Tag: relationships

Coping with Mid-Life Challenges

by Erin Theodorou, posted in Uncategorized

Midlife is a time of transition, reflection, and, for many, a bit of confusion. It’s a phase where the dreams of youth can sometimes feel distant, and the future can seem uncertain. Whether you’re approaching your 40s, 50s, or beyond, coping with midlife involves understanding the challenges that come with aging while also embracing the opportunities for growth, renewal, and reinvention.

In this blog post, we’ll dive into how you can cope with the changes that come with midlife and use this period to rediscover yourself, your passions, and your purpose.

1. Acknowledge the Feelings: It’s Okay to Feel Mixed Emotions

One of the most important steps in coping with midlife is simply acknowledging your feelings. It’s common to experience a range of emotions: nostalgia for the past, anxiety about the future, and even frustration with changes in your body, energy, and lifestyle.

It’s completely normal to go through what is often called a “midlife crisis,” although not everyone experiences it in the same way. For some, it’s a time of questioning one’s life choices, relationships, and career. For others, it’s a moment of deep reflection that leads to a profound sense of self-awareness and growth.

Tip: Start by acknowledging where you are emotionally. Journaling, therapy, or open conversations with friends can help you process complex feelings. Sometimes, just recognizing and naming your emotions can be a powerful first step toward healing and growth.

2. Embrace the Physical Changes: Your Body is Evolving, Not Fading

Midlife often brings noticeable changes in the body—weight gain, wrinkles, less energy, and for women, the onset of menopause. These changes can trigger feelings of loss, but rather than seeing them as signs of decline, it’s helpful to view them as part of your evolution.

Stay Active: Regular exercise can help maintain energy levels, improve mood, and boost your overall health. Find an activity you enjoy—whether it’s walking, yoga, swimming, or even dancing.

Take Care of Your Mental Health: Midlife is a time when mental health can be more vulnerable. Anxiety, depression, and stress may arise, but they can be managed. Meditation, mindfulness, therapy, or creative hobbies can do wonders for emotional well-being.

Nourish Your Body: Focus on a balanced diet with nutrient-rich foods that support your energy and overall health. Also, don’t forget to hydrate and get enough sleep. Small, consistent changes in your diet and lifestyle can make a big difference in how you feel physically and emotionally.

3. Reevaluate Your Career: This Might Be the Time for a Change

For many people, midlife is a time when they start to question their career. Perhaps you’re feeling unfulfilled or thinking about switching paths. Maybe the corporate grind isn’t as appealing as it used to be, or you’ve always dreamed of starting a business or pursuing a creative passion.

While these questions can feel overwhelming, midlife offers a unique opportunity to pivot and pursue something more aligned with your values and interests.

Tip: Take the time to assess where you are professionally. What’s working, and what isn’t? What would make you feel more fulfilled? It could be an ideal time to invest in further education, take up a new hobby that could turn into a side hustle, or even plan a full career change.

For some, transitioning into new professional endeavors later in life can be one of the most rewarding parts of midlife. With experience and wisdom on your side, you may find that you have the confidence to take risks that you wouldn’t have earlier in life.

4. Strengthen Your Relationships: Deepen Your Connections

Midlife often brings shifts in relationships. Your children may be growing up and becoming more independent, or your social circle may be changing as you age. While this might bring feelings of loss, it can also be a great time to focus on the relationships that matter most.

Reconnect with Yourself: During the busyness of earlier life stages, you may have prioritized others—your kids, your career, or your partner. Now is the time to reconnect with yourself. Invest in activities that allow you to grow and rediscover your own needs, desires, and dreams.

Build New Bonds: Seek out new friendships or strengthen existing ones. Sometimes, making new connections with people who share your interests can bring fresh energy into your life.

Nurture Your Romantic Life: If you’re in a relationship, midlife can be a time to rekindle the romance. Whether it’s a long-term partner or someone new, don’t be afraid to invest time in your romantic life and explore new ways of connecting.

5. Find Purpose and Meaning: Reinvent Yourself

One of the most powerful ways to cope with midlife is by finding a renewed sense of purpose. This could involve pursuing a long-held passion, contributing to your community, or focusing on things that truly matter to you.

Volunteer: Giving back to others can be deeply rewarding. Whether it’s through mentorship, charity work, or community involvement, helping others can bring a sense of fulfillment that goes beyond personal achievements.

