you didn' t do it
with me, I' d go with someone else, and on top of
that, it' d be your fault. She compared it to other girlfriends
she had and in case this was too small, she controlled what she ate
and the clothes she wore. It was a full- fledged ill- treatment
relationship. At that time, Carolina was nineteen and he was twenty- four.
For more sinri the aforementioned forced her to have sexual encounters on more than
one occasion. He never hit it or physically forced it, but he didn
' t need it with a scream either. It was enough to generate a
paralyzing fear in Carolina. My patient normalized having sex feeling unwell, and that
would remind his body forever. Every time her current partner started a rapprochement,
she ran away and when she didn' t run away, the muscles of
the pelvic floor were so thought that any posture hurt her. At no time
did he feel forced with his current partner. Moreover, on occasion he told
me that he felt excitement, but as soon as the physical contact began,
he was overwhelmed in consultation he was very sad and sorry because he wanted to
have a more intimate and fluid connection with his partner. However, frustration came
when every time he tried, his body reacted without counting on it. His
body was talking to him. Carolina just had to listen to him. After
hard interdisciplinary work in gynaecology, physiotherapy and psychology, and no patient, he
began to slowly improve and gradually expose himself to sexual contact, first alone and
then as a couple. It should be said that your partner showed himself during
the whole process very respectful of her. They had not been in relationships for
a long time, and although it was something he wanted, he understood that
she needed time and space to work on her sexuality. He supported her in
everything. She attended therapy with her in several sessions. He listened to her,
accompanied her and waited. What it took until Carolina felt comfortable enough to
have a more intimate approach. This helped the treatment a lot. After a
time in therapy, Carolina managed to integrate all parts of her brain and body,
her mind and her heart knew the most friendly perspective of sex. This
shows that emotional wounds are also stored in body memory, implicit memory, and
that body and mind go hand in hand. There are always people who,
after a traumatic event, do not have to be automatically. Then it can
be after some time. They tell to feel other symptoms related to the dissociative
picture, such as depersonalization and derealization, both passing phenomena. Depersonalization is a
phenomenon by which people can feel an alteration in the way they perceive their body.
They say they feel different, rare or out of the body as a
mere spectator of life, as their way of feeling their body has become completely
different from the usual way. However, derealization is an alteration of the perception
of the outside world. People who have ever suffered it feel that what surrounds
them becomes strange or unreal, as if they were in a dream causing them
to suddenly feel disoriented and lose their spontaneity. Curious fact. When a person
experiences these sensations and is aware of it, that is, he knows that
what happens is not normal and that it is the fruit of his head the
psychotic outbreak is discarded. Why I always end up with the same kind of
person. Let' s get into a situation you know a seemingly wonderful person.
Looks like that' s what you were looking for Someone attentive, kind,
loving and intelligent. You feel like you could be talking hours and hours.
You' ve been sleeping at 1, 000 for a couple of weeks
because you can' t get away from your cell phone. You say good
night and good morning by message. You tell each other all the things that
happen to you, You send audios of voice and every time you see an
incoming message it turns your heart upside down. You' ve never felt anything
like that before. That' s why you think maybe this is the ultimate
person, you' ve already had some failed relationship, and you' re
tired of the same old stereotypes. You looked at that person precisely because he
seemed to behave very differently than the others, so you decide to put all
the meat in the grill. The weeks go by and everything' s still
going great. You don' t speak as loudly as at first, but
it' s normal. Relationships tend to get used to and the energy of
the beginning is lost over time. You are August and you decide to go
a step further formalizing the relationship as time goes by, conflicts begin to arise
and you realize something. This person' s behavior starts to look a lot
like that of your mates. It resolves conflicts by disappearing, does not express
its emotions and seems to prefer not to talk things out unless you insist.
Why do you behave if you now, if you so far appear to be
a person incapable of harming you who only wanted to become unlived for You.
It used to be entirely available to You, why now you prefer to go
out with your friends, even if you are wrong, why it seems to
bother you to cry, why suddenly you seem to be with one of your
mates. Why do you always have the same thing going on in affective sex
relationships, why do you end up with the same type of person every time,
people who don' t seem to get too involved in the relationship,
that you find it absorbing, that stops loving you, that controls you,
that casually always has some commitment in prison or with other people who distrust you
or that makes you gosting. Any pattern is welcome in this case, and
repeating patterns is the law of life, at least until personal work helps you
otherwise, there are several reasons why we usually repeat patterns, such as the
idea we have about relationships and love permeated mostly by myths of romantic love or
learned stereotypes. But what most makes us repeat patterns is our own pattern of
behavior, that is, those things we learned in childhood and adolescence about how
we bond with ourselves and others. Although he remembers that it is also important
to take into account the experiences of adulthood, because they can also condition us.
For all this, our type of attachment will command over the dynamics of
those relationships that we are establishing. Remember that our brain has both conscious and
unconscious parts. The first one is responsible for consciously processing never better said all
the things that are happening, or that Guay has given me a box of
chocolates. However, ignore those patterns that ring a bell, because this is
what the other part of the brain takes care of. But, as he
is unconscious, we do not pay much attention to him either, because the
conscious part has a lot of voice at that time. In addition, substances
that are segregated during falling in love are able to blind those clues even more
than otherwise if we could perceive through sensations. What you can do to identify.
My first advice is that you study your story, your type of attachment,
and your patterns of behavior thoroughly. Then answer the following questions and write
all the conclusions in a notebook. What your previous relationships have been like.
What problems you' ve often had, how you' ve reacted to conflicts
in what kind of people you usually look at, what kind of behaviors people
tend to have. You could describe what your ideal pair prototype looks like.
Beyond physics, you don' t need to focus on formal relationships alone.
They also tell the fuck friends to discriminate. The idea is that every time
you meet someone, you can determine whether they bring together in their way of
behaving and linking the characteristics you prefer to avoid. For the moment, falling
in love and its substances will complicate your task because they will blind you at
first. So the idea is to find a balance between getting carried away and
staying alert if you jump into the head pool and in the air you realize
it' s empty, you stick it really hard. The idea is to
launch yourself having first checked that there is water where you are going to fall
and look this is not to know if something is going to go well ahead
of time that sometimes we want to protect ourselves so much that we want to
go with everything known, we anticipate and we end up pifiando because of the
fear that we have generated. The idea is to get carried away while you
' re really getting to know each other and not to stay with the first
person to show affection to any part of your brain. He likes to say
no to love, but my advice is to check that you' re not
getting into the wolf' s mouth in exchange for a little love doing your
part of the job. Yes, the idea is not only that you discriminate
against those you don' t want to have at your side, but that
things about you You can work to change your way of interacting with others.
You have your share of responsibility, too. In this chapter I will teach
you how we tend to face the things that happen to us today according to
what we learned in the past, what tools worked for us in their time
but no longer serve us today, and what new tools we can learn to
use to heal the present. When the wound of the past is activated in
the present. Louis was the eldest of three brothers and had had a relatively
quiet life. He grew up surrounded by a lot of love. His parents
had always given him freedom and had shown him that they trusted him during his
adolescence. Late. He experienced some disappointments with several friendships, but, according
to him, nothing transcendental. In fact, one day her parents discovered that
the younger sister, Paula, had been flirting with marijuana for a while.
He had started smoking at seventeen years old and gradually ended up developing dependency,
with all the problems that that entails failure, school bad companies, days without
appearing at home, physical health problems and a toxic relationship with his partner.
As Luis told me, Paula stopped being herself. He looked like someone else,
he didn' t talk, he didn' t laugh, he just
wanted to smoke and get over life. The parents decided that the best thing
for her was to start treating her addiction with a team of professionals. From
the time Paula started treatment until she finished it. Pa, Pa, Pa
spent three years, three long and hard years for the whole family, but
especially for Luis, who lived that time with a sense of responsibility, impotence
and enormous frustration. That kept him in a constant and high state of physical
and mental alertness. During those three years. She felt responsible for being the
older brother and although he wanted to save her, it was impossible for Paula
to listen to no reason. Finally, her sister was hospitalized for a long
time and ended up recovering. He rejoined his studies and managed to continue his
life as best he could. Luis, for his part, didn' t
come out unscathed. He had suffered a major emotional injury He never felt enough.
In addition, at the time he had just become independent with his girlfriend
and, as at any beginning, he had to get used to many new
things, including organizing his income and expenses, which made it difficult for him
to reach the end of the month. His parents had no problem in helping
his son financially, but he knew that the center where he was admitted to
his sister was very expensive, because he listened to his parents talk about loans
and debts and did not want them to have an additional financial burden. For
this reason, Luis did not accept the money offered him. If he did,
he felt distressed and bad about himself for not being able to get through
on his own in a situation like that. All this vital experience deeply affected
his perception of personal worth. Also, until his financial problems were solved,
Luis had the feeling of being one more burden on the family. It is
likely that the boy grew up with a secure attachment and that, after his
sister' s illness, he would surely change to an anxious type. The
day Luis came to see me for a consultation, he showed nervousness, insomnia,
Christine and agonizing for the future. We were working on his story so
that he could understand the origin of his evil, which was neither in childhood
nor adolescence, but in four years ago, at the time Luis understood everything,
he burst into tears of relief. He finally understood himself. The people
who come to my office come to work I knew and my mission is to
accompany them through the depths of their unconsciousness and help them connect that part with
their bread. After those sessions, Luis began to feel better. At last
he had the reason for all his present problems. One day, however,
he appeared in the consultation with an anxiety crisis. A series of floating spots
had been noticed in the vision and had done the worst thing you can do
in these situations to look on the Internet. I' m afraid of glaucoma.
I read that spots can be a symptom of glaucoma and my grandfather had
glaucoma. It' s possible I inherited him. He told me worried,
but Luis, the spots on the eye can be for many reasons. You
know that many times our brain activates defense mechanisms that make us get at the
worst just by being prepared if the worst happens, but that it can happen
doesn' t mean it' s going to happen. And this is so.
We spend part of our lives spending energy, suffering for things that are
never going to happen. This phenomenon is called catastropheism. We will look closely
at this later. I know, but I don' t know. I
' m worried. I made an appointment at the ophthalmologist. All right,
done, you better look at it and that' s how you make sure.
Yeah, I' ve also noticed my skin itches a lot. It
may be because of the humidity of the environment. In summer, it'
s possible I answered and hesitated for a moment. It is sinto s or
s to be related to attention and stress. So I began to suspect that
what Luis related could be the fruit of something more emotional. We could be
talking about psychosomatic symptoms resulting from any injuries from the past. Hey, tell
me what you' ve done these days, because studying for oppositions and little
more and how you' re doing well I' m going to answer by
fixing a sad look at a point on the ground. I feel like I
' m never gonna get the square. I' m thirty- three years
old and I haven' t paid anything in social security. The thing was
taking shape. We were finally beginning to delve into the possible cause of their
discomfort. I feel like I don' t belong anywhere. He also told
me that, since his Bride was the only one working, he felt that
he continued to carry a burden on an economic level and that, although it
was something that had been discussed and negotiated a thousand times by mutual agreement,
he was distressed that he could not contribute to the day- to- day
expenses. The couple had plenty of money, but still, he felt that
he had to do something interesting. Years ago, Luis had a feeling that
he should do something useful, and today it was the same as if that
conduct had not been completed and he had not left. He knew in the
story of Luis and knew perfectly well that his wound was related to the low
perception of his personal worth, as well as to the feeling of being a
burden. If he related what he was telling me to what he already knew.
That led me to a very powerful conclusion. I had just confessed that
I felt a burden and that I did not belong anywhere just what I felt
in those traumatic years. It is possible that Luis would have activated his emotional
wound without realizing it. The life of an opponent is hard. He spends
years and years trying to get a place that, in addition to providing a
means with which to earn money, gives the opportunity to feel useful. To
those who perform their duties the work also gives in some way an identity.
Feeling useful gives meaning to life, and that was something Luis needed to be
able to mitigate the damage to his wound. Frustration of not being seen enough
to help his sister and Luis rather felt the opposite. He hadn' t
found his place in the world yet. His day to day was kind of
limbo. The boy had lived with his latent emotional wound for a while,
but now that wound was beginning to appear through symptoms that did not seem to
have a direct connection to the problem. Luis activated his sympathetic system after having
been spinning the subject of spots in the vision, and this led him to
fear. That localized fear triggered other fears, such as not getting the square
out. This never happens how typical you start scratching at one thing and you
end up scratching at everything, and in turn he thought that if he didn
' t get out of the square, it would always be useless. The
friend woke her up and warned the hippocampus that she said this about not feeling
useful. It rings a bell. The neural networks pulled the files from my
patient' s emotional wound, activated the emotions associated with memory and puom anxiety
crisis for Luis. Even if his sister was already well and the boy had
a quiet life, the current situation had evoked emotions capable of activating his emotional
wound. Luis didn' t know how or why he felt that way.
His Mind did not show him a direct relationship between memory as such and his
current symptoms. This is normal, since the wounds are stored in the unconscious
and sometimes we are only aware of the emotions associated with memory, but not
to the memory itself. That' s why, even if this one stays.
We are not able to relate the pain of the present to it of
the past. It' s as if the mind within its chaos in in
rn. The certain information to the bread from the p in a discreet way,
I explained to Luis my conclusion and his eyes began to moisten. This
is witchcraft. He told me between laughter and tears. You know what I
like to create an atmosphere of trust between laughter and jokes in therapy. Patients
thank me because they feel that humor allows them to fit things much better.
The young man knew what his wound meant and how it had been activated.
It was precisely that which motivated him to wonder how he could heal his wound
and after several minutes exchanging ideas, we decided that the path he could take
was to schedule a routine in which to do things that would make him feel
useful and valid in his day- to- day life. The satisfaction of
having taken advantage of an afternoon of study was something that, for example,
made him feel good. Obviously, the work was not left alone in that,
but at least it was a small start. As we already saw in
the second chapter, you make it through our lives. People are acquiring tools
to deal with different situations. Sometimes we learn them consciously, for example,
in therapy, as we saw in Daniel' s case, for which information
was an important tool, and other times they appear naturally and on the fly.
