Tips on Life in Small Bites

What Love Looks Like Outline: Expressions/Experiences of Love: Affective; Intentional Love as a Verb Love is a Choice Affective Love “Affect” here refers to one’s emotional experience of one’s feelings. While all four loves (Storge, Philia, Eros & Agape) can be experienced this way, this is where Storge love is more “felt” – the affection one feels for another. (View blog post on  "The Four Loves" for further elaboration on this. ) Some adjectives for this felt love are: Tenderness, gentleness, warmth, closeness, enjoyment, belonging, intimacy, satiation, connectedness, contentment, well-being. Intentional Love Intentional love is being thoughtful: Taking time to study and know the object of our love. Intentional love is being considerate: Choosing to put aside our own conveniences and desires to yield to the other. Intentional love is choosing the good of the other over our own desires, wants and conveniences. Love as a Verb Our love is usually experienced by others thr...

Stay in Our Lane   Introduction: I usually do not appreciate having any sort of restraints on my life. The double yellow lines on the road feel restrictive on one-lane country roads when there’s a slow-moving vehicle in front of me. Traveling at high speed on those one-lane roads, I know that disregarding the double yellow lines on the road to pass a slow-moving vehicle could be dangerous. I am constantly looking for the dotted yellow line on my side of the lane, so I could quickly and safely speed up and pass the slow car. “Stay in your own lane” has been an often-quoted phrase for quite a few years now. At the time, I understood it to mean that we need to mind our own business and not get overly involved in others’ affairs.  However, as I was driving on the Skyline Drive this past week in dense fog, I gained a new understanding and appreciation of this phrase. The roads were windy, and over 1,000 feet in elevation. At times, the visibility in this fog was less than 50 feet, ...

Coping/Defense Mechanisms ( Part 1 of 2) Outline: Coping/Defense Mechanisms: Definition Function of Coping Mechanisms List of Coping Mechanisms Embracing Our Coping Mechanisms Definition: Coping/Defense Mechanisms are our ways of managing stress, anxiety, or negative emotions. It could be a conscious choice on how to manage these emotions, or it could be unconscious. When it is conscious, we are actively choosing an action/behavior to help us manage/deal with these emotions. When it’s unconscious, we find ourselves thinking/acting/behaving in certain ways and might be surprised by them. Function of Coping Mechanisms Our way to survive/adapt to our mental/emotional/interpersonal stimuli/“environment.” Our psyche cannot take too much stress/negative stimuli, as they could overwhelm our “system,” so our unconscious/subconscious kicks in, without our full (conscious) knowledge, to help us manage the situation. When it is conscious, then it’s our way of choosing what we want to do with the ...

Coping/Defense Mechanisms (Part 2 of 2): When and How to Change Coping Mechanisms Outline: • Healthy Coping Mechanisms • Unhealthy Coping Mechanisms • When to Consider Changing Them • Practical Tools on Changing Coping/Defense Mechanisms Healthy Coping Mechanisms Any Coping Mechanism that works to relieve us of our stress without causing harm to ourselves or others, is a healthy one. We sometimes just need to cope the best we can at the moment. Some examples of a healthy Coping Mechanism can be: Avoidance; Denial; Fantasy; Humor; Idealization; Intellectualization; Magical/Wishful Thinking; Minimizing/Trivializing; Numbing; Rationalization; Reaction Formation; Sublimation; and Suppression.  The KEY here is that these mechanisms are temporary – Just to get us through the moment. Any of them being always used in all situations, could backfire on us. Coping/Defense Mechanisms can be “neutral,” and not be categorized as either healthy or unhealthy: It depends on what’s happening...

Setting Realistic Expectations Outline: Expectations – What Are They Expectations Toward Ourselves Transference Expectations Toward Others Expectations Toward God Expectations Toward Life Others’ Expectations Toward Us How to Manage Expectations  Setting Realistic Expectations Expectations – What Are They Definition: The act or state of looking forward or anticipating. (Dictionary.com) Our World View sets up our expectations toward life. Our expectations come from our life experiences. We all have expectations toward ourselves, toward others, toward life and toward God. We sometimes are not aware of our expectations and find we have them, after we become disappointed or upset with an unexpected outcome. We do not have the right to make others meet our expectations when our expectations have not been verbalized, discussed, and agreed upon with the other. We have no control over anyone else and only have control over our own expectations. Being aware of our expectations gives us powe...

Tackling Negative Self-Talk Outline: Self-Talk Origins of Our Self-Talk Connection to Our Core Beliefs Acknowledge it Combat it Soul Ties Cut Off Ungodly Soul Ties Replace it Self-Talk We hear a “script” running in our head, sometimes narrating what’s going on, sometimes accusing/condemning us and other times comforting us. It represents our view toward life/world view/expectations toward life. Origins of Our Self-Talk Our expectations toward life are informed by our observations and experiences. We could have heard someone saying certain things about us; about them; about life in general – and if we’ve heard it from our family of origin (especially from our parents), we tend to embrace them without much conscious awareness or questioning. A lot of our self-talk came from our Core Beliefs. Connection to Our Core Beliefs Our Core Beliefs came from our earliest experiences as infants – before we had words. We unconsciously “reason” our experiences to “make sense” of them – even thoug...

Repetition Compulsion, Secondary Gains, Sublimation & Overcoming Core Beliefs Repetition Compulsion • Our unresolved issues reside in our unconscious. • We unconsciously repeat the same dynamic from our unresolved issues/relationships in our present/ensuing relationships, in our effort to undo/make alright the original relationship. • We find ourselves attracted to friends and relationships/find ourselves in situations that have similar dynamics with our unresolved original relationships. • These situations/relationship dynamics generate “familiar feelings” in us. • Since the present relationship is not the original relationship, doesn’t matter how much we try to fix our present relationship of the same ilk, the original relationship cannot be fixed in this present one.  • This operates from our unconscious; it is not intentional, so we ought not “blame” ourselves for it. • Example A: A person grew up with a mother who was narcissistic (unable to separate onself f...