Travel or Explore New Experiences: You may have put off certain dreams or experiences for years. Whether it’s learning a new language, traveling to a new country, or trying something creative like painting or writing, midlife is a great time to explore new avenues of personal fulfillment.

Be Open to Spiritual Growth: Some people find that midlife sparks a journey toward spiritual exploration or introspection. Whether it’s through organized religion, meditation, or philosophical reflection, exploring deeper questions about existence can lead to profound personal growth.

6. Celebrate Your Achievements and Gratitude

Finally, remember to take stock of all the things you’ve achieved in your life. Midlife can sometimes bring a sense of “time running out,” but it’s also a time to celebrate how far you’ve come. Practice gratitude for the experiences and lessons that have shaped you into the person you are today.

Celebrate your accomplishments, big and small, and recognize the wisdom that comes with age. Reflecting on how much you’ve learned and how much you still have to give can provide a sense of empowerment as you move forward.

Conclusion: Midlife as a New Beginning

Coping with midlife isn’t about avoiding change or wishing for the past. It’s about embracing change, learning from it, and using it as a platform for the next chapter in your life. While the road might seem uncertain at times, midlife offers a unique opportunity for reinvention, self-discovery, and personal growth.

Whether you’re navigating physical changes, career transitions, or personal reflections, remember: midlife is a phase of life, not a crisis. Embrace it as a time to rediscover your passions, refocus your priorities, and find deeper meaning in your everyday experiences.

By accepting the changes, reflecting on what truly matters, and embracing the possibilities, you’ll find that midlife can be one of the most fulfilling and exciting phases of your life.

If you’re navigating midlife yourself, what’s been most helpful to you? Feel free to share your thoughts in the comments below or connect with others who are on the same journey. We’re all in this together!

If you are interested in counseling, please reach out to me:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/therapists/erin-theodorou-glen-ridge-nj/243617

How Object Relations Theory Can Help You

by Erin Theodorou, posted in Uncategorized

I often use object relations theory to help clients better interact with the “problem” people in their lives. It’s a complicated theory and I focus on one particular concept that fosters improved understanding of how others operate. This is helpful because almost everyone who comes into my counseling office can admit to having a person in their life they view as a “problem.”

The theory posits that our relationship skills in adulthood are strongly rooted in our early childhood relationships with our primary caregivers, particularly our mothers. Hence why it is often helpful to explore our childhood relationships as they pertain to current relational problems. Sometimes, clients show resistance to looking back in their personal histories, yet often it is required, if we are to effectively move forward in our lives.

A real life application: Have you ever wondered why you always tend to date the same type of person? Or why you always end up having the same argument about the exact same topic again and again with your partner? Or why you are always concerned about what others think of you, even if they are friends who reassure you and treat you with respect? These repeating patterns in relational life are a common occurrence, and many therapists believe that the reason for these patterns is hidden in our childhood experiences.

Often we position ourselves as separate and above in our relationships. We attempt to control our partners, our kids, our bodies, and even the way we think (“I will not be such a Debbie Downer”). Take a step back, and you’ll see that running your relationships from a place of control and power is crazy. Even with that awareness, the minute the emotional temperature begins to rise, more reactive parts of the brain take over, and that is precisely the model we revert to: “I’m right, and you’re wrong. You win, and I lose. I can let you in, or I can protect myself.”

We need a paradigm shift.  Stop a minute and think about people you know and how you feel around them. If you feel seen, heard and valued by someone, they probably have an view of you as a unique, separate person from themselves (good object relations). These people are able to integrate the good and bad aspects of others including themselves. However, if you feel unseen, unheard and devalued, they probably objectify you (poor object relations). These people often are splitters, seeing others as “all good” or “all bad.”

The truth is we can not undo our childhoods, but we can understand them now from our adult perspective. Understanding object relations theory and how it shapes the way you show up in your relationships can be a good first step to more fulfilling relationships. In turn, we can see these relational patterns for what they are deeply ingrained habits, and begin to change them.

How to Become Less Reactive: A Family Systems View

by Erin Theodorou, posted in counseling, emotionalimmaturity, psychology, self-help
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The best way to not BE alone is to stand alone.

What do I mean? So many clients come to me and have experienced dysfunction in their childhood and felt lonely all their life. They haven’t had a chance or an opportunity to learn much about self-differentiation. In fact, they learned enmeshment, worried states, anxiety, trauma. Thus, being able to stand alone, which is so important for self-differentiation and relationships, is a must. It becomes a treatment goal.

Many people come into a counseling session and say, “I don’t want to focus on my past I just want to move forward.” 