According to what is happening to us in life, these tools are established
the so- called patterns of behavior constant ways of thinking, feeling, reacting
physically and acting in certain situations. A pattern of conduct will always lead you
to act the same way. It is enough for a tool to work only
once to continue using it throughout life in any complicated situation. Even if we
don' t do well in the future, the brain will continue to hold
on to it because the person doesn' t know other tools. There are
those who serve at a specific time, but who eventually cease to be useful
every day. I see patients who maintain patterns of behavior that once worked,
but have ceased to use them. Te. I' ll give you an
example. Imagine that a child sees that his parents argue has often learned to
be aware of the emotions of their reference adults to intervene to regulate them and
thus manage their own discomfort. This child acquires a lifelong pattern of hypervigilance behavior
until he reaches his adult stage, in which he will maintain this hypervigilance towards
his partner, friends, etcetera. The injury of the adult person is related
to the survival strategy that he performed as a child. Here are some tools
I' ve observed in my patients. High self- exigency. People usually
use it to feel valid, get results, get reinforcement and approval from others
is a tool that allows them to gain self- esteem when people who have
been self- demanding are not doing anything productive. For example, they are
resting are usually discomfort because unconsciously they associate fulfilling their self- demands with procrastination
well- being leaving things for later is usually used to avoid feelings of discomfort
and possible failures. People who put it into practice often set aside tasks that
put a certain mental or emotional burden on them and focus on activities the result
of which they know are pleasant to them. This cognitive mechanism leads people to
think obsessively, turning the same things over and over again without reaching a clear
conclusion. It is used with the aim of finding a solution to a problem
that generates discomfort, so that people can end it with high responsibility, with
a high sense of responsibility base their pattern of behavior on the underlying belief of
themselves. I get things right, everyone will be proud of me and I
will finally be wanted by an out- of- the- box responsibility consumes
the person who ends up taking care of emotional backpacks that are not his and
that therefore do not correspond to hypervigilance. Maintaining a state of alertness to danger
in life or death situations can save our lives, but keeping it in everyday
situations in relation to the environment, the gestures or tone of voice of others
generates unnecessary and disadaptative anxiety. People with anxious attachment, for example, are
experts in interpreting imperceptible expressions on the face of others. They do so in
order to diagnose a danger, for example, that their partner is lying to
them. What happens is that their mental hyperactivity, impulsiveness and insecurity prevent them
from reaching certain conclusions. If they learned to handle this skill from the quiet,
they would be cracks interpreting people' s nonverbal behaviors. For their part,
people with evasive attachment also launch this tool, in such a way that
they observe others to be able to evaluate how they should feel and thus avoid
a conflict check behaviors check again and again that everything is well used to mitigate
discomfort. A check- up behavior may be, for example, to search
the Internet for symptoms of possible illnesses or the social media stalling of friends,
family and partner or is a couple bursting with anger. Angry anger or anger
is an emotion that, well managed, can be a very useful tool.
It allows us to express that it bothers us and set limits. People who
learned how to use IRA as a tool to prevent emotional pain tend to be
adults with a lot of impulsiveness and poor management of anger, which leads them
to have problems in establishing links with others. All these tools are a double
- edged weapon, sometimes silbni and sometimes are the source of the problem.
It' s paradoxical, but it' s so sometimes. The discomfort comes
from the very tools that the brain uses in the past to solve a problem
and according to the discomfort that it posed. For example, people with anxiety,
knock depression etc. They suffer a lot from their high self- exigency,
procrastination, hypersurveillance, checking behaviors and so on. But these are tools
that the brain continues to use because they served him in his day. The
objective of all the above tools is the same control. This allows us to
have everything supervised and organized, which gives us peace of mind. Having a
feeling of important controls for everyone, but trying to have absolute control of our
environment, which is what is intended most of the times that these tools are
used in order to obtain emotional tranquility, is almost impossible, which makes,
paradoxically, we generate more discomfort. The three types of unsure, anxious,
evasive, and disorganized attachment can show any of these features Now let' s
see an exercise on the tools we' ve been talking about. Exercise think
about your story and reflect on what you did in the highly stressful situations you
lived to solve them. If you have difficulty identifying the tools you used,
you can start with the present. Think about what you' re doing today
to solve a problem, even if you notice the results you' re waiting
for or if you' re upset because of one of the tools you use
and reflect on whether that behavior or thought ever happened successfully in therapy. My
patients ask me a lot how to manage emotional wounds. They also ask about
how to change the type of attachment and although the answer is easy to work
with, it' s not as much as you know. Emotional wounds are
closely related to the activation of the attachment system and the change from a secure
attachment to an insecure one. Therefore, those who normally come to therapy to
work their emotional wounds have an interest in maintaining healthy bonds. I get myself
and the people around this question, because I always answer the same thing.
You need to do two things personal therapy and live a positive experience related to
that fear or that pain and show you that you are in a safe place.
Healing an emotional wound is not anything. The goal that we therapists who
engage in this are to generate harmony between the three brains so that, instead
of processing each on its own, they all work with the same information.
Imagine that you' re doing a group job with other colleagues and you decide
that everyone will do their part and then you' ll put it all together.
What usually happens in these cases, that the result is a disaster writing
different different fonts, repeated content, one part with images and others without one
part has a total of three pages and the other fifty- six, etc.
Well, this is what the brain usually does when each of its steps
has a different understanding of things. In a person whose emotional wounds remain open,
this happens. The rational brain says your partner isn' t going to
cheat on you, because every day it shows you that he loves you.
The emotional brain says your partner' s gonna cheat on you because he raised
his eyebrow when you asked him if you wanted to have salad. Just like
your ex did at the time you found out he was with someone else,
he' s starting to get tired of you. History repeats itself. I
think the best thing you could do is snoop through all the social media to
stay calm. The reptilian brain says we' re going to die in a
person whose emotional wounds have been healed. This is another one. The rational
brain says your partner isn' t going to cheat on you, because every
day it shows you that he loves you. The emotional brain says I'
m here. The reptilian brain says it' s all ok. But how
did we get to this? Although there are very complex and special techniques for
these cases, such as lia envio, amugment, distance pfastation in RIP pssasen.
It is always highly recommended to use them along with other more common tools,
such as behavioral cognitive work focused on trauma, which are the ones I
will refer to on a larger scale in this book. As small pills of
knowledge, handling jealousy from the theory of emotional wound, I want you to
see with me the case of Lourdes, a twenty- eight- year-
old girl with problems handling jealousy in her current relationship and whose emotional wound is
related to the humiliation that she was forced to experience an infidelity on the part
of her partner. Your story will help me to develop all the steps I
consider essential when working an emotional wound that presents symptoms today. Lourdes shook me
for two years. She had been with her partner Manuel for four years,
and jealousy had begun to wreak havoc on both the relationship and herself. He
had become obsessed with him to the point of interrogating him with stalking, counting
the condoms, controlling the connection time of the Whatsapp, observing the times he
appeared online, checking his email and social networks, or again and again ruminating
conversations they had had in the past. My patient felt like she was going
crazy. He had realized that he spent all his time thinking and controlling his
partner, who had already told him and proved on many occasions that he loved
him and that he had nothing with anyone else. She had been living a
healthy couple' s bond, which means she had an important factor in closing
that emotional wound, the positive experience. The problem was that he lacked the
other part, personal work. Jealousy had been taking over her life for a
while and if we did not act soon, the link between her and her
partner could become toxic and make her emotional wound even bigger, something that in
a hypothetical future case in which Lourdes was no longer with manuel Le, would
also harm her relationships. His personal work lasted more than a year, time
we devoted to the next steps one understand the story itself. For me it
is indispensable to realize a line of life or chronological axis with personal events,
as it returns to our conscious mind situations that we thought forgotten. It can
be done with the help of photographs. Personally, it' s a tool
that I' ve dared many times when I want to find meaning to something
that happens to me. Today I go to my parents' house and review
all the photos, no matter how many times I' ve seen them before.
That brings back memories and thoughts that help me keep pulling the thread.
And it' s funny because, although I always go with them, they
' re about to have discovered everything, every time I do the exercise a
new memory appears. Observe my past and determine how it affected and conditioned me.
It' s something that I find very useful. Before meeting her current
partner, Lourdes had a toxic relationship in which her ex cheated on her over
and over again, thus generating an emotional wound in her. In those situations
of the past, my patient learned to control his partner. It avoided a
worse discomfort to be humiliated by infidelity. Lourdes did the same thing she was
doing at this point in her life, controlling, checking and stamping. I
had learned to be a ruminant person. I was spinning things over and over
all the time. That prepared her to tie up and find any gaps in
history, which in turn helped her discover one infidelity after another. These tools
were useful to her at that particular stage of her life and now Lourdes was
using them again without more reason than suspicion enough to activate her emotional wound.
As with our past, it is especially important to know those with whom we
have close ties. It can help if the person tells you his story.
In my case, seeing pictures of my parents or partner being with them has
given rise to magical moments in which they tell their stories. While I listen
carefully and have a cup of tea, a coffee or a hot chocolate.
That has allowed me to see with compassionate eyes the things they do today,
even though those things influence me too to understand the story of Lourdes was key
for Manuel when it comes to accompanying her in managing her jealousy. There were
times when she was angry from her own thoughts and then paid for it with
him, which clearly responded to the defensive. She was greatly helped to understand
how her partner could feel every time he turned to him aggressively, if he
faced an emotional wound or injury. We know the mechanisms that are activated,
in what way, when and why we will understand many of the symptoms with
which we live to pass from yet I do not know what happens to me
within an hour. I get it. I may not solve the whole problem,
but it relieves you a lot and makes you feel less. Weird bug
is a start and my hope is that this book is helping you to analyze
everyday situations like this. Urdes was very helpful in understanding that jealousy is simply
an emotion, that it is neither good nor bad, that it is born
from a mixture of fear and goes to emotions that have to do with the
activation of the attachment system and that play with our mind. And this allowed
him to make some peace. With her pain she did not feel mad,
but understood that she remained tremendously alert. When the suspicion was lit, he
observed that stimulus had normally activated it. It was anything related to Manuel'
s evening departures, with his friends, incoming messages, people who were guided
or stopped following on social networks, hours of arrival at home and discussions between
them and unsolved that had little to do with third people, but rather with
problems of coexistence. Although Manuel wasn' t a saint and he didn'
t do everything perfectly, he didn' t do anything out of the ordinary
either. But of course, those things that bothered Urdes instead of talking to
his partner, she took them to the extreme because of the pain caused by
his emotional wound. That is why every discussion ended up being an odyssey in
which Manuel felt attacked and lords offended and misunderstood to understand how the mind works
in these situations. My patient followed these steps, analyzing how her body responded,
thinking, behavior, emotion, and physical symptoms. He remembered the metaphor
of the triangle and the confirmatory bias that you' ve already read in I
love you I want the tendency to favor, seek me out the RNS and
remember the information that confirms your own previous beliefs, obviating other alternatives. Then
he remembered how much the brain likes to relive the past and react to it
as if it was happening at this very moment. Now you know why it
happens. This fell into the account of the ravages caused by the phenomenon of
him catastrophism concept that I explain to you later on and in the end,
I saw the ease with which we strengthen behaviors and thoughts that make the cycle
of the checkup go to more becoming addicted to it. This is usually done
with the help of a therapist who links the symptoms you have with your own
story. In the case of Lourdes, she had developed an anxious attachment after
her past toxic relationship and had learned to be hypervigilating by the fear of being
abandoned, rejected and humiliated. Again, the same tools he used. He
then continued to use it in his relationship with Manuel so that this hypothetical abandonment
would not happen. The problem was that he was now using them for a
situation that was not threatening at all, so they gave him more pain and
suffering. It was like he was trying to kill the hunger with the desire
to eat. Although at first the formula works and generates calm, over time,
the cycle is reinforced, the discomfort increases and the tool learned this alqueo
tastes little, it is like an addiction. The person needs another tool,
almost always related to control to be able to generate well- being quickly.
People who perform the cycle of the checkup add up to another malaise consider that
they are morally not doing well. It' s not right. Don'
t trust the couple and gossip their stuff without them knowing The idea is to
determine exactly what tools you have to do. In this way, Lourdes realized
that she had to abandon her check- up behavior once and for all.
He found it very difficult, because it' s something that, as you
know, we end up developing addiction. But he got it every time he
wanted to control, something resorted to the technique of dead time, that is,
he completely evaded that situation and began to do anything else incompatible with the
checkup. For example, he went to the gym, started cooking, went
to his mother' s house, etcetera. To make it easier for herself.
He turned off his cell phone and left it in another room. Six
learn to live in the present. Our mind tends to project us into the
past or the future. When it transports us into the past, we tend
to ruminate things that might have been and were not things related to responsibility,
guilt, failure. We repeat these situations in our head over and over again
and keep us in a time that will no longer return, preventing us from
living and enjoying the present when the mind transports us to the future. Instead,
we imagine possible runs situations that give us fear, but that probably never
happen. The present moment is the only one that we can truly control to
return to it. When his head decided to travel, Lourdes set in motion
the next point seven, practicing physical relaxation seems silly, but eye because it
can make a difference. Conscious breathing greatly helped Lourdes in her personal work.
It allowed him to connect with the present and regulate his state of hypervigilance.
As he breathed rhythmically, his nervous system relaxed and his emotions and thoughts lost
intensity. Lourdes followed the instructions of several breathing techniques that I detail in the
box or conscious breath of chapter five, so that you too can put them
into practice when you need it. Lourdes had to restructure many of her beliefs
about love and couple relationships. Remember that this information you have in me I
love you But beyond that, you had to learn to recognize that thoughts had
an irrational basis and could not be argued in a logical way in order to
be able to exchange them for rational thoughts. He tended to compare himself to
other girls. Your coworker' s got a bigger chest than me. I
' m sure he likes more rational thinking. Your partner is with you because
he loves you and values you for something more than your physique. Remember all
the things he always tells you he likes about you and if he' s
never asked you questions. Having large breasts can be attractive, but it doesn
' t define a person much less, it determines someone' s feelings for
her. He made many arbitrary inferences, i e he jumped to negative conclusions
without having any empirical evidence that could support his thoughts. Come on, he
was making the movie of his life. He' s talking a lot about
this. Friend, I' m sure you have something else with her rational
thinking. People can have friends while in a couple relationship. They are not
exclusive links to each other. Also, talking to someone does not imply wanting
to have a sexual or partner relationship with that person. Never upload photos with
me to social media. That' s because he doesn' t want me
to think rationally. Social networks are not real life and love is shown in
many other more important and relevant ways than posting a photo on an Internet profile
that doesn' t show you on their social networks is not enough reason to
think that your partner doesn' t love you. I was disqualifying the good
things I had I consider myself an intelligent person, but that' s not
worth anything, because then my boyfriend talks to other girls and I' m
sure it' s because they' re more interesting than me rational thinking you
' re smart and you have to value all the times you have to be,
because that' s a good thing you' re going to have.
