breath | Online therapy, counseling & psychoanalysis

Breath and balance are, as important as anything can be moving us toward self-guided health care, and ever evolving toward emotional maturity, a goal post that moves every now and then. The mental gymnastics that the ego or conscious mind puts us through is counter-stabilized with breath and balance. Many people change shift between Urgency and Calm as frequrntly as they change their socks.

The instincts do not remain in the shadow of the object when the body is consulted for sensations. But that only works from a position of calmness. Getting to still point with mantra and breath is a fundamental aspect of getting to health. Of course, life also happens between sessions in any practice. It is the balance we learn before hand that steadies us in a moment of body-pain. Sometime our own body pain, or even the body pain of others can activate the lack of balance (mental, emotional & physical).

The return of the repressed and the return of the repetition compulsion activates and ignites fear which then takes our breath out of balance and everything feels wrong. We have shut down the light in the inner landscape because we are afraid of what we might see in ourselves that would reveal an aspect of ourseves that we rather not see.

With the crown of your head high, your shoulders relaxed and a deep breath filling all of your lungs, slowly let out more breath than you took in. Breath like you are conducting the figure 8. Do this a couple of times before continuing to read.

Why?

Because a well analyzed life includes a connection with the body-unconscious where our ancestry, experiences and memories are stored like in frozen ground until some heat, some return of the repressed ignites the muscles, cells, and bones of sensation. Now our fear of doing the next right thing that we need to do for ourselves demands that we pay attention. The psychic pain will employ the body in order to get the crisis across. The needle on the gage reads low energy. Going too much further without replenishing and we risk running out of gas only half way to our destination. We used to call this a Nervous Breakdown. I still do.

Below is an example of a meditation–it is constructed of non-mentated gestures and lines that I filled in with color and mood. Well-being is a state of no effort because it takes as its starting point a moment of stillness. Therefore, a better chance of leading to clarity than if we attempt to move through chaos…. contour-and-gesture-1

Granted, when to comes to free-floating creativity some of us find it nearly unnecessary. but, creativity like compassion is not just a definition of who we are, not just a part of us we can ignore. It is invcolved in day to day decision making. The extent to which we feel it is necessary to be right will go to the furthers right position that a psyche can take–sabotage or suicide.

Given the gravity of clarity in determining what we want for ourselves and our loved ones, it is no wonder that folks find themselves with a therapist or a Sharman, people who are devoted to healing as an art as well as practicing out of a body of knowledge that builds in protection for the client. A protection that they simply do not have the desire or the capacity to apply to their own needs.

A characteristic exists, repressed to the deeper unconscious because knowing this part would require facing a condition that appears helpless to render a solutiuon that meets both the needs of the self and of its multitude of fragmented parts.

Helplessness is at the root of all trauma. And we get there by not paying attention to our body. Our only way back to the light is to look at all the parts we have been tripping over in the dark and begin to wonder, not about getting rid of these parts, but about rearranging them so that or mind and body can begin to search for balance.

Distance Regulation as Couples Counseling: how to push-back to feel closer

Distance regulation is a concept heard frequently in object relations. Simply it is a tool for assessing the distance required by a person so they are able to experience The Other in a comfortable manner. There is a myth that goes like this: “You have to be close & happy all the time all the time.”
When working with couples the issue of boundaries is significant. Most often with the significant other, but also with other family members and friends and colleagues and bosses.
As we process a relationship, that is, as we try to understand what is wrong in a relationship we might be frightened by realizing the problem is we are too close. We may discover that it has become difficult to say “No” to someone we love or to someone we think is in-charge-of-us. We worry about what the other person will think and we let what we are thinking and feeling take a back seat to the other’s concerns. In time the lack of taking care of the self in relation to others becomes a blurred and chaotic boundary.
When the boundaries become blurred we have no method available to regulate the distance we need to keep in order to salvage the relationship. In other words, we behave in the exact opposite way that we need to. We think that meeting “The Others needs” will be in our best interest. When this is done to extremes, self-confidence withers away. In time we begin to have the thought that we need to end the relationship.

Often by this point in time, it is true that the relationship can no longer be saved; but, also true is the fact that maintaining adequate boundaries may make a positive shift so significant that the relationship improves dramatically and quickly. Telling ourselves, then our partner, what is the necessary distance required for the relationship to flourish, can save miles of self-destructive behavior. If a person thinks that giving themselves over to the other person is what is required, in time the relationship will become over-stimulating. An adrenalin disorder can set in. Neither party will want this. When a relationship becomes conducted by anxiety, only frustration grows. With intensity of emotion, often conducted by the worry of the day, clarity becomes obscured and we question every decision with speculation toward a terrible ending. Narratives are thus ego-driven and the immune system, the heart, and the breath are not even consulted.

Fear of doing what is best for you will in the long run destroy exactly what it is that is being protected.

Distance regulation is about saying calmly–“I can not comfortable do this”. If the request and the expectation are one of self-sacrifice there is little chance that your needs will be met. In the condition of un-met needs, the person becomes unable to differentiate what is good and what is not good for themselves. This then becomes the cause of the chaos. With chaos instead of clarity the person loses their sense of self and thinks that ending the relationship is a better idea than presenting calmly their own needs with an assertiveness that demands attention. Distance regulation prevents hostilities from growing into recalcitrant resentments. Although backing away might seem counter-intuitive, it may be the best route to intimacy because intimacy requires there be two people present, two sets of needs, two out-looks, two unique individuals.

Don’t be afraid to back-off it may bring you closer.