From my perspective as a clinician, it is VERY difficult to move forward with one or two hands tied behind your back. I think a lot of folks who try to put their past out of their thinking or state it is of no value or no importance to be bothered with are actually trying to grow and chance it with one handed tied behind their back (or for some people with BOTH hands tied behind their back).

Clients may respond, “But isn’t that just in the past? How is that affecting me now?”  Maybe you don’t live with your family of origin now or may only see them but once or twice a year. Perhaps you have own children and are focused on the family you have created. Or maybe your parents are dead so in your mind, no need to bring up things from one’s childhood. Maybe you don’t believe in blaming your parents for what your current troubles are so you don’t even want to talk about them.  Or perhaps you believe you came from a wonderful family, so why bother looking at the past. The reasons go on and on for why clients do not feel the need to discuss the past.

So why is the past important? Because it IS the present. It is STILL in US. In a way we have a lifelong dialogue with our family of origin in us. If you don’t believe that, you don’t have to. Yet most people I know are prisoners to their past or rebelling AGAINST their past.

They have not found a way to neutalize or detach from their past. Neither being a prisoner to one’s past or rebelling from it is FREEDOM. 

I believe learning from and healing from our past is a way to navigate knowing yourself and how to interact with others.  Working through your past is how you become free from the emotional traps that are playing out in your present life. I have seen it happen time and time again. I believe dealing with the past is the way to REAL change. It leads to self-differentiation, something most of us don’t have enough of, which causes most of our problems in life.

The past IS present and IN you. Most people try to move away from their past, yet the best way is to move THROUGH the past and BEYOND it.

Many people grow up and develop an addiction to love and approval. Whenever we have an addiction to something, we never can achieve it or have it. We are always just searching for it.

Remember, loneliness is a result or symptom of unresolved issues from childhood. I try to show clients that the solution is often NOT near the problem. So, when people try to solve the problem of loneliness, they often get stuck onto other relationships that end up falling apart leading them to feel abandon, left, and with the scars of broken relationships. Thus what they seek after doesn’t happen.

Many of us fear being lonely and abandoned. Often those of us fear being alone, already experience it. Our fear pushes us into unhealthy relationships where what we fear comes upon us.

It is often our own insecurity that causes our relationships to fail. We are enmeshed, we are reactive.  We must resolve and deal with our fears to be healthier and have healthier relationships. This is a pivotal part of self-differentiation.

Standing alone with one’s self and giving up on one’s neediness for approval will result in true intimacy, true connectedness, and lifelong relationships. Self-differentiation is the key to connectedness.

The paradox of love and approval is if you need it you will not get it.  If you let it go, it will come to you. If you really want it then don’t need it. It needs to become internalized to us.

Remember, standing alone is NOT the same thing as BEING ALONE.  I believe the best way to be alone is to not stand alone. Self-abandonment is the root of all adult abandonment issues.  We were abandoned when we were young and then we continue that abandonment and we continue that abandonment of ourselves–we then look for someone to fix that abandonment when that fix is inside us.

When we learn connectedness with ourselves, we can then in turn connect with others.

You must be a self to have healthy relationships. You must be able to stand alone to be with others.  You need to be okay with yourself.

The goal in developing healthy relationships is to learn how to stop being so reactive. Our reactivity is what causes us to enmesh with those unhealthy people. Learn how to use your reactivity to learn new things about yourself and the relationship. Your reactivity can tell you a lot about how to proceed, what to do, and what to do with yourself. When I’m being reactive, I know it is not healthy and I am being immature. There is something deficient in me that causes this reactivity and I want to learn something about that.

How does one become less reactive and more self-differentiated?

To clarify, reactivity, as it relates to family systems theory, is when the emotional field of the relationship system “pings” one another and we become reactive as a result of it.

It is our deep emotional system that we often inherit from family of origin. It is often deep inside us.

Often it is subconscious and can be traced back to the pinging that went on within our family of origin. Now we can then in turn have conscious feelings that come as a result of being “pinged” but often how we act in relationships is automatic, subconscious, and reactive ways.

Therefore, it is important to explore this and work on becoming less reactive. Rather than dealing with feelings, which are important, we must focus on the primitive part of our emotional field that formed during our early years. It is here that our reactivity should be dealt with and resolved. If we want to have healthy relationships, we must do the work of working on our self and self-differentiation. We need to look at the underlying emotional field.

