We're talking about love today on SelfWork. Unconditional love often gets the thumbs up as the best or most selfless kind of love to have. Parents certainly want to welcome their children into the world with unconditional love. But there can be a problem when, as an adult, you don't set boundaries at all, and "loving unconditionally" can be manipulated fairly easily.
Then there's conditional love, when love will be withdrawn if certain expectations aren’t followed. The boundaries or expectations themselves are manipulative, but often don't feel like they are. Why? Because they're couched in terms of "closeness" or "loyalty." I'll give several examples of conditional love and you can see if you recognize it in your own life.
So your selfwork today is to look at the boundaries in your own relationships. Are the boundaries clear and respected, or perhaps not so much?
The listener email for today is from someone who defines herself as a "people pleaser" and asks how she can change that particular pattern.
Important Links:
John Amodeo in Psychology Today
You can hear more about love and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click hereand answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depressionwill be arriving November 1, 2019 and you can pre-orderhere! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
And there’s a new way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
Depression is going to be the topic of SelfWork for the coming weeks. And today, let's look into seven distorted beliefs that are going to justify or support you staying isolated, and even convince you that you're better off being alone. But loneliness and isolation are part and parcel of depression's hold on you. I know how real these voices can seem. I know how hard they are to fight off, especially when your mind isn’t helping you. But I'm going to use my version of common-sense psychology to see where challenging those beliefs might lead you.
What are these beliefs?
Do you hear yourself or someone you love? Then I hope today's episode will shake those beliefs up.
The listener email today is from a woman who’s struggled with obesity most of her life and has won that battle, but is left with the scars of loose sagging skin. And she’s met someone with whom she wants a vital sexual relationship. So, she’s struggling with trust and vulnerability.
You can hear more about coping with depression and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast!
If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression will be arriving November 1, 2019 and you can pre-order here!Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
And there’s a new way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
It's been Suicide Awareness Week here in the US so I wanted to feature your questions about the well-researched but still largely unrecognized signal for potential suicide risk -- what I term perfectly hidden depression. You have great questions. The first is from a writer who is losing her battle between creativity and perfectionism; the second from a wife and mother who is busy all day, but feels “blah” at night. A young woman used the SpeakPipe feature of the podcast (see below..) and asks about how to move from what she terms “self-hatred” to “self-love." And the last is from a man who’s tried therapist after therapist, but now realizes that he tried to be the perfect patient and never revealed parts of himself that might show him in a vulnerable light. How can he begin to be real?
Thank you for all these questions! If you're interested, I've also shared the first published excerpt from my book, Perfectly Hidden Depression, on my website -- just click here!
Important links:
The Questionnaire for perfectly hidden depression
You can hear more about coping with depression and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to my website and receive one weekly newsletter including my weekly blog post and podcast! If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depressionwill be arriving November 1, 2019 and you can pre-orderhere! Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
And there’s a new way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!
Everyone knows when there's an elephant in the room. It's an event, fact or feeling-- past or present -- that can't, for some mysterious or not so mysterious reason, be acknowledged. It seems impossible or too risky or too painful to talk about. So you walk around it. Avoid it. Throw a sheet over it.
We all have what are called "defense mechanisms" to deal with what stresses us too much. It can be as simple as distraction (which can get a bad rap by some in psychology) which can entertain you, get your mind off something difficult. Or you can flat out deny it, meaning that you don't allow yourself to see or admit the reality of that stressful elephant.
Then there are more complex defenses, such as projection or compartmentalization. So today, we're talking about how you defend yourself from stress -- not a bad thing at all in moderation. It's only problematic when it's your only option to handle stress -- or tame the elephant.
Our listener email is from a teenager whose mom has two completely different ways of being and is trying to understand how to approach her. This is a common question I get about loved ones so I thought I'd answer it on air.
Important Links:
The article by Dr. John Grohol on Psych Central describing common defense mechanisms
Link to NPR's Invisibilia
You can hear more about coping with stress and many other topics by listening to my podcast, SelfWork with Dr. Margaret Rutherford. Subscribe to this website and receive my weekly blog posts and podcasts!If you’d like to join my FaceBook closed group, then click here and answer the membership questions! Welcome!
My new book entitled Perfectly Hidden Depression will be arriving November 1, 2019 and you can pre-order here!Its message is specifically for those with a struggle with strong perfectionism which acts to mask underlying emotional pain. But the many self-help techniques described can be used by everyone who chooses to begin to address emotions long hidden away that are clouding and sabotaging your current life.
And there’s a new way to send me a message! You can record by clicking below and ask your question or make a comment. You’ll have 90 seconds to do so and that time goes quickly. By recording, you’re giving SelfWork (and me) permission to use your voice on the podcast. I’ll look forward to hearing from you!