Whenever your partner talks to other women doesn' t mean he wants to have
them as a couple. If he' s with you, it' s
because he wants to be. If I didn' t want to have you
as a couple, I wouldn' t be with you. I guessed his
boy' s intentions. He tells me to go out to the movies and
have dinner, but I' m sure it' s because I got mad
at him this morning and he does it to please me, not because he
really wants rational thinking, even if he does it to please you. It
should be something you value in a positive way, since it is a way
of showing interest in you and the relationship. If you want to stick to
everything, you can do it. It' s easy. You just have
to attribute bad intentions to every gesture. But why would I have bad intentions
with you to someone who loves you and is proving it to you. I
think you can just enjoy and it' s already over generalizing situations related to
your own emotional state. Today I have fallen back on checking behaviors I will
always be so I will never get better rational thinking. Just because you'
ve fallen back today doesn' t mean you' re always gonna be wrong.
We can all have a bad day, fall back or make a mistake.
It' s okay. It' s human. When it happens,
it' s time to get up and go on. In the end you
' ll get it, you can' t give up that easily. You
need perseverance and dedication. For this it is not important to have a broad
knowledge of the world of emotions in general, but a broad knowledge of your
emotions for it. Lourdes, if I work to answer the following questions,
when do those emotions appear that are unpleasant to you. Lourdes' s response
when I feel that my partner may be hiding something from me which notes Lourdes
' s response upset what name you would name them, if you' re
not clear about it, you could say what emotions it usually relates to.
That you notice Lourdes' s response jealousy will be afraid. Where Lourdes'
s response notes on the chest. Feeling these emotions in the chest tells us
that Lourdes has overactivated the sympathetic system and that it is generating stress. Chest
pain is a typical symptom of anxiety. Remember that the body generates three,
because the head interprets that there is a danger from which we have to escape
or against which we have to fight. This reaction has many senses and we
take into account that Lourdes' emotions are related to fear. In addition,
it is known that by inertia, fear activates brain areas capable of activating.
In turn, the brain area of the IRA, like a desk pendulum,
is the area of the body in which you feel bad about being in Lourdes
' s answer if you know what those emotions are for and what they are
doing the moment Lourdes' s response appears, fear serves to alert me to
a danger that I think is happening in this case, that my partner abandons
me and anger is there to defend me from that danger. Since when Lourdes
' s response notes, since I think my partner cheats on me, how
you think Lourdes' s response is affecting you, condition me to face my
partner by feeling jealous. My brain relates what happens at that time to what
I lived in the past, my emotional wound, and how it was very
painful for me. Now he' s trying to defend me from that danger
through emotions. My brain considers my partner my source of distress ergo my enemy.
That' s why I have aggressive behavior with him. You can find
some way to weld the situation without letting yourself be carried away by emotions.
Lourdes' s answer. When I identify these emotions, I have to calm
them before acting How you can regulate their intensity. Lourdes' s answer.
I can cry and download what I' m sorry for going out and going
around writing what I think and I feel to see it with another perspective,
practicing breathing four I saw four script eight you' re going to find out
what' s in a couple of pages, commenting with my partner what'
s happening to me. All of that will help me better than to face
him impulsively or repeat checking behaviors. Evidently, Lourdes gave these answers after having
been working on several sessions and co- educational emotions. At this point we
try to learn new patterns of behavior in the situations in which we feel most
vulnerable. Lourdes learned to calm down before starting a discussion with her partner,
to express her or mons without fear of feeling that she was doing anything wrong
and without fear of feeling judged by her partner or herself, not to perceive
herself as a toxic person, since she understood that the problem was not her,
but what she had learned in the past, exposing her concerns assertively,
without attacking her partner eleven to enhance self- esteem. With all these points
that we worked previously, Lourdes gained a lot of confidence in herself, but
she still had the most important thing to do with compassion, something that we
will see in the last chapter, the most magical of the book not the
traps and she continues to read in order. You' ll see that it
all makes a lot more sense. Right now, Lourdes is feeling much better
and we see each other from time to time in follow- up consultations,
in which we talk about the situations that occur in the relationship and review some
important aspects. So far, she remains happily paired with Manuel, who was
of great help throughout Lourdes' s personal work ponto, as he did his
best to understand her and bring her the peace and confidence she needed, without
acting defensively or invalidating her emotional state. Conscious breathing, this is something that
brings us back a lot to the present. We already know that breathing is
a technique that helps us to relax physically, but it also helps to relax
our mind. When we breathe consciously, we can stop those thoughts that torment
us, evade them, and think about what is happening right now, not
in my head, but at this moment, when we are aware of our
breathing, our body, and the things around us. We anchor to the
present like when we get home after a night of partying and unbridled. We
lay down in bed and everything turns around, but then we put a foot
on the floor and it looks like we stabilized a little bit. I'
m in my room. There' s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I
am not in danger, with which in front of me there is nothing to
face. It' s all in my head. In the next section.
I' ll explain a little more about how to work those thoughts that torment
you. But now let' s see how to practice breathing. Conscious of
the technique of the four script, four script eight. Here are the steps
to carry out this simple technique. Step one, take air from your nose
slowly until you fill your lungs. You can count four seconds during the process,
don' t lift your chest, expand your abdomen outwards. Step two,
hold the air for four seconds. Keep your abdomen swollen. Step three,
slowly eject the air through the mouth. You can count eight seconds while
you do it during the process of zincha the abdos trick to perfect. The
technique performs the lying place hands above the abdomen to notice how it goes up
and down. An interesting variation of this technique is to place a candle lit
in front of you at an equivalent distance along your arm. Exercise is to
prevent the flame from turning off. This allows you to better control the inlet
and exit of the air. The magic word can also associate the state of
relaxation with a word choose a magic word that will help you decrease anxiety.
I usually use the English word relax. Then follow the next steps. One
sit down and try to relax two. Take a deep breath, keep the
air in your lungs and slowly eject three as you breathe out. Imagine in
detail how your body and muscles are relaxing completely. Four, re- inspire
deeply and in the next aspiration say very slowly for your insides the word relax.
Five, when you get to x, you must have gone all over
your body mentally relaxing it. Six, repeat the exercise every time you get
a chance. You will see that, little by little your magic word becomes
more effective so that it serves in emotions, so that, as lords,
you can train in the handling of your emotions. I' m going to
leave you here an essential knowledge the goal of each of the basic emotions in
my book Love Your Sex You have a wheel where each and every secondary emotion
such as jealousy, frustration, humiliation, guilt, etcetera, appears related to
their primary or basic emotions. If you decide to feel, for example,
guilt with the wheel, you will realize that guilt is related to shame and,
at the same time, to the primary emotion of fear. If you
know what the relationship between the two is for, you' ll always be
able to determine quite more accurately what that guilt does to your body at that
time. Fear warns you of a danger allows you to run away anger.
It activates you in the face of danger, it helps you fight it.
It helps you set limits sadness, allows you to perform introspection. It helps
you, in times of mourning, to reposition yourself and look for your place
in the disgusting world. It allows you, to turn away from those things
that generate physical or emotional rejection. Surprise can be positive or negative depending on
the events. It allows you to prepare for unexpected events. Happiness reinforces those
things that make you feel good so that you repeat them again by catastrophism.
One of the things that Lourde Wax told me. I don' t want
to get home early in case she' s with someone else. She took
it for granted that her partner was with someone else and that any day she
was going to catch them was, as if she knew Manuel was cheating on
her and her mission was to discover them. But at the same time I
would not want for the suffering that that could cause him. With that phrase,
my patient made it clear that his mind had activated a more common tool
than you believe in catastrophism. Catastrophic thoughts appear as a defense mechanism. They
anticipate what is to come in a magnified and apocalyptic way, that is,
that the brain tends to imagine the worst possible situation. Thus, we try
to find explanations for something that happens to us, prevent situations and visualize possible
and catastrophic futures. Most likely not half of what you imagine will happen,
but as it is in your mind, you live it without dye before as
if it were something real. With this, the body tends to respond with
the typical symptoms of anxiety. And this happens because the brain wants to prepare
us for the worst and be ready for when all that we imagine comes,
although objectively it may never come the way we think. Therefore, this strategy
does not serve us much more than to develop anxiety for things that may not
actually happen. Your brain doesn' t like you to suffer and be anxious,
but from the moment you think the worst is up until you know what
' s really going on, it prefers to be prepared and alert to what
it thinks is coming. Thus our mind takes advantage of anxiety as an activation
tool for the analysis of dangerous situations and the search for solutions. My brain
does this many times. I' ve already given him a degree in Catastrophology
and the sciences of misfortune, honor tuition. I have this pattern of thought.
It is very typical in people who suffer anxiety and phobias and is not
necessarily given out of fear of infidelities, but also for other fears, such
as fear of death, of being locked up somewhere, of something happening in
a public place with many people and not being able to receive medical help easily,
of having a car accident, of suspending exams, of a dismissal from
work, of having a terminal illness, we spend half our life suffering for
things that are probably not going to happen. I don' t want to
get home early in case she' s with someone else. It is a
catastrophic thought, because in her mind, Lourdes is living the worst possible situation
that can imagine her partner being unfaithful to her in her own home, a
territory that she considers a refuge and notice that for more sinri reacts by delaying
her return home, so the thought not only remains in something ethereal of the
mind, but also conditions her behavior to work these catastrophic thoughts PS first the
i n Stins, we explained and then we tried to look for alternatives and
less catastrophic more rational, as we did in step eight with all the thoughts
that we analyzed. Some of the questions that helped him to work on his
catastrophe were as follows. What evidence do I have that this is going to
happen that I fear Lourdes' answer is none? What evidence do I have
that what I want isn' t really Lourdes' s answer? My partner
loves me and proves it to me every day. If this thing that I
fear happened, what would be the answer of lords would leave my partner even
if I had a bad time, but I would try to redo my life
and there is already the paradox of fear. Whenever these catastrophic thoughts appeared,
he answered these questions and realized that he had no solid evidence to support his
fear. Another thing that helped her a lot was a phrase that I always
say in a rather black mood. The truth is, if I have to
die, then I die and that' s it and we took it figuratively.
Of course, no one cares about dying, but it' s something
that if it has to happen, it will happen and no one will be
able to avoid it. Evidently, you' re not going. Over there,
playing with death. Huy look, I' m tied up on the
train tracks, but what I mean is that whatever care you have, however
much you want to avoid death at all costs. When the time comes for
you, it' ll come to you. You can' t be all
the time avoiding dangers, just because life is full of dangers. In the
end, living means taking risks. We have to live without doing crazy things,
but we have to live and we have to do it without thinking about
all the bad things that can happen to us at every step we take,
because if fear kidnaps our mind, then we will not be living. Even
staying at home has some risks. That' s why if I have to
die, then I' m dying. This is very paradoxical to take the
car thinking I hope I don' t have an accident. I don'
t want to die. It usually makes us alert and, therefore, more
clumsy behind the wheel. Fear conditions, however, to think good if I
have to die, because I die, gives you as more freedom, because
somehow it frees you from fear. As I say, obviously, this thought
will not condition you in doing the opposite, which would be very crazy on
the road, but it serves to free the mental burden from suffering. Your
responsibility in this case is to seek, follow the rules of movement and be
a good citizen. As long as you do that, nothing has to happen.
Urdes was very funny about this phrase and applied it to his fear,
so every time he noticed that anxiety took hold of it he said if I
have to die, for I die, that is, if my partner cheats
on me, then I put them on. If it has to happen,
it will pass. I can' t help it. My only responsibility is
to take care of my relationship. As much as I control what my partner
does or stops doing. This behavior is not going to rid me of an
infidelity and if it happens I will stop and stop and seriously. This applies
to virtually any fear of intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are unpleasant, unwanted and
involuntary ideas or images that appear in the mind spontaneously and are unrelated to other
thoughts and activities. Sometimes they are even contrary to their own principles. People
who suffer from it, who are many, often feel a lot of fear
and anguish and relate that such thoughts are frightening, obsessive, or disturbing and
that they can do nothing to avoid what or what they may control. Often
these people have the feeling of becoming crazy, given the level of physiological,
behavioral, emotional and cognitive activation that introsive thinking provokes them, but nothing further
from reality. Precisely being aware of that state is an indicator of good prognosis.
Some intrusive thoughts are related to attacks on a loved one, sexual behavior
or crimes. These are things that you know perfectly well that you would never
do, but whose idea appears spontaneously and just thinking about it causes a lot
of discomfort. Another case of jealousy on this retrospective occasion is that of Jesus,
a forty- two- year- old boy married to Sonia of forty.
He had been 17 years, practically from the beginning of the relationship,
feeling the retrospectives of an ex of his partner, because one day he told
her he reminded him a little bit. Since then, Jesus’ head has
not stopped spinning. He researched Alex saw pictures of him and began to feel
that this person was prettier, smarter and more interesting than him. My patient
told me that although their current relationship was very good and Sonia was a love,
he felt quite insecure when these thoughts appeared. When I feel that jealousy
for no reason, I show myself distant, I tell myself about it.
Sonia realizes and tells me again the same thing she always tells me to calm
me down, but at that moment it doesn' t help me. Although
Sonia was being great the accompaniment Jesus did not feel calm. That was because
he had never done personal work, which was the piece of puzzle he lacked.
When I start to think, horrible images come to my head that I
wish I didn' t have how I asked how I imagine them in bed
and when those thoughts come to you, they just do it, or there
' s some stimulus that shoots them come alone. He fell apart, had
been struggling with those thoughts for years and no longer knew what to do so
that his head wouldn' t show them to him anymore. It was recomposed
as it could and continued, although I must confess that they were not always
spontaneous. It all started with comparisons and whole afternoons consciously feedback this whole move.