This emotional field is always working within us and is tricky. When it is triggered, we feel feelings and often “react” as opposed to “responding.” Often in counseling, a therapist will address a client’s “presenting” feelings but not address the client’s deeper “lizard brain” part of them–which is part of this emotional field. The lizard brain is the most primitive part of our self where we process feelings and emotions. If you change that lizard brain, you change that emotional field and you will change your sense of self.  Basically, Bowen Family System theory is this view that the deep emotional part of us, the limbic part of us i.e. the lower brain, needs to get changed and it in turn we can feel more mature and less reactive.

Changing the emotional system is the way to make meaningful change as adults—emotionally, behaviorally, and in relationships. Yet oftentimes in our family of origin we have a “fixed role.”

This fixed role is the way we are expected to function and perform in our family. If we don’t comply, we are often made to feel guilt, shame, fear. If you don’t do way your family system wants, you may find your mother, father, etc. are disappointed in you and in turn they withhold their “conditional” love.  With this conditional love being withheld,  you will in subsequently feel abandon. Thus, oftentimes, we take the path of LEAST RESISTANCE—we continue to stay in these fixed roles despite it not making us happy.

Our choices often are a fight or flight response. We can come and be mad at our family. Or we can withdraw in reactivity and not come around anymore because we don’t want to confront everybody.  One is too aggressive; one is too passive. We all find ourselves falling between those two sides when we can’t deal with the emotional minefield within us or playing out in our family of origin.

What do we do to become less reactive?

1)Observe. Work on observing not absorbing. We often absorb other people and relationship systems and then our functioning remains immature and the same.  Observe the pinging rather than think “I’m JUST my feelings and you are JUST your feelings.”

2)Listen more. Listen to you, listen to others. Resist absorbing the other person and their feelings, take a think more and feel less focus, identify and break the family of origin beliefs/values/rules AND roles. We challenge those innately when we become self-differentiated. Our authentic self may go along with our family of origin’s values, rules, roles, etc. If it doesn’t, we begin to resist it, slowly, calmly, and maturely. Over time that changes our lower brain and our functioning, and we begin to become less reactive.

3)Focus on deep change and the hard work of changing your INSTINCTIVE brain to raise your level of self-differentiation. Change your emotional functioning position in your family of origin. Bowen always talked about our family of origin imprinting on us the most–that deep level, that family brain. When we begin to change how we function there it will begin to change how we function in every other relationship. Increase your awareness when you are pinged and function more independently. Meaning if I am pinged, I need to resist doing what the other wants me to do and be my authentic self.

4)Act to be more of a separate self. Embrace your emotionally reactivity and embrace your patterns of distancing, over focus on others.  Remember it takes work to increase your emotional backbone and go without love and approval.

5)Deal with and resolve with your resistance to becoming a self. Oftentimes we have so many anxieties, fears about becoming our real self and we need to work on those. We need to work on those downsides of what we believe when we become a true self. If you can learn to resist the pull and push for you to remain in your allotted role in your family of origin and the powerful forces that want you to function as you always have, the system will eventually recalibrate to a higher level of functioning. This is best for everyone and will result in more authentic, healthier relationships.

If you are able to function at a higher level and be the more authentic you, many will not like that at first, including members of your family of origin. People find comfort in the familiar and may fight to keep you in the box they put you in. The key here is to allow the resistance phase and your family wanting you to change back. Eventually this will recalibrate your family and the relationship system. You will be more accepted–the newer you, the higher functioning, more authentic you.

6)Become more aware of your programing and emotional circuitry as you are connected to others—you ping them, they ping you. This holds true in all family systems. Begin to learn that system. You can then begin to make changes in it.

7)Define yourself—WHAT DO YOU WANT? WHAT DO YOU NEED? WHO ARE YOU? WHAT DO YOU PREFER? WHAT DO YOU CHOOSE? WHAT IS YOUR TRUE, AUTHENTIC SELF? That is who we want to be–it will calm our system down the more we choose to be that true, genuine self.

To become your true self requires strength of conviction, an understanding of the way family systems are organized, a sense of humor, and an ability to become more objective and strategic. 

Start small in defining yourself with others and your family of origin. Become more authentic in small ways that don’t challenge the system so much while staying confident you. You want to choose you while also not rejecting them. Watch and observe resistance in the relationship system. You will get pushback. Either ignore or say WE ARE JUST DIFFERENT or that is what I choose.

