Blog

Control

Posted on 12/12/2011

In many different ways we seek control of our lives every day, whether it is something small such as setting our alarm to get ourselves to work or something large as in telling everyone around us what to do. We all seek some level and form of control, yet most of us do not take the time to understand what motivates us to create this control in our lives.

When we seek to control someone or a situation, we are attempting to create some level of safety for ourselves. Control is used as a way to manage our fear because the greater the fear, the greater the control. When we have no fear, we also have no need for control because we have a level of trust that allows us to not control that situation.

At a very young age we are taught to control ourselves and our feelings. We are taught to hold our feelings in until the energy disappears from sight. We are also taught to control our urges—such as a need to be loud, run, and play—with statements like “children are to be seen and not heard.”

These forms of control are created from fear of displeasing our parents or authority figures as a child and become engrained in us so that we continue to control that aspect of our lives in adulthood. Control can be helpful in protecting us in certain situations; it can also be limiting so that we fear experiencing the fullness of life.

An example of positive control is when we set healthy boundaries that are respectful of ourselves and others. The boundary creates a level of safety and accountability and is a form of control. Control can also create negative consequences by limiting ourselves and others in such a way that we are not able to fully experience the many positive things life has to offer.

Our need for control is based upon what we have experienced and have been taught. As a child we may have had an experience that scared us and continues to present fear and a need to control and limit our activities. Our parents and/or authority figures may control certain situations due to fear associated with their history, and they may have passed that fear on to us.

The question becomes what is positive and healthy control and what type of control is unhealthy. Healthy control is control that is designed to protect a person or persons in ways that are respectful and do not create limits greater than the situation demands.

Unhealthy control is based upon exaggerated fear, meaning the fear is greater than the situation demands due to emotional history, phobias, and misinformation. Unhealthy control is disrespectful to ourselves and others. While we may not recognize the disrespect because we have grown accustomed to it, the disrespect still exits. The disrespect could be associated with pushing others away with our control when deep down inside we actually desire closeness.

When we are told we are controlling, which everyone is to some degree, it creates an opportunity to explore. In what ways we are controlling? Is the control healthy? If it is not, we can learn healthy, different ways to explore and work through the fear that creates the need for control.

Trust

Posted on 11/28/2011

In the counseling profession it is said that the most important thing in creating positive change for clients is to have a positive therapeutic relationship with them. What this means is that clients feel safe enough to open up and get honest with what is going on in their lives and to share the issues as a means to create positive change. The foundation of this process is trust.

The level of trust we have in our relationships is demonstrated in the level of sharing we are able to do with others. When we communicate with strangers, we limit our communication since we have no history of how safe it will be to share. As relationships grow and develop, we start to open up and share more. The more open we are with our emotional truth, the more we are able to trust that relationship.

Some people indicate that they trust everyone and are willing to share everything about themselves with others, yet what they actually share is very limited. While they may be sharing to the best of their ability, there is another level of sharing that requires a deeper level of trust. Most of us have not experienced this level of trust or sharing because we have not been taught that it is acceptable to share at this level. In fact, many times we have been taught to shut down this level. This level of sharing requires the ability to connect with and feel our true feelings.

True or straight feelings do not hurt ourselves or anyone else when they are felt, yet they tend to be hidden by our sideways feelings. Since we have been taught to hide our true feelings, it becomes difficult to feel safe with and express this level of feelings.

To assist a person in getting to this level of trust and sharing requires patience, support, encouragement, guidance, and examples. People are very fearful of trusting enough to share at this level.
Trust is earned and is sensitive to the environment as well as the behaviors of others. Many people have indicated that they trust no one. When they share their stories, it becomes clear why they have so little trust in others.

Trust is a process that grows and is earned. The greater the trust, the deeper the relationship is and the safer each person feels with the other. This type of trust grows as the relationship creates deeper levels of safety. As the safety increases, the deeper truth has greater opportunities to come forward.

Any time we have a goal of creating trust, it’s important to limit judgment, criticism, control, and advice. These behaviors are counterproductive to trust since they foster some level of fear. When we attempt to control, we exude our own fear. The other person is able to recognize this fear. Creating fear and anxiety limits the opportunity for trust to grow. The more we feed the pattern of fear, the less trust is able to grow. The more we are able to limit our judgment, criticism, control, and advice, the more opportunity we create for trust to grow..

Financial Self-Worth versus Financial Codependency

Posted on 11/18/2011

The professions of financial services and psychotherapy each have many of their own specific terms. With a growing understanding that these two professions have an overlapping area in feelings and emotions, new terms are starting to emerge. One of these is financial self-worth.

While financial net worth and financial self-worth are sometimes used synonymously, they actually are very different. Financial net worth is made up of our monetary assets minus our liabilities. Financial self-worth is the ability to feel positive about who we are and to be comfortable with our financial situation and the amount of money we have.

Another related term, with still a different meaning, is financial self-esteem. As an example, you may feel great for a while about making a sale that has helped your financial situation, yet still have an inner desire to get more money.  The successful sale gave only a temporary boost to your financial self-esteem.

Our financial self-worth becomes greater as we feel more confident and comfortable with who we are around our finances. The greater our financial self-worth becomes, the less we act out of financial codependency. Financial codependency is where we place the financial needs of others as more important than our own. This plays out in many different ways such as needing to buy everyone’s meals, buying excessive gifts, helping others get out of debt, loaning family or friends money with the expectation that it may not be returned, or buying cars, houses, trips, or college educations for our children. While these all may be nice things to do, they also may harm us or even the person we are trying to help.