Well, that' s where we had the key. This seemed to
be a complicated case, bearing in mind that rumination was something that had been
going on for a long time, so it probably took the stripe at first
and turned around it was a habit that had been generated over the years,
giving rise to a mechanism more than automated intruding thoughts. Jesus and I were
working many of the techniques you' ve already seen, but as far as
intrusive thoughts were concerned, there was a tool that served him a lot or
or or prayed them without realizing it. Every time I paid attention to them,
we were strengthened to worry about intrusive thoughts and thus to try to control
or prevent them. It was worse because it was giving the phenomenon more importance
than it had. Those thoughts lacked logical content. They didn' t serve
him at all in real life. The more he listened to them, the
worse he felt and the stronger they appeared later. Jesus should stop paying attention
to them, not without first working on the emotional burden with which he had
associated them. His emotional wound. In his case, this had to do
with the control he learned to exercise over himself throughout his life. He always
felt little and though he had never experienced a breakup or infidelity before. As
Lourdes grew up with very demanding parents, they wanted their son to be someone
of benefit, so, with all the love in the world and thinking they
were doing him a favor, they tightened his nuts more than once. Indeed,
Jesus went to a man of profit. He ended up working as a
surgeon in a very prestigious hospital, but not without paying a price. The
obsession with controlling their environment resorted to this tool in order to be meticulous in
their studies. He considered that controlling everything was part of his professional success.
So, well, it wasn' t that bad either. The problem was
that I was using the same mechanism to generate mental tranquility, something that never
came because, as you can imagine, that tool was no longer useful,
because it is not the same to handle emotions as surgical instruments. His Mind
was trying to control all the information at all times and when things didn'
t go as he hoped, it would fall apart. If his mind did
not shut up when he wanted it or his anxiety could be very upset.
This in psychology is called the discomfort of discomfort, that is, you no
longer feel bad about what happens to you, but for not knowing how to
manage what happens to you. Jesus, these thoughts have the weight you want
to give them. He looked at me with a skeptical face and I laughed
at him. I know you' re wrong, and it' s normal
to be wrong after everything you' ve told me about. But you'
ve come to feel good and be able to handle these situations. No,
you have to listen to me in your head. There' s one thing
that' s real right now and it' s whatever you' re thinking
I don' t understand you. He managed to say yes, the brain
does not distinguish between reality and fiction. So, he thinks all the moves
you get in your head are real. You' ve ever had a hard
time watching a scary movie. Yes, he responded attentively with a look that
gave up waiting to see where he wanted to go with that conversation. Well,
that' s because your mind thinks what' s happening on the screen
is real. But not only that. I' m going to explain what
your head does in these situations with a metaphor Vale got into his chair,
leaned his elbows on the table and stared at the folio in which I clumsily
started drawing a car. Imagine that your mind is a highway through which thousands
of cars pass a day. These cars are actually thoughts. You know how
many go through the day on our highway twenty- six thousand, but we
only look at two or three. Why you' ll see we have a
kind of barrier like on highways, it really filters that cars are more or
less important. If you fix your attention on a particular car, for example,
the blue one, the rest will give you the same. Imagine that
you are on the journey, attentive to the cars that pass and cross the
blue car for the first time. It is a very nice color and,
as you like it very much, you decide to stop it by lowering the
barrier and you start to observe all the details of the car. You turn
around and think oh leather seats and white body. I love it. You
' ve got six gears. What happened when you think you' re done
reviewing it, you climb up the barrier and let it go a lot of
cars of all colors, orange, red, green, white. But those
guys don' t break down the barrier,' cause you like blue.
When you see a blue car approaching the toll again, you prepare and lower
the barrier again to stop it. You seemed to have seen it all before,
but apparently you still have some more details left to analyze. Once you
' ve gone over it again from top to bottom, you climb up the
barrier and let the car continue its path. This process can be repeated so
foolishly. As you wish, the car is just a car, but you,
every time you stop it, are giving it a different sense, which
makes every time you see it coming you feel the need to lower the barrier.
Remember that the blue car is the thought you' ve given emotional content
to, but you decide and lower the barrier or not, so I have
to stop lowering the barrier. Exactly. The more times you stop that empty
thought and the more turns you give it, the more emotional burden it will
bring and the more times it will be repeated. You think the brain would
stop to look at a thought that' s not relevant to him. No,
there you go. After more than a year working very hard and with
the help of medication at the beginning of therapy, Jesus managed to get rid
of those blessed thoughts, enjoy more of his relationship and be able to feel
at peace with himself. It is true that even today he confesses to me
that from time to time he still smells the blue car in the distance and
that, although on some occasion he has lowered the barrier, most of the
times he lets it pass without interacting with him as a professional. I have
to say that I am very proud of Jesus the emotional wound of the other.
Let' s see now the case of a couple of camila girls and
I decided twenty- six and twenty- eight years respectively, who came to
my office. In this case it looks great how some tools save you at
some point in your life, but over time and in other very different circumstances
they end up becoming a problem in themselves. They both came to my office
to discuss their relationship as a couple, so I was able to analyze they
handled their discussions very badly, whatever the issue would trigger their anger. Neither
managed to understand the other. Each was obsessing in their own opinions and loved
acting defensively. When I treated them separately, I could learn their respective pre
- relationship stories. Camila had had a toxic and dependent relationship years before she
had made her develop an evasive attachment and I will say she was a person
charged with a lot of insecurity and fears due to the anxious attachment she had
developed since childhood because of the ambivalent relationship she had with her parents before she
met I would say she had learned to distrust everyone and Camila to be defensive
about anything that could hurt her one day, I witnessed one of her discussions
and came to a conclusion that she undoubtedly marked even before and after in the
couple. Activating her emotional wounds every time they argued was what separated her.
More and more I will say exposed in a session an insecurity that Camila generated
unconsciously. Every time she got angry with her, she stopped talking to her
for a few hours, and that made me decide to be afraid because it
made her think Camila was thinking of leaving the relationship. In this way,
the wound of decision would wake up and his brain would throw away imagination that
his partner would remain silent for so many hours. He had the warning system
activated for possible abandonment. It gave the emotional inconsistency of the parents I had
grown up with. Saying, I' d learned that people who love you
one day can be there and the next day they won' t. After
the account of Camila decided, he became angry. I just need that time
to calm down. I do it with the best intention, and he takes
it that way. Camila undoubtedly felt attacked during the years of toxic relationship with
her partner. He had learned to protect himself emotionally, fleeing conflict situations.
Her ex manipulated her and carried in her all the problems that arose in the
relationship that they said. I didn' t understand I needed that space.
It made him feel responsible for something that he could not control in any other
way and, therefore, also activate his emotional wound and get defensive, showing
weariness for the situation. This, in turn, further fed the idea of
saying that it could be abandoned. And so to infinity I transferred my conclusion
to them. Girls, you realize that you activate each other the emotional wounds
of the past. They both shut up instantly and looked at me seriously.
Every time you argue, you do it from your pain, without understanding the
pain of those facing a reflective silence reigned for several seconds. You know the
past of the other, but do not understand how it is influencing you in
the present. I continued Every time you argue, look at only your own
navel and forget that you have someone in front of you who has also suffered
not without consequences. With your behavior you activate your deepest fears and react to
the present conflict as if it were that of the past. The same emotions,
s s s ns, the same defense mechanisms. I will say your
partner is not your parents, Camila, your partner is not your ex both
kept quiet after a while of sirea, felt and whispered. How I can
react otherwise is not up to you alone. Camila has to do her part.
They bowed to me attentively and I began to talk to them about the
importance of empathy in a relationship, whatever kind it may be without the ability
to understand each other' s pain. We can' t have healthy relationships.
Camila had the right to take her time of reflection after a discussion that
she didn' t want to get worse with her strong temper, but knowing
that that caused fear in her partner, it was her responsibility to communicate what
she was going to do so that she decided not to think the worst as
long as she stayed away. By communicating it, it would generate the sense
of stability in the relationship I decided to need and over time it would understand
that an angry Camila didn' t have to mean the end of the relationship.
The solution was easy and difficult at the same time because both had learned
to protect themselves from emotional suffering, each with different tools, say, putting
in place hypersurveillance and adopting alert and camilla behaviors, getting defensive and having bursts
of anger but surely functional at some point in their life. The problem was
that those tools had ceased to serve and only gave even more feedback on the
pain. His main task now was not to perceive himself as enemies. The
importance of empathy in cases where we activate the emotional wounds of the people around
us, in addition to knowing their history, is very, very important to
practice empathy. Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the other person'
s place and understand what he may be feeling in a given situation. This,
this, this, this, this. It has nothing to do with
guessing or reading thought, but it has more to do with intuiting what may
be happening to a person, whether good or bad. Empathy can be applied
in any relationship, but I think it' s even more logical for us
to consider putting it into action with people we love. That' s why
I' m going to give you the keys so you can start working on
it You' ll see how different your discussions are, whether as a couple
with friends or with a relative. One listens attentively without interrupting or judging two.
While listening, try to imagine that you would feel in a situation similar
to the one that the person is describing to you. Don' t give
yourself away. In your opinion, try to understand other points of view.
For you, it' s very important for you, I know, but
for the person who' s bringing you his vision of things. Their perception
is also very important. Four, remember that there are as many realities of
the same fact as two people. Five expresses that you understand what the other
person is moving you. This is essential for communication, as it is not
the same to understand and not to say what to understand and transmit that understanding
seems a minor detail, but remember that the other person cannot guess what you
are thinking. You can prove your understanding. So it' s normal for
you to be angry if you saw it this way, this is what you
' re going through, it seems very stressful. It had to be really
hard on you. You must feel very sad. I understand your point of
view. I, in your place, would be angry, too. It
' s terrible. You' re right. I' m sorry you had
to go through this giving a hug, exchanging understanding looks. Empathy will allow
us to recognize and embrace the vulnerability of those in front of us and show
it to others will give us the opportunity to create a climate of calm and
serenity that is perfect to advance in any relationship. It is the ideal tool
to feel that we play in the same team. I know it' s
hard to practice understanding when we' re part of the conflict. It'
s hard to get out of our pain to understand someone else' s,
but believe me it' s in these cases that we have to use empathy
the most. When someone understands the pain we feel, it loses intensity and
that makes us see things more clearly. The keys to healthy communication, healthy
communication is accurate and effective communication. To practice it is necessary to take into
account your own emotions and opinions, as well as the emotions and opinions of
the other person. The goal is to generate a space that invites expression and
understanding, one in which neither side feels threatened. To make yourself comfortable in
the relationship. To do this, we need to negotiate, express our wishes,
set limits, feel supported and supported, talk confidently about issues that concern
us, not just feel that whoever we have next door is not our enemy.
To have healthy relationships, we need to have uncomfortable conversations. Discussing isn
' t bad, as you' ve thought all your life, it'
s no longer worth saying we' re fine because we don' t argue.
We have finally understood that generating spaces for dialogue is something necessary to continue
to grow in all relationships. We need to talk about feelings of the future,
of the past, of longings, of things that hurt and things that
make us happy. Discussions are opportunities to express discomfort, recognize mistakes, ask
forgiveness and find solutions. The discussions that are generated within the same team always
go well for all parties. The ones generated between rival teams never go well
and only feed the selfishness of one of the parties. But what' s
the point of having a relationship, then how I was called one of my
team' s psychologists. You can imagine Bensema playing against Amos wines. They
are Real Madrid players, but it would be absurd if they tried to face
each other in the same game, because they would never be able to score
a goal. However, if masters are perceived as part of a team that
pursues the same goal and plays together, the chances of winning will be greater.
Well, in interpersonal relationships, the same thing happens. The mutual goal
is supposed to be together. Right. In addition, understanding the discussions as
a space for struggle and self- profit generates much more problems than benefits.
When we understand conflicts in terms of winning or losing, we learn that having
a serious conversation is unpleasant. It gave the lack of empathy and assertiveness that
often occurs in this context. We prefer not to talk about emotions or important
issues so we don' t have to face something we don' t like.
The problems become entrenched and, when they burst out, they may seem
bigger than they really are. If after this have increased your desire to learn
to discuss in a healthy way. I' ll leave you with some guidelines
that I consider essential. One looks for a better time in person, in
a quiet environment and without haste. Expressing anger or talking about important things by
Whatsapp or similar platforms is never a good option. Two respects word shifts and
listens. Not to stop talking to the other person is a way to invalidate
his speech and his way of seeing things don' t comets. The error
of making one' s own speech without letting the other speak, because it
will give the impression that you are not even interested in their problem, and
that will cause a defensive posture on their part. Three, focus on your
needs and make the ss understand the other person. Remember that to communicate correctly
you must take into account the well- being of the other when making the
request. The feeling of being a team must always be present. Four,
be specific in your requests, focus on the problem, don' t go
through the branches or chain some topics with each other. If you do,
the other person can get overwhelmed and have the feeling that you raise many issues,
which can lead to thinking that the situation is intractable and even respond only
to part of the conversation, ignoring the part that is important to you something
that can offend you five criticizes behaviors, not the person, do not use.
This formula you' re an X and it makes me feel this way
of saying things directly attacks the other person. On the one hand, it
makes him feel that he has no solution, because we allude to a way
of being quite difficult to change, so we risk being answered. That'
s who I am. So, on the other hand, we are transferring
responsibility for our emotions. What the other person can do with our emotions we
risk being told. That' s up to you when we get attacked,
we get angry, and when we get angry, it decreases the probability of
empathizing with each other, so we usually respond by attacking, you also better
use this when you do X. I feel and with this formula we take
responsibility for our own emotions and make the other person understand that part of responsibility
has about their behavior, and the behavior is always easier to change. Attacking
the other person will only drive you further away from the problem, an apology,
a change and a possible solution. Six, practice sincerity, not syncericide.
Not by saying what you think as you think. You' re doing
things. Well, your truth is not absolute. Seven accept. The other
person has his own emotional backpack and that will make a difference about you and
your way of looking at things. Eight don' t attribute intentionality when they
hurt us. We tend to attribute to other negative intentions. But the truth
is that many times people who have done something that has hurt us didn'
t have the slightest intention of harming us nine. Don' t let your
anger talk for you To argue is not to scream, or ironize, or
use sarcasm. All this can cause a defensive attitude in the other person and
what he intended to make a safe space can become a hostile space. Ten
think of the bond that unites you to discuss. Being a team, you
have to remember that you are. After all, you have a person you
love very much in front of you. Don' t perceive her as your
enemy eleven and don' t generalize. It is very easy to fall into
generalizations. Expressions like you never do anything right or you' re always the
same are very harmful. We usually say them when we' re angry,
and that' s just the problem. Imagine that the other person is trying,
with all his good intentions, to carry out one of the requests you
made to him days ago. Changes take time, so there will be times
when I can actually act on that change and times when I don' t.