7)Become more of your true self with each person in your life. Do more self-care. Become more authentic in relationships. Work on discovering the difference in your life between fact and feeling. Many of us feel/think. We just have those feelings and it causes us to think in a certain way. We want to be able to separate what is feeling as opposed to what is thinking.  If we can separate our feeling and thinking processes, we will feel much more self-differentiated, calm, less reactive, etc.

8)Grieve the loss of love and approval. If we are addicted to love and approval, we need to grieve that because when we are being reactive, we are trying to get our “fix” of said love and approval.  Visualize being supported by you. Give to yourself what your family of origin was not able to give to you. If I am behind me, then others don’t cause all these reactions in me as much. I can stand there and be me with other people.

Self-differentiation is achieving the balance of staying connected while being yourself.

9)Think about this is–if everyone left you and you were left alone, what would you choose to do? If I didn’t need the love and acceptance of others, what would I choose to do?

10)Work at being or standing alone when interacting with others. Is it okay to be an island? Some people say nobody is an island, but I say everyone is an island! The healthy ones have bridges, walkways, and ferries that bring people in and out of your life. Every healthy man or woman is. I don’t mean a cut off island but an interconnected island.

If you find you are struggling with being reactive, consider seeking out counseling to help you better yourself and form better relationships in your life.

If you find you are struggling with reactivity in YOUR LIFE and would like to schedule a counseling session with me (AND if you are a reader who lives in New Jersey):

https://anewcounselingservices.com/erin-theodorou%2Cm-ed-%2C-lpc

Erin Doyle Theodorou, M.Ed, LPC, NCC

Anew Counseling Services LLC

617 Oradell Avenue, Suite 3, Oradell, New Jersey, 07649

(551) 795-3822

etheodorou@anewcounselingservices.com

Letting Everyone Around You Grow Up

by Erin Theodorou, posted in anxiety, counseling, denial, emotionalimmaturity, happiness, humility, psychology, self-help

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I am a big fan of family systems therapy—specifically Murray Bowen. One of the pivotal concepts he posits is differentiation of self. Level of differentiation of self can affect longevity, marital stability, reproduction, health, educational accomplishments, and occupational successes. This impact of differentiation on overall life functioning explains the marked variation that typically exists in the lives of the members of a multigenerational family (Bowen).

Bowen also explores how the most trying part of becoming emotionally healthy is not over functioning in our relationships.

What do I mean by “over functioning?” By over functioning I mean doing your part and the other person’s “part” in maintaining a relationship.

I think the best thing you can do for yourself and other people is allow them to grow up.

What does it mean to let everyone around you grow up? It means to allow people to be who they are without you swooping in. From a Bowen family perspective, a true “grown up” is a self-differentiated individual–a person who has allowed themselves to grow up and allowed the people in their life around them to grow up (or not grow up).

The truth is some people are not personality wise able to grow up–but most people can, and most people will.

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Here are the steps to allowing everybody around you to grow up:

1)Stay connected to others but do not do MORE than your part. This is about knowing where you end and where others begin. 
We learn this growing up in our family of origin—if we didn’t learn that well, we can always go back and learn it. Counseling is a great avenue in processing through this emotional minefield. It is not easy for people who grew up in dysfunctional families. The message of self-differentiation is I care about you but no I cannot do that–the message being I cannot do more than I can or want to.  This is important for accomplishing self-differentiation.

2)Stop over functioning. If we attract underfunctioners–alcoholics, narcissists, takers, the self-absorbed, the immature, the needy, the demanding–we will be in a relationship system that pushes us to over function. We will find ourselves doing 150% or more of the work in the relationship. This allows these personality types to have a buffer to life’s realities. The truth is we give to others when we have that to give. But the truth is those of us who are overfunctioners, codependents, etc. tend to allow people to take from us when we DO NOT have it to give or do not WANT to give it.

Trying to be perfect is a form of over functioning. Perfectionism is a form of over functioning.

3)Stop figuring people out. The process of figuring people out is a form of over functioning. Now, I as a counselor, am in the business of “figuring people out.” But we should not do this in our personal relationships.  We figure people out because they do not want to do the work of figuring themselves out. Sometimes we figure them out to be more self-differentiated but often we are figuring others out to further the over functioning in our relationships. It is unhealthy. Figuring people out in our lives is a form of enmeshment. 

