Imagine Hope Counseling Group Blog
Inspiring Hope for Life & Relationships
The subject of ambiguous loss is a relatively new one to me, as it relates to therapy, but is one that we frequently see with our clients (as well as in our own lives!). Pauline Boss’ book “Ambiguous Loss: Learning To Live With Unresolved Grief” is one of the most amazing books I have read so far this spring!
What is Ambiguous Loss?
Ambiguous Loss is when you have no closure with loss, or when loss is surrounded by uncertainty and ambiguity– examples of this are divorce, addictions, infidelity, dealing with an aging parent, coping with the loss of a missing child, dealing with a relationship breakup, just to name a few. Unlike death, which has finality and an ending, ambiguous loss can be traumatic in that the survivors of this type of loss still have to deal with so much uncertainty in the healing process. The two ways Boss explains this type of loss: When a person is present physically, but is psychologically or emotionally absent (e.g., divorce, relationship break up, mental illness, alzheimer’s disease)– or when a person is physically absent, but is still psychologically or emotionally present (e.g., a missing child, a soldier who is missing in action).
This book not only explains ambiguous loss, but helps the reader to recognize how this type of loss is surrounded by fluctuating feelings of hope to hopelessness, while trying to make sense and find meaning in such loss.
If you recognize an area where you might be dealing with ambiguous loss, this book is highly recommended!
For clinician’s working with Ambiguous Loss in therapy, Pauline Boss’ book “Loss, Trauma, and Resilience: Therapeutic Work with Ambiguous Loss” is a great reference in working with clients, as well.
Joleen Watson, MS, NCC, is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. She enjoys doing marriage counseling, relationship counseling, couples counseling, and individual counseling. Imagine Hope also specializes in family, child and adolescent counseling and serves Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Noblesville, Zionsville, Westfield, and Fishers.
Tags: Ambiguous Loss, Learning to live with unresolved grief, Loss Trauma and Resilience, Pauline Boss
Posted in Abandonment, addictions, Affairs, Anxiety, coping skills, depression, Divorce, Family Issues, Grief and Loss, Individual Therapy, Marriage, marriage counseling, Relationships, Relationships, Suicide, Therapy | No Comments »
Constantly Craving by Marilyn Meberg
This book is a wonderful book that is insightful, engaging, and filled with humor. Marilyn has a way of getting her points across in an easy fashion and lets you enjoy her books by filling them with stories that make you laugh and make you cry.
We all have a craving for more. More time, more material possessions, more love, more this, more that, more chocolate……you get the point. In this book, she addresses why we all have a craving for more in life. Why do we crave more out of our relationships, our marriages, our jobs, our time, and ultimately out of life? Can any of these things fill us up? Marilyn gives you wisdom in answering this question and guidance in obtaining what you are craving.
She also talks about non-traditional cravings such as one for revenge or a craving for relief from guilt and not feeling forgiven.
If you find you want more and you are not sure what it is, this book is for you. Or if you get what it is you are craving and you still don’t feel “full”, read on.
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville
Tags: and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, and Zionsville, and ZionsvilleWritten by Natalie Chandler Natalie Chandler, child, Fishers, individual counseling, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, MA, Marilyn Meberg Constantly Craving, Noblesville, Westfield, Written by Natalie Chandler Natalie Chandler
Posted in Abandonment, Family Issues, Forgiveness, Marriage, Relationships | No Comments »
We all have moments where we stop and think “I should call and check on so-and-so to see how they are”, or “I should really make an effort with this person to do more”. Life often has a way of getting in between relationships—whether they are friendships, your family, or even your marriage.
Relationships don’t just happen. They take time, effort, love, patience, sacrifice, and nurturing to keep them in existence and to help them grow. This week at Imagine Hope we are talking about the importance of nurturing relationships, and steps you can take to better any relationships that you may not be giving your full time or attention to.
How has the relationship been deprived? Relationships often suffer because we don’t make them a priority. Think about how much time you invest in things such as watching your favorite television shows, surfing the internet and social media, cheering on your beloved sports team, etc.—then compare that with the amount of time that you devote to your spouse, children, family, or friends. If you aren’t devoting time, the relationship often won’t survive.
Are you communicating with this person? The more you communicate, the stronger the relationship will become. Make sure to be honest, open, and kind—even when there are disagreements. Are you able to approach difficulties with a positive attitude and find compromise? Can you support one another emotionally while still maintaining your own point of view? If your relationship is deprived of communication, it won’t grow and will cease to exist eventually.
Keep reading this week as we provide additional tips and ways that you can nurture relationships in your own life. Thanks for reading!
Source: Parenting Your Out of Control Teenager by Scott Sells, PhD
Written by: Christy Fogg, MSW, LCSW
Christy Fogg, MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Christy enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Christy also provides family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling.
Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield.
Tags: Parenting Your Out of Control Teenager by Scott Sells PhD
Posted in Abandonment, communication, Family Issues, Marriage, Parenting, Parenting Teens, Relationships | No Comments »
Why Do People Have Trust Issues?
Most of us have been hurt at some point in our history. Some of us still have wounds from those hurts. It takes a lot of brave work to heal some of those wounds. When we have pain from lies, betrayals, disappointments, and abandonment that is not healed, that pain can cause a person to have real trouble trusting others and establishing intimacy. Relationships where there are trust issues can experience challenges.
Trust is a feeling that humans need to establish connections to others. It is an essential part of our humanity. Its okay to wonder who to trust, or be cautious in trusting. That has probably served you well in keeping you safe! But we all have to trust someone. When we cannot establish trust with anyone, unhappiness is sure to follow.
Are you protecting yourself from disappointment? Has someone disappointed you? Have you had great expectations of a friendship, romance, or family relationship only to be let down? These feelings can cause us to develop trust issues. We like to believe that if we armor up, we can make ourselves invincible. However, while that armor may help protect us from pain, it also prevents us from feeling joy. We cannot simply numb our pain. When we numb, we numb all of our feelings.
Are you protecting yourself from betrayal? Perhaps you have been betrayed in your past. Perhaps someone has caused you great pain by lying to you or hurting you. Feeling betrayed can make us feel vulnerable and feel the need to armor up. But remember, that armor only prevents you from feeling anything at all. You cannot feel joy or connection with all of that protection.
Are you protecting yourself from abandonment? In your life, someone may not have shown up for you like you needed. This may have caused feelings of abandonment. When people are not there for us like we expected or needed, it makes it difficult to let others do so who are willing and able. That same armor gets in the way of others getting close, or allowing you to feel close to others. Fear of abandonment creates trust issues.
Please come back tomorrow when Natalie talks about how to rebuild trust! You can feel, trust, connect again. As always, thanks for stopping by!
Written by Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT
Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT is a licensed therapist and Registered Play Therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Alexa enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Alexa also does play therapy, family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling.
Tags: betrayal, Lying, trust, trust issues
Posted in Abandonment, Emotional needs, Relationships, Relationships | No Comments »
As Alexa mentioned yesterday, there are certain reasons you get so upset with your spouse. One of them is your hot buttons. It is important to identify what your hot buttons are. At gosmalley.com, Gary Smalley gives several examples of hot buttons. Here are a few of the many that we regularly see:
- rejection
- loneliness
- being misunderstood
- being scorned (or verbally abused)
- feeling disconnected
- being invalidated (this is one we see ALL the time!)
- Inferiority
- Abandonment
- Feeling unimportant or ignored
- Danger
- Mistrust
- Unhappiness
When you have one or more of these “hot buttons” a conflict will ignite with your spouse when you feel them or something happens to trigger the feelings. When this happens continually and there is no resolution, the thoughts of leaving start creeping back in.
Someone told me a quote the other day that was perfect in marriage: “Seek not to be understood but to understand”. This changes the game amazingly. If you can understand your spouse’s hot buttons and then seek to understand why they might have a hot button pushed, you will show more empathy and compassion for your spouse, thus they will feel more validated, less lonely, more connected, and ultimately loved! (undoing many of the hot buttons from the above list.)
Find out what your spouse’s hot buttons are. Then work to understand them.
A final note- I know that Tamara mentioned earlier in the week that the divorce information excludes abusive relationships. I completely agree and want to reiterate that. I would also like to add that unfortunately, if your spouse is an addict (or an addict who isn’t using anymore but still shows addictive behaviors), most of this just doesn’t work with them. Their thinking is very different, often making them unsafe to use these approaches. If this is the case for you, I highly recommend you see a Marriage Counselor with a specialty in Addictions. This will help you tremendously as they will understand more of this process.
Tomorrow Christy gives us hope for how to resolve the hot button issue in more detail. Thank you for reading. Have a great week!
Source: gosmalley.com
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville
Tags: Gary Smalley, Saving Your Marriage
Posted in Abandonment, addictions, communication, Marriage, marriage counseling, Relationships | No Comments »
We exit when we see you are in pain and we can’t fix it
Many people feel uncomfortable with seeing others in emotional pain. That is normal. Usually it brings up “stuff” in us that we don’t like to look at. Or we just may be a very compassionate person and feel bad when others do.
Either way, our natural instinct is to “fix it”. And when we can’t, it starts feeling uncomfortable. So many partners will check out emotionally when they see their partner is in pain and they can’t do anything about it.