If you tell him, you' re always the same, you'
re ruining all the small advances he could have made in consultation. It is
very typical to hear this and I always try to correct it, because the
reaction of the person who receives that comment is always common, because I don
' t know what I try to do. Then I step twelve reinforces.
We always forget this. We focus on criticism and don' t think about
what the other person does right. A criticism or request for change is always
more effective when inserted with a reinforcement. For example, Mom, I really
like that you worry about our wedding and advise us, but we would also
like to consider other options to see which one convinces us the most. I
' m so grateful you made the effort of him. I don' t
reinforce him, because that must be the case. It' s a real
thing, too, everyone. We like to be recognized for the things we
do well and that is also mental health. Thirteen do self- criticism and
apologize for pride. We have to put it aside. Some examples. Excuse
me. I didn' t know what I said could hurt you. It
wasn' t on purpose or thanks, I misinterpreted the situation. Forgive me
fourteen and Greek too, especially don' t forget empathy. Affective responsibility is
also to understand that, although I can say what I think or feel,
I must take into account how the other person can feel with my words.
Emotional validation before entering into matter you need to know the following. Validating an
emotion does not mean agreeing with the thought or conduct that accompanies it. Remember
what thought, emotion and behavior are different dimensions in a person and that sometimes
there is no harmony between them. All emotions are nourished by some cause,
known or unknown. That' s why it' s important to validate them,
because you never know what can be behind them. You never know what
emotional injuries other people carry. Although we can' t avoid emotions if we
can regulate them, but think of something we can' t avoid. First
of all, asking indirectly that the other person quickly get rid of them with
phrases like you shouldn' t feel like that is unfair, since he can
' t do anything about it at the time. Also, while some possibility
of decreasing the intensity of emotion or of making some immediate thought change by saying
that phrase, we would be reducing the chances that that person will be able
to make it, since we would only generate frustration So, phrases like you
that we saw in I love you don' t work for so much seriously
either. You' re crying. That' s why you' re so
overreacted, you little shit. You' re always worried the same way you
' re upset about everything, you' re so whiny. You don'
t have to be like that. Validation and empathy allow us to heal bonds.
Here are some phrases that will help you validate others' emotions. I
understand you can feel that way. The weird thing would be that what you
just told me didn' t affect you. You have a right to feel
that way. But mine does understand what you feel. I' m sorry
you feel that way. There' s something I can do to help you.
I' m here for whatever you need. You want a hug,
if you need to cry, cry, it' s okay. I know
I can' t do or say anything now to make you feel better,
but I want you to know that you can count on me. Whatever you
need. It' s okay to feel what you' re feeling. I
can' t imagine how hard it has to be to be going through this.
I may not agree with your point of view, but I' m
sorry I hurt you. I' m so glad you' re happy,
but I want to tell you that this thing that has led you to be
happy. He hurt me by x. I respect that you feel that,
although I don' t share it, because my opinion is X and I
feel and understand your annoyance and anger. I think the other day we didn
' t manage it well and I wanted to argue about it. I understand
that you feel that way, even if I don' t agree with your
point of view, we can talk about it when we' re both calmer.
I' m listening. I don' t know if I can understand
how you feel, because it' s something that' s never happened to
me. But I want you to know that I' m here for whatever
you need to tell me. Thank you for explaining to me where your anger
comes from. Now I can better understand myself I would also like to tell
you what hurt me about this discussion. I understand that, perceiving the situation
as you describe it, you were angry, but I want you to know
that I don' t see him nodding at the other person' s hand.
You may not feel the same about the problem, but it' s
also true that we don' t have to feel the same way. I
' m here to hear that point of view you have. It' s
very valid. You let me explain mine now, give your emotions space.
For me, this isn' t a problem, but I understand that for
you it is, so you just told me how you think we can solve
it. If I were in your place, I don' t know how
I' d feel, but I guess it must be hard. We are
two different people and it is normal to feel and think different things. I
didn' t mean to hurt you. I' m so sorry. I
sensed the situation in this other way and it explains the revenge in the couple
does not work. I know how hard they' ll have you. Emotional
injury is the weak point of any person. We can now seem to be
strong and intelligent that when they remove it, we fall apart. The emotional
wound is our achille heel. What happens when a injured animal is touched by
the wound so that it can be cured. He' s attacking you.
It' s normal because your answer is to defend yourself against the pain caused
by that manipulation, even if your intention is to heal it in people.
The same thing happens when someone does or says something that pinks our wound,
we react to the defensive. This is so in any type of relationship,
but it is especially relevant in partner relationships. I' ve seen couples who,
after removing each other' s emotional wounds, have thrown their messes over
their heads, couples in whom, when one makes some Eastern comment, the
other reacts vengefully with hints or painful comments. They' re not supposed to
want why they do that. This reaction is typical for those who carry insecurities.
These people remain on alert all the time as if they were waiting for
a danger to appear. At any time they analyze the behavior of their partner
to detail. They tend to interpret things in a threatening way. That'
s why they respond to the defensive. This may be due to fears learned
in the past or fears that have been generated within the same relationship. Their
reaction is to harm the other person as well, thus seeking justice. If
you do something that hurts me I attack you too to see what it feels
like. This attitude is very selfish and makes no sense, since in the
long run it generates a loop that causes the link to become toxic. How
you can act in a healthy way so as not to fall into vindictive behavior
If you are the one who behaves like this. Sometimes we' re not
aware that there are things that can hurt each other So, the best thing
we can do is ask you to tell us how it makes you feel about
our way of treating you and talking to you. Example, I can say
things that, without my intention, hurt you because I don' t know
how they can sit you down. That' s why I' m asking
you if there' s anything I can change about it, you tell me
because I' d like to know. If it' s you who gets
that behavior, don' t be angry with the person who' s angry
with what he said. I know there are times when people behave like this
on purpose, like revenge, like I just told you, but two don
' t argue if you don' t want to, so I recommend that
if you identify it even and pass on to the other person what you just
perceived. Example that happened. You' re okay, I' ve done
something wrong I can' t bother you. Something' s happened to make
you like this. Say what' s bothering you. Don' t be
afraid, but say it from love and in a kind way. Remember that
in this type of behavior speaks the person' s wound, not the person
himself. Talking about it is a way to set limits. Example, it
hurt me a lot that you make me this kind of comment. The other
day, a patient would tell me and it can' t be that she
gets tired of me because I' m setting a lot of limits. Oh,
honey, I better get tired of you,' cause you' re
setting a lot of limits that don' t put any and cancel out as
a person. It is not better to set limits and if you do not
respect or bother, get out of there as soon as possible, I ask
and well, I think it is obvious, but I remind you that sometimes
it takes time to calm down before starting a conversation. It' s something
you must also take into account. Now, if not with these, the
thing goes well, and this behavior is something that one of the two parts
or both repeats over and over again. I' m so sorry, but
you must know it' s toxic behavior that can destroy the relationship in a
matter of time. Ask yourself if that' s really where you want to
be. Remember that in a couple we have to perceive how to look at
a team that plays for the same purpose a healthy relationship and not as two
rivals that pursue opposite goals, because for that it is better not to have
a couple relationship. Throughout the book he has witnessed the different types of attachment
that we people possess. We have talked about secure attachment and unsafe attachment.
We' ve seen the good part and the not so good part of each
of them. And while it is true that an insecure attachment will pose more
difficulties in relating to oneself and others, it cannot be considered a disease or
a problem in itself. However, even though it is not a disease or
a characteristic that makes good or bad people who possess it, it is advisable
to work in unsafe attachment in order to establish healthy bonds and become a refuge
for ourselves and for others. So, to start getting into the end of
this painful but hopeful personal journey, I' m going to show you the
difference between the shelter people and the absent people so you see the important thing
is that they are the first people absent. They are people who, even
though they are physically, are not emotionally available, as they are often too
busy with their jobs and problems or too tired to pay attention to your things.
They may be emotionally unstable, although sometimes they may be present emotionally,
sometimes not, which makes you unclear when you can turn to them and when
they don' t usually generate a certain ambivalence. I don' t know
if the relationship is going well or they don' t have a hard time
giving recognition. By excess or default, they never get to connect well with
others. There are people who are absent who sometimes react disproportionately and others who
may seem insensitive. Example, I guess you fall down and make yourself a
wound. You' re bleeding quite a lot and they probably have to give
you stitches, but it' s not serious that a gauze some pressure and
a quick visit to the doctor. Do not fix how an absent person would
react disproportionately. Oh, my God, help me call an ambulance. You
' re okay, no, no, you haven' t had a wound,
how much blood can' t be. This is a mess. He
' s gonna die, he' s gonna cry, he' s in
the grip of nervousness. The person with this pattern of behavior obviously cares about
you, but the situation is not so serious as to make that scandal.
The problem with this is that you can catch his attitude and believe that what
happens to you is life or death. How an absent person would react insensitively
is nothing. Perhaps the person who tells you this doesn' t want you
to be afraid of what' s going on, but with his attitude he
' s having an absent behavior, because he' s not attending to the
possible emotional needs you have at that time. You may want to cry or
be frightened, but with your reaction you are not creating the space for you
to express your emotions and you may feel that you cannot share with this person
what you really think or feel. As we have seen in this last example.
Sometimes people who are absent, no matter how well they intend, do
not know how to reach them because they do not know the way. They
have their own emotional backpack as a conditioning pack. For this last reason you
should know that if you feel identified in some aspect as an absent person and
your intention is good, but you don' t know how to transmit it,
there is a chance to change. So far you have been able to
read some guidelines to start with that change in your way of seeing relationships,
of with or tirs and of perceiving and that others perceive you. But in
the next section you will find several exercises that will help you more. You
' re not alone yet. It is important to note that there are people
who are absent for reasons that completely escape their will, such as long hospitalizations,
mental illnesses that prevent them from being emotionally available enough. They already have
their own addictions to drugs or gambling, journeys thousands of miles away for a
long time, etcetera. Shelter people are people you feel safe with. You
can always count on them no matter what you tell them. They' re
always trying to understand you. They show you their support when they think you
' ve made a mistake, accompany you to observe the consequences, and help
you make amends if necessary. They' re people who never invalidate your emotions
when they don' t know what to say. They just show you they
' re there supporting you. They know how to respect your space, allow
your personal development, give space to your emotions. Example, let' s
go back to before you fall down and get hurt. How I' d
respond to a shelter person and what happened to you. You' re okay,
we' re gonna stop the bleeding It' s worth how you find
yourself You need something else. With this pattern of behavior, the person makes
it clear that he cares about you, leaves room for you to express how
you are and is available for anything you need. At that moment it accompanies
you in your emotions, but it does not condition you how I can make
the relationship a safe place. Having the kind of attachment you have you can
work your relationships out your way of bonding and responding to intimacy. At this
point, I imagine you' ve already come up with an idea of what
makes a relationship of any kind a safe place. Now is the time to
get to work questions and exercises. I' m going to ask you some
questions so you can reflect and start practicing. What makes you feel good in
relationships. Think about safe relationships you have with other people, even animals,
and answer what situations used to hurt you in your previous relationships. Make a
list of things that usually open up your emotional wounds. If you don'
t know what they are right now, you can look at past relationships.
I insist not only on a couple how you usually react when emotional wounds open
up. What would you like to do instead of using the same tools.
Always when someone or something opens your wounds, what are the things that open
the wounds of your environment family are, friends, what can you do to
start being a shelter for others. Next, I leave you one of the
most powerful exercises I know to work emotional bonds. You can apply it in
any kind of relationship. All it takes is good intent and an empathetic attitude.
If the relationship in question goes through a delicate moment, I recommend doing
so in the presence of a professional. It answers the following questions that I
would like to change from the relationship. Here you can put those things you
want to change the relationship, not the person' s eye. The recommendation
is that you allude to specific behaviors. Look at this example. Don'
t say, I' d like you to be more affectionate if you look.
This is too general. There are people who receive these instructions and do
not finish understanding them because they consider that they are already being affectionate in their
own way and do not know exactly what to do to be affectionate to the
other person better I would like you to give me more hugs. This request
is much clearer than the previous one. If you say you want more hugs,
the person knows exactly what you' re asking if I don' t
need to be guessing what it' s like to be more affectionate for you.
Anyway, of course, we all have the same communication skills. If
you fall into this trap, you can always ask the other person for clarification
what you mean. When you say you want me to spend more time,
with you I can change. I here can put that stuff. You can
change to improve the link in question. Don' t put anything you think
you can' t fulfill, because that would cause both you and the other
person to generate very high expectations around your behavior, which in turn could be
the cause of a feeling of mutual frustration that I like about the relationship.
This section can be dedicated to remembering certain aspects of the relationship, such as,
for example, I love when you look me closely in the eyes while
I tell you the things that are important to me, or I like them
very much when you hug me unexpectedly. A very frequent mistake here is to
start reporting that you like to end up focusing on what you don' t
like and throw a review. For example, I like to spend time together,
although this would be easier if you didn' t work so hard.
This space is to take into account the positive things, those by which the
bond is preserved. The space for criticism and requests for change is a little
higher. The intention of this step is to reinforce the aspects that make you
feel good so that they continue to be repeated. When we try to make
the relationship a safe space, not only do we have to focus on changing
the bad things, but we also have to applaud the good ones. This
gives us strength and motivation to grow together that I like about the other person.
This section is as nice as the previous one. After all the change
requests we' ve made, he comes to remember that you have a lot
of good things look and you want me to tell you go up to a
lot. Self- esteem and I' m a big fan of raising people
' s self- esteem. Here you can put things like I like the
interest you always put in being a better person. I admire your ability to
learn or make a delicious coffee. I' ll give you two tips to
carry out this exercise. How can I be a shelter person? You can
change an unsafe type of attachment to a secure one on a voluntary basis.
Yeah, it' s not complicated, but it' s not impossible.