4)Stop over empathizing. Having and practicing empathy is not good for those who are not self-differentiated and well-defined (which is probably MOST of us). It is important to become more well-defined before we practice MORE empathy (hence why therapists are pushed to work through their own “stuff” to be effective in their practice). Focus on your thinking process, more than your feeling process to ensure you are not over functioning. Too often other people want us to over empathize and over sympathize to enable us to become enmeshed with them (remember, this is not a conscious process but subconscious). Do not over feel when it is the service of enabling or over functioning—a common issue with codependents. Start thinking more than feeling more.

5)Stop the enabling. Enabling is doing for others what they should do for themselves. It is taking the consequences or life lessons for others when they should be experiencing them themselves. Often, we over empathize and enable (especially with our children). In doing this, we are telling and sending them the message they can’t do life on their own–they are not strong enough, smart enough, capable enough leading to learned helplessness. Everybody has the same tasks in life as I do—we have to deal with unfairness, struggles, adversity, work, relationships, families, this is something we all have to deal with. NOBODY GETS TO OPT OUT and say nope, I can’t do it, so you need to do it! Our enabling helps and hurts at the same time. We often learn to enable at a very young age and from our family of origin. We need to root out this imprinting.

6)Focus on your own maturation process–your own self differentiation process. Look away from others and focus on yourself—certainly not in a selfish way but in a knowing yourself and becoming aware of yourself. We far too often become experts on OTHER people and NOT ourselves. Begin to become an expert on yourself!

Learn the lessons of self-differentiation. Learn more about that and how it works. When we are immature, we tend to focus on our fears and neediness AND others’ problems, issues, and immaturities. We need to get focused on OUR fears, our immaturity, and not get all focused on THE OTHER. We will be much more effective as people and be able to help in much more mature way.

7)Stop the one-sided relationships. If we have a relationship that is a combo of giver and taker, with us being the giver, this can become toxic and abusive. One sided relationships are the result of our low self-esteem, fear of abandonment, family of origin issues, fear of rejection, worthlessness, shame and reveal we are looking for love and acceptance from others –specifically others who are immature–no matter what the emotional cost to us. This is when it becomes a problem for us. WE CHOOSE RELATIONSHIPS THAT FIT OUR LEVEL OF SELF-DIFFERENTIATION OR OUR LOW SELF OR FEAR OF ABANDONMENT. Heal your self-esteem and you will heal your relationship choices and how you play your role in relationships.

8)Stop our illusions, naivety, fantasy thinking and feeling. We believe we can change others: FANTASY/NAIVETY. We believe we can make our parents be who we want them to be or fantasize if they will behave as we always wanted–an illusion. We put conditions on the relationship–if I only work harder, than THIS GOOD will come of it. If I do more, love more, become more–whatever the more “is,” I will change my spouse, my parent, my child, etc. No! Those are illusions. We need to root out the nativity in us. Learning about your own naivety is a good way to grow up. We continue to believe we have self-worth when everything points to us not having self-worth–this is denial. Our unresolved family of origin issues make us naive and immature because that is the family system, we grew up in. It is still inside of us regardless of our chronological age. To allow others to grow up, we FIRST must deal with our illusions and fantasy thinking.

9)Step down so other people can step up. Use the under functioning leverage for others to step up. Intentionally try to under function. This places the pressure, pinging, and systemic pressure on the other to step up. Or not. THEY MAY NOT. But the pressure is on THEM to GROW UP. If they don’t choose to, it is time for you to start dealing with your illusions and beliefs about the other. The best way to find out if they can change is you step down so they can step up.  If they are not going to STEP UP that tells you something very important which you may not want to hear or know. But is important to our emotional health.

10)Get out of others way. If you’re a caretaker, fixer, overfunctioner, you’re getting in the way of others’ lives. The universe is trying to speak to them to grow up and be more mature and stop under functioning. We get in their way by stepping up too much.

11)Stop defending yourself with others. Defending yourself is a way that you enable other people not to look at themselves. Whenever you defend yourself, others don’t have to look at themselves because you are filling up all the noise with your defensiveness. Your defensiveness only furthers their denial and keeps the focus on you not them. Defending yourself will not bring about change in others but only will reinforce you on low self-image. REMEMBER DEFENDING YOURSELF EQUATES WITH ENMESHMENT. Do anything but defend yourself with those who do not want to grow up. Behave with boundaries, maturity, and calmly. More talking, more defensiveness, more explaining will only stress you out more and not accomplish your goal with the immature around you who do not want to grow up. If you stop the defending, they must deal with you and the situation more.

12)Exit triangles. Triangles are formed to keep the immature around us from growing up. If you told the other, time and time again, something you want them to know or understand and then you go to a third party and go communicate these things—now we have a triangle. Triangles are fundamentally unhealthy in relationships especially in families.