The real growth comes in just being present with your partner, staying there with them in their pain, and hearing them. Sometimes being there for them is sitting in their silence. That’s ok, too (but very uncomfortable for most people who aren’t Therapists!)Remember, you don’t always have to do something to be there for them.
We exit when we want to say “no” or “yes” and neither was acceptable in childhood
Some people were not allowed to have a voice when they were young. What I mean by that is someone had power over them and they had to do what they wanted them to do. This could be thru abuse or even subtle. Sometimes kids just know what they better say in order to keep the peace.
When this happened, they will struggle to have a voice in a relationship. So when they have been not saying what they are feeling or thinking and they can’t take it anymore, they leave. Instead of talking about it, they exit. Either physically or emotionally exit.
It’s important to learn to find your voice if you never had one. Everyone has the right to say no or yes when they want/need to. If this is your exit, you may leave but most likely you will continue this on into your next relationship.
Tomorrow we will learn about our final exits. Thank you for reading. Have a great day!
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC, LCAC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville.
Tags: Exits in relationships
Posted in Abandonment, boundaries, Codependency, communication, Family Issues, Marriage, Relationships | No Comments »
We exit when we feel the ancient feeling of being trapped. Our fight or flight or freeze responses can be traced back to our ancient human days. When we were trapped, we could be attacked or eaten by a saber tooth tiger! Today, however, we are talking about feeling trapped. Some people feel the flight response when their partner gives them ultimatums or like there is no way to please their partner or when they are bound to lose or fail their partner. The benefit we have over our ancient ancestors is we are not in danger of being trapped and eaten by a saber tooth tiger. We can think through our exit response when we feel trapped. When we feel like withdrawing, we can figure out what is making us feel trapped and address it like a modern day man or woman.
We exit when we are tempted to be vulnerable and vulnerability can be dangerous! This one is a big one, especially for anyone with Perfectionism or Shame. It is not in our nature to want to be vulnerable. Again, thanks to these tendencies, our ancestors survived as the fittest humans. But being physically and emotionally vulnerable are two different things. Partners who like the illusion of control have a difficult time feeling vulnerable. Vulnerability opens the door to pain, disappointment, judgement, feeling shame and failure and abandonment. However, without vulnerability, you can have no real connections. Not with anyone. You have to risk vulnerability to achieve any connections with a living person. If you are the type of person who shuts down when someone else “gets too close,” you may struggle in this area. But if you want a human relationship, you will have to come to come to terms with your humanity.
Please come back tomorrow to read more about Exits. As always, thanks for stopping by!
Written by Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT
Alexa Griffith, LMHC, LCAC, NCC, RPT is a licensed therapist and Registered Play Therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Alexa enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Alexa also does play therapy, family counseling, child counseling, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area, including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Zionsville, and Westfield
Tags: exits, vulnerability
Posted in Abandonment, Anxiety, Codependency, Counterdependency, Love, Marriage, Relationships, Uncategorized | No Comments »
#4- Don’t talk yourself out of pink and red flags
First of all, what are pink and red flags? Most of you know what a red flag is- it’s a phrase we use to say “caution” or “I need to take notice of this. Something is not right to me.” A pink flag is not quite that obvious but more a small feeling in your gut to pay attention. It’s not huge, but notable.
Now that we have cleared that up, listen to them when you are dating. Many people actually have good intuition and see/hear the flags- they just want the relationship to work out so bad that they are willing to talk themselves out of them.
Take note when you have these feelings. It is okay to question them, provide evidence for or against what you are feeling, and to talk to your potential partner about them. If they have a problem with you asking questions or talking about it- guess what- that’s a huge red flag!
#5 Be aware and address conflict when it starts happening
As a marriage therapist, we hear so many couples say they wish they would have had conflict before they got married to see how it would have been handled. Most couples actually DO have the opportunity for conflict, they just avoid it early in the relationship for fear of losing that person or pushing them away.
I would encourage you to bring up things, even in the beginning. See how it’s going to go. You would rather find out early on if they are a yeller or avoider. Then you can make a decision before you invest any more time in them.
We wish you the best of luck in finding Mr. or Mrs. Right. It can be challenging yet very rewarding if you are aware of healthy habits from the start.
Tomorrow Joleen will give us 3 more tips. Thank you for reading. Have a great week.
Written by Natalie Chandler
Natalie Chandler, MA, LMHC is a therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Natalie enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, and couples counseling. We also specialize in family counseling, child, and adolescent counseling. Imagine Hope serves the Indianapolis area including the surrounding areas of Carmel, Fishers, Noblesville, Westfield, and Zionsville
Tags: FInding Mr or Mrs Right
Posted in Abandonment, boundaries, communication, Marriage, Relationships | No Comments »
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