Attachment can change, but it takes a lot of personal work and experiences to
strengthen it and to help our brain convince itself that it doesn' t have
to interpret things as it has been doing. It is known that the average
time for change between some things is four years. I know it seems a
lot, but believe me when you go into the world of mind time flies
by, because whatever happens to you in life gives you to work and deepen
yourself, which makes you more entertaining. There' s one thing you won
' t be able to change and it' s your temper, as it
' s a biological part of your personality. You' re born with a
temper and you die with the same temper. It' s innate. This
means that if you usually react to things very intensely, you should learn to
live with it. All this, I think there' s nothing wrong with
being intense. This is intense number one talking to you. I think that
people who live it all in a very intense way, we have the luxury
of getting excited with anything, a song, a story, a look we
also suffer a lot. That' s true. We are more sensitive and
the least we can be emotionally unbalanced, but learning to live with the intensity
of temperament allows us to handle those situations so that they do not overwhelm or
overwhelm us every time they occur to us. Anyway, if there' s
a part of you that can work and it' s through learning, so
let' s do it, things that are going to make you a shelter
person for your partner, friends and family. Staying available if you' re
a mother or a father, staying available and being available whenever your children need
it is very important. The smaller ones depend on the older ones. However,
for the rest of adults you have to remember that you have your own
life. Staying available does not mean serving everyone 24 hours a day or meeting
the needs of others. The millisecond is, being available b SNS means showing
you' re there. If you' re not going to attend to the
other person directly, promise you' ll be there for her in a specific
period of time. For example, I can' t right now, but
as soon as I get out of work at three o' clock in the
afternoon, I' ll call you that, yes, at three o'
clock in the afternoon, you call the person. Of course I forgot about
Lai. It' s not safe person behavior. It' s not worth
the time span being too long, either, so I' ll call you
next month and we' ll talk. Nor is it worth supporting the other
person a few kind words, a hug, a kiss, a caress in
the hand a look all worth that does watch. Don' t get too
deep into other people' s problems that we sometimes start by holding hands,
holding hands and offering to the head. It is one thing to give a
few words of encouragement and another very different, to make the problem of others
your problem and look dear. We' re not here to solve anyone'
s life than ours. We' ve got enough to communicate with you in
a healthy way. You know how to do this. You have all the
information. In the sixth chapter he will not resort to games or revenge.
It' s not worth putting in place stupid love guru tactics of the guy.
After meeting him, I' m not going to write him until the
second day so he doesn' t think I' m desperate or I don
' t answer him for a while to scratch or to die of wanting to
talk to me. Or hurt me. He' s gonna find out now
I' m gonna make him jealous of other people. These behaviors only fuel
toxicity in relationships to have affective responsibility in the relationship. Affective responsibility is based
on empathy and allows to care for the well- being of the other person.
Remember, what you want is to be okay. If both parties work
for the welfare of the other, you will gain by caring for the other
person' s discomfort before it becomes too intense. It' s never happened
to you that you put your movies on your head, but when you talk
to the other person about it, you realize that there really wasn' t
any problem to worry about. Or that you' ve banged yourself for a
whole week spinning a topic that you' ll then settle in two minutes.
This is what I call the snowball phenomenon. I' m sure you remember
this name forever. This phenomenon consists of starting by thinking about something more or
less worrying and ending up with a lot of very worrying problems in the head.
This activates your sympathetic system and sets in motion all your defense mechanisms.
You remember when I explained and loved you, I love you what happened in
the interaction in couples made up of a person with anxious attachment and a person
with evasive attachment. The latter tended to resolve the conflict by running away from
the stressful situation and the first, by not being able to talk to the
other, kept turning and turning everything around. When the evasive returned calmer,
the anxious one was ready to explode and roll the brown. Well, then,
this rumination, which made the problems bigger in the mind of the anxious,
is the result of the snowball phenomenon. Sometimes we lock ourselves in our
own mind, we turn things around, we poison ourselves with our thoughts and
when we want to realize it, we' re messing with the other person
a pyphostium that you hallucinate. She doesn' t even know where the cakes
come from, but that' s where she' s holding the rain.
This must be tackled first in order to avoid it and, therefore, to
avoid conflicts beyond our control. The best thing is to attend to each other
' s requests as soon as possible. If the other person has trouble showing
their emotions. You can always ask, but look if you' re one
of those people who answer nothing, when really things do happen. If you
answer anything, don' t pretend the other person guesses. Magically your discomfort.
If you answer, you will know, don' t pretend that the
other person guesses where your discomfort comes from. If you hang up the phone
waiting for me to call you back and not call you, you can be
angry if you want, but understand that you would have been better off not
hanging up and that if you don' t get the call back, it
does well, because it will be respecting your limits. If you leave,
don' t pretend the other person' s after you. If you set
a limit, don' t do it with the intention of others exceeding it,
because then you are never lost, no one will respect your limits think
and if you have really put it with the intention of not respecting it,
I don' t know how you see it. You can' t do
one thing and expect another completely to shoot what you don' t say doesn
' t exist. If you have any of these behaviors, without no,
you don' t get attention when your desire is to receive it. Don
' t complain. Healthy communication consists of expressing oneself clearly. These protest behaviors
make sense in children because they know no other way to express themselves, but
remember that in adults they are no longer worth it. We want healthy relationships,
but we keep doing the same things we' ve always done. Yeah,
you' ve probably normalized these kinds of actions. We' ve seen
it many times in the movies. The girl leaves and the boy chases her
because he loves her. But the reality of those typical scenes is that she
sets a limit and he passes it through the lining and the thing doesn'
t look so pretty anymore than it doesn' t. This is what happens
when we romanticize bullying resilience, the ability to overcome difficulties. Personal working time
to me. In this respect, I flew away, but it was also
very hard. I' m not gonna lie to you. I cried a
lot because I recognized myself and some loved ones in many things that I didn
' t like, but I' ve always been clear that not everything is
black or white, that no one is perfect, that the intention is what
counts and that, after all, I own my own life. That'
s why I never gave up trying to understand and understand the emotional backpacks of
others, as well as my own. And for that I was tying up
the lines of everything I was learning in clinical psychology manuals. When I started
working on me there was no book that would explain to me with easy words
that was attachment. Almost everyone spoke in terms that even I had difficulty understanding
and sometimes explained things that had nothing to do with me. But even with
the emotional and technical difficulties, I cling to science. I tried to deal
with everything with resilience, all that process, no matter how painful it was.
I wasn' t gonna make it come down on me. On the
contrary, I was going to give myself even more strength to go out and
change my life, just as I wanted. That information was so powerful that,
just as he was able to save me, he could have destroyed me,
too. But I wasn' t willing to live in discomfort forever.
That' s why I put my batteries on and went my way stronger than
ever. The information went from being something hurtful to being my best tool,
resilience. That' s what I want you to work on, because it
' ll keep you afloat when you feel like everything' s going wrong.
That' s why remember to stay optimistic. Yeah, I know this can
' t be done There' s always moments and moments, but you know
what I mean You can have your bad days when you feel bad and you
don' t want to know anything about anyone. It' s okay.
Tomorrow will be another day. It' s his thing that you don'
t lock yourself in that malaise. If you' re wrong today, take
care of yourself, but tomorrow or the day after pulls forward like the one
who tries the most to see the good side of things. Trust me,
everything has a good side. Acceptance, yes, resignation, does not look
at the differences in the following table. Take your share of responsibility. It
' s very comfortable to say my parents diagonal bar, my former diagonal bar.
My friends are to blame for everything. You' re throwing balls out
diarrhea. But although in the past some figures or events may have marked you
causing an emotional wound, you are the owner of your life and you decide
what you' re going to do with your backpack, keep carrying it,
while you blame others it will only turn you off a little bit more.
Remember the importance of acceptance and ask yourself what I can do with this problem.
Trust your abilities. Thanks to them. You' re where you are
and you have what you have the tree of self- esteem. I'
m going to propose an exercise. I call it the tree of anger self
- esteem. To do this he draws a tree and divides it into three
parts, the cup, the trunk and the roots. In the cup you
will write each and every one of your successes, as if they were the
leaves of the tree, no matter what they are. You don' t
have to have a Nobel Prize to consider that you have some success, if
you have it congratulations put it clearly, it' s a triumph. What
I mean is that any reward can be a success. You don' t
have to have great things to consider success. Sometimes getting up in the mornings
and making coffee is already an achievement. You have a career, put it
on. You got a job, put it on. You know how to
drive, put it on. You' ve managed to take the step of
going to therapy. Put it on. Write anything. I want the top
of this tree to have a lot of leaves on the trunk. It'
s up to you to write those abilities and abilities that have enabled you to
achieve those achievements. Do the same as before. Fill the trunk with all
the skills you consider you' ve developed throughout your life. Skills are non
- innate things, all those you have learned over time, for example,
communicating, drawing, dancing, writing, studying, etc. In the roots
you will reflect the personal qualities that have allowed you to develop the skills necessary
to achieve your successes. That is, it is time to place in the
drawing the characteristics that form part of your personality. Here are several examples.
Brave, persevering, fighting, etcetera. Look at the result you like.
That tree reflects how necessary your abilities have been to be able to accomplish all
the good things you have today. That' s why he trusts them.
Trust you, you have a lot of good things. Be persistent without obsessing.
The results of your efforts do not come overnight and along the way You
may fall many times, but always, always get up and go on and
if what you pursue never comes, you can quit. It' s okay.
The world does not end life goes on and you can look for other
things to devote all your energy to, that the fear to which they will
say is not an obstacle. He tells a persevering person that he has had
to leave several times in his life and I have had a hard time.
Yes, and I' ve been frustrated and unhappy, but I haven'
t died here. I' m here, I' m still fighting for
those other things that fill me up. Learn from your mistakes. Whoever could
make mistakes to learn from them said no one is ever sad. But that
' s right. We' ve learned that making mistakes is bad and we
' ve stayed there. Today, life looks like an exam. If you
' re wrong, you' re suspended forever. Does anyone come to this
world with all that they have learned? Perhaps there is a special being who
makes things perfect at first wrong is wise, for it is the wise who,
thanks to the mistakes they make, end up perfecting their knowledge more than
anyone else. We have given great importance to mistakes, too much, at
least to generate that fear that prevents us from trying to fulfill our dreams.
And this also has its origin in childhood. I remember how in school teachers
gave more importance to failures than to successes. When you did a lack of
spelling, they made you copy the same well- written word a hundred times.
That at best, I have had teachers who have taken advantage of the
ruling to ridicule the student in front of the others. Not only the teachers
but the adults in general punished the mistakes and ignored the correct ones. Under
the excuse of this, you should know less about changing times and learning and
parenting methodologies. Just like I' ve been wrong a thousand times in my
life. But how nice it is to give you one more chance to be
able to improve truth. Through my mistakes, I learned that I must be
assertive with people because, otherwise, I can do a lot of damage,
no matter how happy I am to stay by letting go of what I think.
Through my mistakes, I learned that I don' t want to be
in places or relationships where I feel uncomfortable and anxious constantly. Through my mistakes,
I learned that manipulating people to love me or to feel wanted is not
right and is not normal. Even though they' d done it to me
some time before through my mistakes, I' m going to turn it on
and I have to keep setting limits. I' m sorry I' m
sorry. Through my mistakes, I learned that I can forgive, but I
' m not obliged to do it if I don' t want to.
Through my mistakes, I learned that, although I do not forgive certain people
from my past, I cannot live with resentment either because that makes me settle
in anger, something that prevents me from being happy in the present. Through
my mistakes, I also learned one of the most important things than life.
He has taught me, that I must forgive myself. If I want to
feel a safe place for myself to forgive oneself, how hard is it to
forgive yourself? True, when you are flooded with guilt, the charge of
conscience and why not shame. It is also difficult to make peace internally.
You want to live free of all that burden, but you don' t
know where to start. You may look over and over again at the things
you mentally review every one of these that you screwed up or hurt someone and
even blame yourself for thinking I was stupid or how I could do something like
that or let them do this to me. Why the mind does that and,
most importantly, why it seems to crush you. Maybe these questions can
mark the exit box. The answers to our pain are almost always in ourselves.
All we have to do is ask ourselves the right questions We can become
our worst chatters. You' ve ever watched how you treat yourself and talk
to yourself. Often our internal dialogue is very negative. Then you have some
of the most typical phrases and expressions. What a fool you are You'
re a mess. How you didn' t notice. You should have said
this another one. You' re worthless. Now you' re holding on
because of you. This didn' t go well. They ring a bell.
You may have ever told yourself to listen to them in the background of
your head. I once surprised myself by speaking to myself in such an aggressive
manner. I didn' t know exactly how long I' ve been treating
myself like this, but judging by the ease and automatism with which those thoughts
came out to me it seemed that all my life how strong not the one
that the brain is capable of messing with without even realizing it. From that
very moment on, I promised myself that I would pay much more attention to
my thoughts and well, although I did, it took me a lot to
start changing the way I was treated in consultation. I have noticed that people
with low self- esteem, as a rule, have a very negative internal
dialogue. I had one more laughing patient that was fatal. She didn'
t realize it, but her story in each session allowed him to glimpse how
you' ve been doing The week I asked her one day. Well that
answer sounded typical, well we all say by custom automatically. Well, I
raised an eyebrow, I knew Marisa, and I sensed that that one was
hiding a good story. I' ve had a lot of trouble, because
we' re having a lot of income and they' re all very serious.
I knew it. Marisa was a nurse in a hospital in the area
and had to live each and every wave of covid nineteen on the front line.
The situation at that time was very stressful for everyone, but especially for
health personnel. We' re doing everything we can, but I feel it
' s not enough. The other day I was on guard, the r
ended it, and I stayed a little longer in the hospital to check that
all my patients were well cared for. Still, I didn' t go
home quietly and I was on the phone all weekend. You' re a
great nurse. Marisa' s worth of a professional is largely measured by his
human quality and you have a lot of that. It' s possible he
stopped to catch air, but I feel like I can do more. You
' re not doing everything you can now. I leaned down by sticking my
elbows on the table with the intention of showing interest. I wanted to go
deeper into that part of the story, because I was very afraid that his
expression of sadness concealed some pressure and anxiety. Yeah, I do, but
I don' t know. I have a feeling it' s not enough.