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Remember a person can have all the trappings of adult life–marriage, mortgage, career, kids. This does mean they are an emotional grown up.

Letting someone grow up is the BEST gift you can give someone. Letting yourself grow up in the best give you can give yourself.

These are just a few steps in the process of differentiation but there are probably many more. If you find you are struggling with any of the components of being an emotional grown up, counseling can be a great way to explore the differentiation of self-process.

If you find you are struggling with a self-differentiation in YOUR LIFE and would like to schedule a counseling session with me (AND if you are a reader who lives in New Jersey):

Erin Doyle Theodorou, M.Ed, LPC, NCC

Theodorou Therapy LLC

590 Franklin Ave, Nutley, NJ 07110

(973)963-7485

etheodorou@theodoroutherapy.com

Conflicts and Grudges: How Counseling Can Help You to Move On

by Erin Theodorou, posted in counseling, defense mechanisms, emotionalimmaturity, forgiveness, happiness, humility, prosocialbehavior, psychology, self-help

Conflict is an inevitable part of life. There is no denying that.

Many people come into counseling because of an ongoing conflict in their life that is causing them great pain.

Are you someone who is able to resolve conflict? When conflict is mismanaged it can cause great harm. If you are not comfortable with your emotions or able to manage them during times of high stress, you will not be able to resolve conflict successfully.

An unresolved conflict can eventually harden to a pathological grudge if you are unable to confront and process your OWN feelings.

I recently worked with someone on processing deep rooted feelings of a long-standing grudge towards her father. Watching someone process through a wide range of emotions–from love to hate and everything in between is fascinating work. It really takes courage to confront the more vulnerable feelings under all the layers of anger and resentment.

If a person is feeling vulnerable the quick fix is just get angry.  Feeling sad, anxious, or vulnerable? Nothing is quicker to restore a false sense of power and control like anger!

Yet there is substantial collateral damage to our anger especially as it relates to our relationships. As a clinician, a grudge signifies to me a person who is not comfortable being vulnerable or losing that false sense of control. 

A little vulnerability is a GOOD thing. Being able to be emotionally open takes great courage. It takes strength to process one’s emotions and come out on the other side with a better understanding of yourself. Good emotional health is just as important as a good physical health. I have always believed releasing emotional toxins is JUST as important as cleansing your body of physical toxins.

I have found when you fail to process your emotions and experiences, you create triggers and emotional wounds within yourself. This can manifest in anxiety, depression, anger, sadness, rage, etc.

As a culture, we place much importance on measurable intelligence through grades, tests, degrees, income. Yet we do not focus enough on building emotional intelligence—being able to recognize your triggers, manage your feelings, or be cognizant of how you treat yourself AND others.

Emotional intelligence is vital to be a well-rounded person.

The truth is some of people’s biggest wounds are from childhood–towards their parents or others who have hurt them. People carry these wounds into adulthood, impacting how they are able to manage their relationships with others. Childhood wounds are easily triggered in adult relationships.

Your level of emotional intelligence comes into play when you eventually get into conflict with others.

Let’s be honest. Most (healthy) people do not enjoy conflict. Most of us know it is a part of life and while we may not enjoy it, we can understand why it is necessary. We accept that being alive means sometimes getting hurt and sometimes hurting others. It is best to move on and not waste much of your time OR energy on relationships that at the end of the day do nothing for you.

Grudge holders cannot do that. They believe their is strength in holding a grudge.

There is a reason the saying goes refusing to forgive is like drinking poison and waiting for SOMEONE ELSE to die. Grudges are irrational in their very nature. You hurt yourself thinking you are in actual hurting the other person.

Grudges arise from unresolved conflict. The truth is conflict is inevitable but if the conflict resolution process cannot successfully play out, this can lead to a grudge.

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Holding onto a grudge is essentially holding onto stress. It is also about disempowering yourself. You may be waiting on an apology or for the other person to do right by you. Yet when you are waiting on someone else to act, you are giving them person control over you. You are allowing that person to still effect your well-being long after the initial hurt has passed.

To a grudge holder, they feel holding a grudge gives them power when in actual holding a grudge is disempowering.

The fact is we ALL have been hurt by the actions or words of another.  But if you don’t practice forgiveness you are the one who pays most dearly.

Forgiveness is to embrace peace, hope, gratitude, and joy for YOU and YOUR mental well-being, not the person who you were hurt by.