When we create a pattern of excessive giving, it eventually becomes an expectation and something the other person starts to rely on. This teaches the other person to become reliant on others rather than independent with their finances. While there is certainly value and importance in giving, the question becomes to what degree do we give and what do we hope to teach our children or the other person in this process. When we give too much, we deny our children or the other person the opportunity to learn about finances and the consequences of poor financial decisions. This denial delays the learning opportunity until the time comes when the handout no longer exists. If children have only learned that they can get what they want and the parents will pay for it, when the parents are no longer in the picture, they financially crash. In this situation the children have no financial self-worth, because they did not earn what they have and have no understanding of finances.

To help children improve their financial self-worth and decrease their financial codependency, it is wise for parents to teach them about finances and money at a young age. Strong financial parenting creates ways for children to save, tithe, and learn from their financial mistakes while understanding the feelings that get stirred with certain financial decisions. It also helps validate healthy financial decisions.

As adults, we also can improve our financial self-worth by taking the time to understand finances rather than ignoring them. We can explore the feelings that motivate us to make financial decisions that are not in our best interests and that keep us from moving forward in making healthy financial decisions. This helps us create ways to make financial decisions with self-integrity, meaning our words, thoughts, feelings, and body language are saying the same things about our financial decisions. .

Financial Codependency

Posted on 10/29/2011

Many of us have heard the term codependency and may be familiar with how it plays out in one’s life. Fewer of us are familiar with the term financial codependency.

Financial codependency occurs when we make the financial needs of others greater than our own financial needs. When we focus on the financial needs of another person, expectations and resentments develop on both sides. Financial codependency can be seen in many different ways in a person’s life.

Typically, financial codependency plays out with family members and can also be seen in relationships with friends or significant others. Among friends, it commonly takes the form of one person continually loaning money to friends and seldom getting paid back. With couples, one partner may concede all the finances to the other and be unaware of their financial status or situation. Typically parents give to their children and may continue this giving pattern well into adulthood. Some parents give until they die, which indicates how large an issue financial codependency can be.

Many parents realize they have made mistakes and feel guilty around the way they may have raised their children. As a way to compensate for the inadequacies in their parenting, they create ways to help their children financially to relieve some of that guilt. Different ways that parents may present financial codependency to their children include: giving money for no reason, buying as gifts items the children cannot afford, paying for cars, trips, or household bills because children cannot afford them, making sure they always pay for meals even when children can afford and want to pay, helping children through difficult financial tight spots they placed themselves in, paying for college, paying for a house, etc. While all of these can be supportive ways to help children financially, if the motivation is to enable, tension can be created and the opportunity for the child to learn and grow to become financially independent is lost.

When we attempt to help another person financially, we are denying them the opportunity to grow from their own financial situations. We enable them to rely on us financially. Unless the pattern of financial codependency stops, it becomes a financial enmeshment that is difficult to change.

Looking at financial codependency at a deeper level typically uncovers strings associated with the giving. Conditions like “I want you to love me,” or “Now you have to do what I say,” are a couple of unspoken strings associated with financial codependency.

To create freedom from financial codependency it is important to recognize the underlying motivation for the financial codependency and the underlying feelings that drive this behavior.

While we want the best for our children and will do whatever we can to give them what we believe will be the best for them, we actually are doing a disservice by enabling them. The best way to help our children is to teach them at a young age about money and the role it plays in their lives. As they learn and grow, it is our responsibility as parents to be mentors and supporters while they walk through their own financial obstacles.

Insular Cortex – Trauma Child

Posted on 10/07/2011

In the counseling profession the term inner child is sometimes used to describe a person’s emotional truth. A less common term is trauma child. This is used to describe the subconscious part of the brain that remembers all the emotional trauma a person has experienced, in an attempt to prevent the person from having to feel that emotional pain again.

While the inner child resides in the limbic system of the brain, the trauma child resides in the insular cortex. The insular cortex is also known as the insula and works between the cerebral cortex (conscious part of the brain) and the limbic system (emotional part of the brain).

Emotional trauma is created any time a person has a painful emotional experience and is unable to validate, work through, and let go of the feelings. Emotional trauma can be as small as being asked to stop crying or as large as receiving post-traumatic stress from narrowly escaping death. As long as the feelings and emotions are not worked through and resolved, they become emotional trauma and reside in the limbic system.

The insular cortex recognizes that the unresolved feelings are present in the limbic system and also has been taught in many different ways that the feelings are not to be looked at or let out. Everything that the insular cortex is taught is external and is learned from interacting with the world and other people. While many people indicate they taught themselves these behaviors, when a person is willing to go deep enough at an emotional level, the response of hiding one’s feelings is always taught by others, either directly or indirectly. Most of what has been learned and is stored in the insular cortex is taught in the first five years of a person’s life.

Because the insular cortex has been taught to hide feelings, when it recognizes the limbic system is attempting to work through a feeling, it quickly creates a counter-response it has learned to hide those feelings again. Initially, this learned response meant to hide the emotional pain created relief and comfort from the emotional stress. Eventually, though, it can create more stress and discomfort. This pattern is the foundation for an addiction, in which the insular cortex plays a major part.

Since the insular cortex’s job is to find and/or create comfort for the person and it has been taught to hide a person’s feelings, emotional stress and tension get created. This is where the trauma child resides. As feelings are able to be worked through, validated, honored, and released, the energy the trauma child holds is able to be released.