If I' m not constantly controlling everything. I feel like something'
s going to go wrong. Of course I said lying back in my chair,
I already knew where the thing was going. We' re talking about
critical patients, so it' s important to control the environment and anything that
can happen, but when you finish your shift, you disconnect, I can
' t cost a lot. He glanced down on the ground and continued without
raising his gaze. When I' m home, I' m turning everything
around. I mentally review what things I' ve done during the day that
mistakes. I' ve been able to commit or how I could have done
better, and Maria feels like shit. My patient had ended up in a
spiral of self- exigency and feeling shit was just the beginning. Maybe she
' s being pretty tough. With you myself I suggested how I won'
t do it. I have to be demanding work with people. Those people
' s lives are partly up to me. You' re right, they
depend on you in part, at least as long as it' s your
turn, but I guess you can' t do every turn in the world.
He didn' t show. Sometimes I doubt and I think this profession
is not for me, that maybe I should devote myself to something else.
There are colleagues who do things much better than I do and, besides,
faster. The well- known impostor syndrome was punctuating the paw. You need
to disconnect. I kept trusting your partners, and don' t crush yourself
so much, you' re way past the scanner. The scanner is an
expression that I use in a colloquial way to refer to when we look with
magnifying glass or examine in detail our performance and execution of things. Check yourself
out or pass the typical scanners of very self- demanding people. Yeah,
I always have. I' m a perfectionist. I smile slightly showing compassion.
I understood Marisa perfectly as reflected in her and knew how hard it was
to mistreat herself emotionally. That way, I caught air preparing to share with
her the conclusion I had reached. You need to control everything, because you
have imposed yourself to meet too demanding expectations. But Marisa, the more you
demand, the more it will cost you to disconnect and this in turn will
make you feel more insecurity in your professional performance and less confidence in yourself.
That' ll make your job worse and somehow you' ll need to control
everything even more. It' s a vicious circle. He understood it at
first, maybe in some corner of his mind. She knew perfectly well the
damage she was doing to herself. I don' t say forget everything and
relax while you' re at work, because the situation requires a certain state
of alert. It wouldn' t be logical to pose such a thing,
but I think the key to surrender as you wish is to take care of
yourself. And that' s exactly what you' re doing the least.
How am I going to take care of myself if I have to take care
of others. How you' re gonna take care of each other if you
' re not okay. I dared to confront you, Maria. I can
' t leave hairdressing. I don' t have time. Marisa said blanking
her eyes and who said taking care of herself is that. Maybe there'
s another way. Yeah, I stared at her. There' s a
way. We usually make the mistake of believing that self- care is just
physical pampering or material whims. These forms of self- care, although they
come very well from time to time and are very valid, do not require
emotional work or repair in depth our being We must go much further. So
the first thing we had to work on self- care was its definition.
We talk about self- care or personal care when we carry out the action
or set of actions that allow us to improve our physical and emotional health on
a voluntary basis and on our own initiative. The second thing we did was
remember some real examples of self- care surrounding yourself with people that make you
feel good, maintaining healthy links with your environment, respecting your own limits,
practicing compassion with yourself, having a positive internal language, not being so self
- critical, not going through self- exercise, not pleasing others, without
thinking first about your needs, paying attention to your needs, trusting your abilities,
strengthening anyone you may have as small as it is, not putting so
much emphasis on mistakes, not basing personal worth on the opinion of other people,
not comparing yourself to others, accepting yourself as you are And one of
the most important things we had to address in this self- care work was
internal language, because I think that every part of it remembers that, as
you learn to relate to yourself, you will relate to others. My patient
had placed herself in the background and placed the others in the first. She
had abandoned herself and unconsciously decided to punish herself in order to be able to
better care for her neighbor. It was time, so I proposed an exercise
that I had learned from a great child psychologist namedÁlvaro Bilbao. To this
exercise so cool that he applies in the field of children. I gave him
my personal touch to be able to do it with adults and if it works,
Marisa during these two weeks we won' t see you have to do
an exercise. For this you need a wooden board, a few nails and
a hammer. My patient, as he always began to point out in his
notebook all the instructions he was giving him as a good perfectionist, wanted to
do the exercise correctly and not forget anything. I sensed that being so methodical
also in session. I was. In order not to disappoint me, I
want you to observe your inner language every day in the face of adversity.
Every time you identify yourself treating yourself badly, you' re going to nail
a nail into the wooden board. Next time you come to the session,
I' d like you to bring her in to see how she' s
doing with nails. All right, she nodded a little incredulous, but,
as expected, she did everything to the letter n n n n n s
o s or neo moment. I didn' t want to tell you what
the goal I was pursuing with exercise was, as that was saving it for
me later. Two weeks later he appeared in my office with his wooden board
full of nails. Hello Mary came through the door with a nervous laugh.
I think it' s a little weird that he went into the clinic asking
about the psychology office with a wooden board in his hand. The receptionist looked
at me strangely. Don' t worry, I said between laughs. Me
too, if you say you' re going to Maria' s office,
it' s not so weird that you' re wearing a wooden board.
I always do weird things. Okay, here you go. Marisa sat in
front of me and placed the wood with the nails on the table in my
office. Ah well, I said looking at that piece of wood. I
see you' ve done your homework. You always know how you' ve
been nailing your nails. Tell me what you' ve been like. Maris
was telling me that just like I asked him two weeks ago. Every time
he got caught treating himself badly, he nailed a nail. In total,
the wood had fourteen nails. That' s seven nails a week, that
' s one a day. I looked for my cell phone calculator. If
you nail a nail a day after a year, you could have perfectly three
hundred sixty- five nails. The half- life expectancy in a woman is
eighty- three years and considering that you are thirty- one, then I
hawked as I introduced the figures oh Wow, you still have to nail on
the wooden board eighteen thousand nine hundred and eighty nails. My patient opened my
eyes a lot. I think you' re missing board and nails. I
don' t have that many nails. I' d need a truck after
a thoughtful and necessary silence. I went on, hey. Why do you
think I asked you to do this exercise? I think you did it to
download my energy by nailing nails. The truth is, it' s helped
me a lot. When I was angry, I was doing very well,
I took the hammer and Isasca said while imitating the gesture. It might be
a conclusion, but I don' t think it' s very functional to
manage anger by hitting nails with the hammer. What would you do when you
got angry anywhere where you didn' t have the hammer, the board,
and the nails. Oh, that' s not true. I don'
t see it then it was no longer said as he sighed and denied with
his head look. This is a metaphor for the wooden board. It'
s you. I swung my eyes trying to understand what the thing was about.
Yeah, the board is you and the nails symbolize all those times you
hurt yourself. Every time you' ve treated yourself badly, you' ve
nailed a nail. Each of these nails is metaphorically speaking. The emotional pain
your soul can feel when you mistreat after my words. Another still longer reflective
silence than the previous one reigned in the consultation. Marisa felt slightly with her
head, without taking her gaze off the board. Let' s try and
pull out the nails. I went on with the help of a hammer.
My patient showed me his DIY skills and one by one was pulling every piece
of metal embedded in the wood. Ready said proud when it was finished great
notice I told you pointing out the holes that had remained engraved in the wood.
These marks are what' s left when you repent, which means what
' s done is done. It' s very hard to erase those marks.
Then, even if you repent, your brain has already processed that information
and when you learn to treat yourself like that, you do it even unconsciously.
Then I can' t cure the wounds of all the nails I'
ve nailed myself in the past. You can take them off, but you
' ll still have the marks. You can cure them over time. When
you learn not to nail more nails, it' s easier to nail them
than to cure them. I know it always costs more to repair the wood
than to damage it. Then the solution is to not nail me any more
nails. That' s hard. It' s very difficult, especially since
you' ve been doing the opposite for years. I explained to him that
the key was to continue to identify this negative dialogue and, once identified,
to radically change the form and content of the dialogue. So I' d
have a somewhat more accurate phrase for which I wouldn' t have to nail
more nails. Marisa and I drew a table on a folio and wrote on
the left the phrases that used to be said by custom and, on the
right hand side completely different ones, issued from affection and compassion. The result
was something like that. From that moment on, Marisa' s challenge consisted
of not nailing more nails into her wooden board, contrary to what she had
done the previous weeks. He had to avoid further harm by treating himself with
as much affection as he treated his patients. The results were not expected.
After several months of hard work, both professional and personal, Marisa' s
demanding levels remained at bay. She kept giving up every day, as was
her custom. The difference was that he felt calmer r ners that he was
starting to take care of himself like he had never done before and was beginning
to make peace with himself. The road didn' t end here, but
it was a start. Marisa' s personal work was not easy because there
were phrases that seemed inherent to her. For many years, as we saw
in previous sessions when we studied his personal history, he had learned to mistreat
with contempt and invalidity. Now he had to learn to consider himself in a
completely different way. And to understand that being a good professional had nothing to
do with getting to the limit and that he could even do his job much
better if he understood that caring was necessary for the power of compassion. I
told you that to treat with affection is necessary, but to be more concrete,
to treat with compassion the essentials. I like to say compassion is like
an emotional hug. I explain myself to understand, accept unconditionally and validate without
judgment or pressure. Compassion is like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold
winter day, like a dip in the pool when the street is over forty
degrees, or like a long, strong hug when you need it most.
That' s compassion, something that can radically change the way you feel and
see the world. I think we know very well how to deal with others
with compassion. However, when it comes to applying that perspective to oneself,
the thing changes. If your best friend tells you about a problem he'
s had because of a mistake he' s made, you' d tell
him it' s a disaster and that he should have realized the mistake before
he messed it up. Probably not, why. So, if you say
all that to yourself, we are more compassionate to others than to ourselves.
We understand and validate better the emotions of those around us. We are able
to tell each other nothing happens while we crush ourselves constantly. We can offer
an emotional mattress to the rest, but we can tan ourselves in hell itself.
Is this hypocrisy? I wish it were so easy, it turns out
it' s our brain and the way we have to perceive each other I
remember that while I was writing I love you miles of painful scenes with previous
couple relationships and even friendships, walking freely and fleetingly through my head. Many
times they managed to impose themselves on logic, and that caused me to be
inundated with guilt. Like Marisa, I had learned to demand a lot in
life, something that without realizing, I moved into my way of living and
perceiving the bonds. I felt that if someone had responsibility for those outcomes,
that someone was me, and nothing else is worth me. Surely I was
no saint you know that the emotional backpack conditions very much what you think,
feel and do, but from there to having full responsibility for painful situations,
I think there is a way. The point is, I carried that burden
for a long time in the past. Phrases like those that she said to
herself, my patient kept repeating them to me again and again and again in
the framework of relationships Arthur made you gohsting golley of the ice you would do
something. I' m sure that guy found out how unbearable and intense you
are. Why did you keep believing Mario if for practically the whole relationship happened
to you and he treated you like shit. How foolish you were, how
you could stand so long with your first boyfriend if he constantly humiliated you,
you weren' t the standard- bearer of self- esteem. So much,
you wouldn' t want to why you emotionally manipulated this person. If
you knew very well how to give that that could provoke you. You played
with her and you know that you deserve something very bad to happen to you.
This, as you know, is meaningless when you understand how relationships work
and you know how much responsibility each of their parts can have. But still.
I used to cuddle this kind of comment over and over again. It
was as if an idea had rooted in my mind and this one did not
want to let go. I know I did my best with the information I
had at the time. In my case, I did things that I'
m proud of and also things that I' m ashamed of, but I
think neither I nor anyone else has an obligation to assume their share of responsibility
as if it were some sort of divine punishment, but we need to accept
the mistakes of the past as a learning, because I' m sure that
' s the same thing that allows us to evolve as people. So,
every time I realized that my head took me along the paths of the very
same to see him I stopped and remembered all the under- staffed treatment I
had been doing for several years now. I believe that when people suffer,
we do not suffer as adults in a logical and rational way, but suffer
from the depths of our emotion, just as a child would. In fact,
talking about the inner child hidden in the depths of our being is used
as a metaphor to refer to the engram. Remember, this is the neural
network that keeps the information from the emotional wound. Mary remembers your story.
You' re telling yourself this because you' ve learned to be so demanding
about yourself that you tend to bear the responsibility for all of this that you
tell yourself. Now you' re also telling that girl that one day you
were firm and responsible. You realize I was acting like my father to myself.
He treated himself the magic of attachment. I love these times when you
start tying up, because they' re revealing, as I tell you.
Faced with that behavior I thought of that child that I was one day and
whose essence still remains within me. If that little girl were thinking and feeling
the same thing as me right now, she' d be scared to death.
He wouldn' t understand anything, he' d look small and vulnerable.
I' d look for an adult to feel protected with, but what
things. The closest adult was me and I was treating her like shit.
So, every time this happened, I used one of the most powerful self
- regulation tools I know to take a picture of when I was little,
look at it and wonder what I would like to say to that four-
year- old girl who at the time was carrying a guilt that was largely
wrong with her. And then my speech changed in a radical way. As
if I were the reference adult of that child, my goal now was to
give me what I would want her to have at such a time. Or
what could I do to generate a safe attachment between the girl and me?
What I could do so that I could perceive myself as a safe place and
as we saw in the theory of the safety circle, arms to trust and
to return to seek understanding and support. For starters, I' d never
think of talking to a child the way I was talking to myself. Never,
no matter what his mistake would have been. But this was my inner
child and I, if I knew her story and how she might have felt
when I was afraid, so I was able to understand better than anyone how
she was at the time and so, with more reason I had to try
to treat myself well. Every time I visualize that little girl something breaks inside
me. That girl was very happy, but she also lived things throughout the
years that marked her forever. I was the only person in the world who
knew what he had left to live. I was the only person who could
really understand how he felt at every moment and yearned for. I was the
only one who could give him everything that no one else gave him when he
needed it most. I was the only person who could give me what I
needed at the time. I was the only one who could save her and,
therefore, save me. Working on your emotional wound you' re going
to let me, in what' s left of the chapter speak in feminine,
the personal work I' ve done has been with a girl, so
I identify myself more by saying girl than boy. You can put the genre
you want to look for a photo of when you were little or the time
you identified that your emotional wound was generated I always work with a little girl
' s sclapes, because, as you' ve seen so far, almost
everything always happens in childhood. Choose a photo in which you are very happy
and that you like it very much place it in view because it will accompany
your reading From now on, together the girl you went and you will finish
reading the last pages of this book. Your inner child, the adult you
are today, is a reflection of what happened in your childhood. The girl
who was told she was getting very expensive every time she asked for something she
needed. She is the adult who feels guilty today when she spends the money
on something that is not tremendously necessary. The girl who had to be responsible
early, taking care of her mother, father or younger siblings. She'
s the adult who' s looking out for everyone today, except herself.