In forgiving another person, you are taking away the power the other person wields in your life. It has nothing to do with getting another person to change his or her actions, behaviors, or words.

Unfortunately for a grudge holder forgiveness is not part of their repertoire.

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Just as haters are gonna hate, grudge holders are gonna grudge.  Grudge holders tend to be simplistic thinkers and childish. Remember as a kid, when you saw the world and people as good or evil? A person who can’t let go has never developed past this level of thinking.

At the heart of ALL grudges are pettiness and ego.

No matter how you slice it, it is not a good look. It means you have not developed a better way to cope with a trying life situation. It is an ineffective way of coping. It may be important to get yourself into counseling to process out those feelings and move past the hurt. A good clinician can help you take a more balanced approach in your thinking.

Do you ever ask what makes some people move on and other people hold onto a grudge for dear life?

I find people who hold grudges like the identity it gives them–of victim. Of someone who has been wronged.

I find grudge holders tend to be black and white thinkers—people who see people as ALL good or ALL bad, right/wrong, with them OR against them. Black and white thinkers cannot see people or life in a complex, more nuanced way. Often, they are what therapists refer to as “splitters.”

Grudge holders tend to think they are justified and their mistreatment of another is well-deserved and appropriate. Grudge holding is a very self-righteous state of mind. Grudge holders tend to like to PUNISH. Most times, both the grudge and the anger are disproportioned to the perceived wrong

Grudges tear families apart. Ruin lifetime long friendships. Destroy the people who keep them going because if you are holding a grudge that strongly against someone you are certainly not allowing peace, love, and happiness into your lives.

Grudges are not healthy. Yet being at the end of someone’s grudge is a whole other different beast.

The issue that can arise with being the target of someone’s grudge is that you may begin to think you did something wrong even when you didn’t.  I have seen this play out in counseling where clients begin to doubt themselves because of someone’s extreme reaction. Experiencing the ire of someone’s grudge can be extremely painful—grudge holders can be no holds barred when they want to release their rage.

If you feel you are in a never ending conflict, I recommend getting yourself into counseling. It can help you process these feelings and perhaps create a new perspective on an old problem.

If you find you are struggling with conflict in your life or are the target of someone’s grudge, here are some ways counseling can help:

-A therapist can help you learn to recognize people who can turn into grudge holders/people who like to manufacture conflict. People who are spiteful, judgmental, bitter towards others tend to be grudge holders (does a certain leader of the free world come to mind?) If they behave like that towards someone else, it will be your turn eventually. Learn to be cognizant of risky people who run in your circle.

-Counseling can help you process painful truths. Remember people who hold grudges may be unable to see their own role in the situation or face the pain they caused. It comes back to being able to be vulnerable. Grudges are typically about harmed egos after all and protecting those fragile egos. Know that a grudge holder will lie, connive, and do anything to protect and elevate their image at your expense.

-Counseling can help you accept the grudge holder’s perspective.  There is no right or wrong when it comes to perspective. Reality is different for all us–our thoughts color our perception and some people think faulty thoughts. As a counselor, I bear witness to this EVERY DAY. To a grudge holder, YOU ARE THE BAD GUY.  That is just how it is–it does not matter how irrational or outlandish another’s perspective is. Knowing this may help you accept the end of the relationship (do you really want relationships with people who view you as a bad person?)

-On the other hand, counseling can help you to be open to a reconciliation. Down the road, a person holding a grudge against you may decide they want you back in their life. Try to keep an open mind—see if this person is truly capable of hitting restart on the relationship. While change is unlikely we should never give up hope people can change for the better.

-Therapy can help you to appreciate this person’s ABSENCE. Move on. At some point, you must accept things will not change. Some relationships are beyond repair. Be honest–do you really want someone in your life who thinks so lowly of you? Life is short. Surround yourself with people who appreciate ALL THE GOOD you have to offer.

-Lastly and most importantly, remember it takes much more energy to hold on to hate than to forgive. Counseling can help you put your energy into positive emotions like love, kindness, openness and not negative toxic emotions like resentment and hate. Focus on all the loving relationships in your life.

Counseling is a great avenue for processing negative emotions and gaining a more balanced perspective. If you are struggling with an ongoing conflict in your life, a good clinician can help.

To schedule a counseling session with me (AND if you are a reader who lives in New Jersey):

Erin Doyle Theodorou, M.Ed, LPC, NCC

Theodorou Therapy, LLC

etheodorou@theodoroutherapy.com