The girl who was emotionally invalidated, is the adult who today thinks it bothers
when she speaks, the girl who heard a referent figure complain about her loneliness
and agreed to accompany her instead of going to do children' s things,
is the adult who today does not ask for help because she feels that there
are people with worse problems. The girl who was told not to be so
believed, is the adult who today has difficulty recognizing her virtues, the girl
who took refuge in the studies when she had a bad emotional time I am
the adult addicted to work, the girl who heard her parents talk about debts
constantly, is the adult who today gives great importance to money. The girl
they didn' t respect her limits, she' s the adult who'
s on the defensive today. The girl who learned to stand out and do
everything perfect to gain recognition of her referents, is the adult who today lives
with imposter syndrome. The girl who learned to ignore her needs to cover them
from her reference figures, is the adult who today feels guilty when others do
something for her. The girl who tried to transfer to her reference figures the
fear she had for an exam and they responded with a come to study without
attending her, is the adult who today carries her emotions, the girl who
learned to draw attention in a drastic way so that her references would heed her.
She is the adult who has erratic behavior today, the girl who grew
up surrounded by fatophobic comments. She' s the adult who can' t
look in the mirror today because she doesn' t like her. The girl
who suffered bullying at school or high school. She' s the adult who
has a hard time trusting people today. The girl they betrayed, she'
s the adult who has a hard time maintaining healthy relationships today. The adult
' s emotional wound reflects the girl' s survival strategy. Your inner child
is the girl you were the one who tried to do what she could with
what she had. Your inner child is the one who keeps your emotional wound,
regardless of the age at which it was generated. It can be you
with six, sixteen or twenty- six years. It' s a reflection
of that past where it all started. Those needs that were generated at the
time or time of the trauma, are still there waiting to be met,
as if you had left something pending. Remember this paragraph of chapter five on
the story of Pons Luis how interesting years ago, Luis had left the feeling
that he should do something useful. And today it was the same, as
if that behavior hadn' t been over and he hadn' t come out
of it, that is, over and over again you unconsciously experience the emotions
of your traumatic experience, because it didn' t end up being properly processed.
Your mind is like a scratched disk went into automatic mode and your three
brains couldn' t integrate, but it' s time to start changing this.
My intention in the previous chapters was to prepare you for this final chapter.
If you understand your story, you understand your emotional backpack and that of
your emotional guides. If you manage to feel comfortable with your thoughts and emotions
and learn to create healthy relationships, you will be rubbing the door of your
safe place with your fingertips. You just need to take care of your inner
child and give her what she needs, a balm to help heal your emotional
wounds. The white forest in this section and the next halo of light you
will find exercises that I would like you to read in a row, without
making long pauses, because they have a lot of relationship between them. One
will remove you a little bit and the other will help you calm down.
That' s why my recommendation is to make them one after the other.
Let' s go with the first one. Walk with me in the white
forest, a place where things never happen, because there' s always a
reason. This is a guided imagination exercise that I recommend you to do from
the tranquility of your home. You can read it and imagine it quietly or
scan the code, put on some headphones and come with me to the white
forest. Anyway, let' s take the white forest, make yourself comfortable
and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Notice the air coming in
and out of your lungs. See if there is any area of your body
in tension, if there is, try to relax it feels like your body
weighs more and more and relaxes. Legs, arms, neck. Right now
there' s nothing but this voice you' re listening to focus on.
Let' s take a trip inside you, to your memories. Imagine that
everything around you begins to disappear little by little. The furniture, the paintings,
instead, begin to appear green leaves, earth birds singing a stream.
Suddenly, you' re not home anymore, you' re in a forest.
The vegetation surrounds you with fresh air, pink your cheeks and the sunset
sun is more beautiful than in r ever. You walk between very tall and
leafy trees. You are calm and relaxed looking at the surroundings, when suddenly,
in the distance, you seem to see someone with a heart, something
accelerated. It gets close to you if you can see that you' re
the one with you when you' re little. You' re in front
of the girl you were one day She' s playing between the flowers.
Unconcerned, typical of a girl. You approach slowly without taking your gaze away
from her. A chill runs through your body when you' re a few
inches from it. The girl suddenly looks up and stares at you. While
smiling something very special. It unites you for a lifetime. I was waiting
for you, she tells you without wiping the smile of the gesture. That
girl had nothing wrong with her. What happened wasn' t his fault.
Some things may have been missing in the past, but now you' re
here to provide them. You' re an adult now. You lacked trust,
understanding, respect, validation whatever it was. Now you can give it
to him. You think then you' d treat that little girl like you
sometimes treat your grown- up. What did you think? I know.
I cry every time I do this exercise, too. Look back at the
picture of when you were little like you I have it in front of me
right now and I smile every time I question myself I look at it and
I think how she would feel right now, how you would treat her if
she came running to ask me for help and then acted accordingly. Finally,
I understand that my mission today is not to abandon myself or punish myself when
I feel that I can no longer listen to myself without judging or pressuring myself.
I understand myself and forgive myself for not being able to deal with the
situation just as I would with that child I was one day I have learned
to be compassionate to myself and to embrace myself when I need it most.
I have learned to offer myself the cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter
day, to take a dip in the pool in summer, to understand myself
and accept me unconditionally. And for that I had to make peace with my
past and myself. I' ve learned to forgive myself the halo of light.
Now I' m going to teach you, to relax. The halo
of light is a very powerful technique of relaxation and emotional regulation. This is
also a guided imagination exercise that, like the previous one, I recommend you
do from the tranquility of your home. Here are the instructions to be able
to exercise correctly. Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie down
in a comfortable position. Exercise consists of imagining how a halo of light surrounds
you and you go up your body from your feet to your head. Don
' t judge values. What you observe, just contemplate your body and accept
what is in each part. See if there is any area of your body
in tension, if there is, try to relax it while the halo of
light passes through that area during exercise. Imagine that your mind is a scanner
that has to go through all the parts of the body. If in the
middle of relaxation you notice that your mind is not in exercise, nothing happens,
focus again. It doesn' t matter how many times you get distracted.
The important thing is that you realize and be able to come back.
Don' t judge yourself. It' s normal for it to happen if
you detect feelings of impatience, urge boredom, don' t worry. It
is part of the practice to learn to be with them, to give space
to those thoughts, to observe them, and to pay attention to see whether
they change, change, or not to change. Go back to exercise,
don' t worry if you don' t feel anything. The important thing
is to look at what is here and now you can read it and imagine
it quietly or scan the code cuer place some headphones and concentrate on my words.
Be that as it may, let the idea go is that you connect
with your body and be aware of the qui and now the halo of light.
I' m here with you. It' s all right. Right
now, give me your hand. Now let' s do together a relaxation
exercise focus on your breathing. Watch the air come in and out of your
lungs. You can imagine that the air you breathe in is one color and
the air you exhale from another. I like to imagine that the one coming
in is white and the one coming out is gray or black. I feel
like that comes out of me what I don' t like and makes me
feel bad and I renew inside look at the sensations that the contact of your
feet with the ground conveys to you move it, if necessary to feel present.
You' re here now. The adult. Observe the weight of your
arms, tender, torso head and back and as they are placed, see
the differences if there are any between the areas. The halo of light begins
on your feet and ends in your head. The idea is that it'
s going up little by little. All over your body running around every area
as if it were a scanner. Start the scan by your feet and toes.
Transferring your finger to your finger, look at the sensations you perceive from
each of them. They pay attention to the separation and space they occupy.
While scanning try to be open to sensations of the type that are thermal of
touch, humidity, itching, tingling etc. From your toes, take your
attention to their soles and go back to your heels. Observe the curvature and
shape of the soles of your feet, scan the heels, and follow the
pawn area to the top of your feet. From the beginning little by little,
it takes attention to the ankles, observes how they are, if they
are supported, if they are flected, etc. Continue the scan through the
legs, climb up and pay attention to the pimples and then to the twins.
Keep going up to your knees. Imagine their bone area see if they
are stretched or flected. From the knees. S Continues to pass the scanner
until you reach your thighs, touring your entire front face and your back face.
Scan the glutes and see how they are supported. Transfer your attention to
the hips, pay attention to the lumbar area. Breathe deeply and see how
this area moves and the changes that occur. See if there is a lack
of sensations or if there is tension oppression. When you breathe. If there
is tension in the area, try to relax it From the lumbar area ascends
along the back, imagining how you go up vertebra to vertebra throughout the spine,
until you reach the dorsal area, pay attention to how you perceive this
part of the body. From the dorsal area it continues to ascend to the
cervical area. The top of the back looks as you raise the homoplates,
left and right. When you get to the cervical region, head to the
shoulders and nothing smooth with attention as they are right now. Now look at
the front area of the trunk and climb back up from the pubis. Go
up the abdomen and watch the breathing and the movements and sensations of your abdomen.
Climb through the diaphragm and climb through the rib rib box to the rib
until you reach your chest. From there he goes on to visualize the clavicle.
Now travel with your scanner to the periphery of your arms and focus on
your fingers and nails. Observe the sensations that can wake up, tingling itching,
humidity, temperature, etc. Go through all your thumb index heart,
ring and pinky. Observe the separation and space they occupy and not values differences.
Walk through the palm of your hands and then the back continues to climb
up the wrists, forearms and elbows, until you reach back or back to
the shoulders. Go up your neck, go through your throat and get to
your head and stop at your chin and see how your lower and upper jaw
is. See if there' s tension, since it' s an area
where it usually accumulates. If there is relaxation, keep climbing through the cheekbones,
ears, nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, and forehead up to the top
of your head, the highest point of your body. Now get ready to
breathe, imagining how renewed air comes in when you inspire and run through your
whole body, from your feet to your head, and how then the worn
air comes out, when you exhale and pass through your whole body again,
from your head to your feet. How are you? You liked the experience.
You can open your eyes. How you feel after this exercise. It
helps me a lot to connect with the present moment. When I feel very
overwhelmed, I lie down and exercise. If I can give you time and
if I don' t have a lot of time because I' m working
on the street or with more people, I do it in a quick version,
which would be doing the same thing, but without stopping too much in
each area. I imagine how the beam of light passes through my body in
a matter of seconds. To be able to do the quick version you need
to have practiced the slow one several times, because thus the feeling of relaxation
is already associated with exercise and it is easier to reach the state of calm
in the short version. If you haven' t been able to relax,
you can try again another time. Your safe place. Now we' re
going to build inside you a safe place, a place you can go to
whenever you need it. You can take your inner child to that place whenever
you notice that you need safe senses and calm instructions. If you sit down
and make yourself comfortable with this exercise, you can do it with your eyes
closed or open. You can read the first and then do it with your
eyes closed or do it directly with your eyes open. Evocate a place where
you feel safe and calm. It can be a beach, a country,
a forest, a park, your parents' house, your grandmother' s
house, your little room. It' s about going mentally to a place
where you feel at ease. It' s always not worth any trouble at
some point. For example, it is not advisable to evoke your parents'
house and relate it to screaming arguments and you felt bad there once you have
it answers these questions. Why that place is safe for you what you do
while you' re in that place you' re imagining or remembering, Notice
in detail how that chosen place looks at everything around you is day or night.
It' s an outdoor place, hot or cold. There' s
something you can hear. Invade by the feeling of feeling safe. Imagine that
you keep the sense of security in your chest. You can put your hands
in that area of your body. The warmth that feels great. Let a
word come to you that represents that place. You can be home, home
flowers sun beach. This word will anchor the sense of security. Whenever you
need to feel safe, close your eyes, place your hands on your chest
and evoke that place. Next to the word associated your compass so you never
get lost. You' ve ever felt lost in life. Don' t
worry. It' s very common. Good because something' s over.
Good because you have to start over, good because you have an impressive mental
cocoa. Good because your rational brain and your emotional brain. They fight,
you get lost they tell you. You have to think x, feel X
and do X and you go and think and feel h and you do w
of course. It' s amazing because for many tools you have to manage
yourself. It can happen to you anyway. There comes a day when you
don' t know which way to choose what to do in those moments of
vital blockade. It' s good to jump into the pool. I have
to think about it a little bit more. First remember what I said in
I love you about intuition and reason. Then do this exercise. Draw a
compass with its four cardinal points. You can do it with all the details
you want. Think of four values that represent you. These will correspond to
the four cardinal points North, South, East and o. This compass is
a magical object because you will not always point to the north, but the
values that will guide you at a certain time. Place each of the four
values at one cardinal point remember that none is more important than another. From
now on, as long as you have to choose a path and don'
t know which one you think. If I go this way, I will
be able to fulfill one of my four most important values in life. For
example, if I choose this job, I will be faithful to my honesty,
if not. Then think about it myself, when I find no harmony
between what I do, what I think and what I feel, I look
at my compass and act according to what it indicates. So, whatever happens.
I' ll be able to sleep quietly at night, because I'
ll know that I' ve acted according to my values. If you always
act according to your values, you will never regret what you do This exercise
can also be done with your partner, friend or family member. What I
recommend if it is done with other people, is to decide and put together
the four values that most represent the relationship. In this way, whatever you
do, you will always go in favor of those four values that most identify
your tools. In this book you have acquired a series of tools that can
help you understand your past and heal your present. My recommendation is that you
put them all together in a kind of kid to wear it whenever you need
it. You can write them on paper and keep it in a box,
a boat, a chest. You can also dedicate a notebook to your personal
work or use your imagination and save your new tools in the way you like
most. In the end, what we seek with this is to materialize them
and dedicate a space where we always have them available, because in delicate moments
in which the tonsil is activated, trying to figure out how to get out
of the discomfort becomes a rather complicated task. If we don' t have
something to stop us and give us back. At the present time, your
tools don' t have to be specific psychotherapeutic techniques, but they can also
be activities that work for you at a given time. I, for example,
find it great to walk or practice any kind of sport on a light
or moderate level, because so I release tension and am distracted if you can
think of nothing. I also remind you that in love your sex you had
a list of over fifty activities to take care of yourself that can inspire you.
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for more content like this. This was Lil' s secret.