Imagine Hope Counseling Group Blog
Inspiring Hope for Life & Relationships
This week, Imagine Hope is discussing the different types of messages we give to others in our communication– termed “Garbage Messages” or “Flower Messages”. In review, garbage messages are negative and hurtful or demeaning, while flower messages are those that help us feel better about ourselves and sound more uplifting and positive. As you read through this week’s blog, keep in mind some of these questions: What are some of the rules and messages you brought from the family you lived in? How many of them made you feel an increased value about yourself and how many of them made you feel bad about yourself? Chances are, if you had garbage messages or flower messages in your family system as a child, you are likely to have them as an adult. Here are some more flower messages:
- It’s a pleasure to work with you. This is a great one for those you appreciate at work. One of the things I noticed at various businesses in this area is when you say “Thank you”, they respond with “my pleasure” rather than “your welcome”. Sometimes, our words of affirmation get so automatic, we respond without really putting much thought into what we are saying. This flower message conveys appreciation on a deeper level.
- I like you just the way you are. Even though this sounds a little like a song from the 60′s, it is a great way to tell someone (especially your spouse!) that you love them for ALL of them… even their faults!
- It’s okay to have a lot of feelings. Many of us grew up in homes where certain feelings were “off limits”, even if this rule was unspoken. Perhaps it was frowned upon to be “emotional” at all. As adults, that can make it difficult to feel secure in letting others see your feelings without feeling shame. This flower message helps us convey to others that we appreciate and respect their feelings and want to hear how they feel.
- Sometimes tears are refreshing. Each week I hear client’s use the words “I’m sorry” or “sorry” after they shed tears in my office…. and this is a flower message I use (or “you never have to apologize for your tears… they are there for a reason!”). Sometimes tears ARE refreshing. Especially if they have been pent up for a long time. Crying is healthy and necessary sometimes!
- I’m sorry. You are right. This one is a HUGE one for many couples who get into power struggles. Somehow, in relationships we mistake saying “I’m sorry, you are right”, for telling the other person that we are “bad” or “inadequate”. Saying “I’m sorry, you are right (when the other person truly is right) doesn’t mean you are “bad” or “less than”. If you are genuinely and sincerely wrong, let the other person know! Not only is this considerate, but it shows humility and grace, as well. We can’t expect others to be humble if we can’t genuinely apologize for our own wrongdoing.
- I’m happy when I’m with you. Who doesn’t like to hear that we make another person happy? If all we hear is the negative and critical things we bring to a relationship, after awhile, we begin to wonder why that person wants to be with us at all! This flower message is usually present early on in our relationships, but over time we forget to tell our partner. Remember how it felt when you first started dating and your partner let you know how much they enjoyed spending time with you? Even telling your spouse this can help you start to change your frame of mind to something more positive.
Thank you for reading this week’s blog– we are so happy and appreciative that you joined us and took the time from your day to read our messages. We like you just the way you are! 
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: flower messages, positive self-talk, Self Esteem
Posted in Codependency, communication, counterdependency, depression, Family Issues, Healthy Living, Imagine Hope Counseling Group, Marriage, marriage counseling, Parenting, Relationships, self esteem | No Comments »
We all engage in negative self-talk. These are the conversations we have with ourselves in our heads that spiral from “oops I made a mistake” to “I’m the stupidest person on the planet”. Negative self- talk stems from many messages we received as children called Garbage Messages. Terri and Tamara have been talking about some of the Garbage Messages that we are given and put into our basket. If you find any of the following seemingly innocent messages in your basket, really look at it and decide if you need to keep it there, or throw it away.
Garbage Messages (unhealthy messages that make us feel bad and unloved):
Anything worth doing is worth doing well. While this message is usually given with good intentions, it sends a point to strive for perfectionism every time! You must succeed no matter what the cost. Perfectionism messages are strong and damaging in every sense. Sometimes the experience that the person is engaged in can be rewarding, whether or not the person is perfect. Not everyone can be a perfect swimmer, but some of us like to swim anyway!
Money does not grow on trees. This message has an underlying message of judgment. The message is being sent by someone who does not agree with what the spender has purchased. While it is important to manage money in a responsible way, not everyone will agree on what they want to spend money on. We see this become a big issue in marriage counseling. Individuals need to experience success and failure when it comes to money so they develop their own value system with regards to finances.
You can do better. This statement is another message of judgment that states what you are doing is not good enough. Individuals can look into themselves to decide if you are doing as well as you can. Look to your own judgment to decide if you did well enough, not someone else’s.
I told you so! This power statement delivers a clear message that you should have listened to the deliverer and you are wrong! This garbage message is a tough one to hear, and sometimes difficult not to say! This message oozes judgment and lends to feelings of shame. The implication can lead to feelings of inferiority, incapability, and lack of confidence on one’s decision making and creating codependency.
Don’t air your dirty laundry. Another way to say this is do not talk about your problems and do not ask for help. This message is awash in undercurrents of distrust, fear, and perfectionism. While you may not want to make your personal problems your Facebook Status Update, it is healthy to find a trusted friend or professional and talk about what is bothering you. It is unhealthy to bottle up your feelings.
Blood is thicker than water. This is a clear message that family loyalty comes first, whether or not it is deserved. Sometimes friendships are better for you than family members. You cannot choose your family members, but you can choose whether or not to be with them! Everyone has choices as to with whom you feel loyalty. Loyalty is earned and not everyone deserves it!
All of these garbage messages have underlying implications that you cannot trust yourself. It is a dangerous and destructive message to send, receive and carry around. Do you have room in your basket for these kinds of messages? Do you want them there? Would you rather carry a basket of garbage or flowers?
Tune in tomorrow and Friday as Natalie and Joleen talk about flower messages!
As always, thanks for reading!
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: boundaries, negative self talk, Self Esteem
Posted in boundaries, Codependency, communication, Family Issues, self esteem, Uncategorized | No Comments »
So far, have you used any of this week’s blog post suggestions to help with your relationship with yourself? Or, maybe you are wondering “How can you love someone too much?”… I mean, isn’t that what we are supposed to be doing? Loving others with all we have? This week, Imagine Hope discusses what it means to “Love too much” in a relationship– which is basically where you love others to the point of losing (sacrificing, or giving away) your healthy identity and self-worth.
As we discuss a lot on our blog posts, having good relationships with others is very important, but it’s just as important to have a good relationship with your self. Working on this isn’t selfish, it’s taking care of yourself! And as we know, we can’t take care of the people who are appropriately depending on us (like our children), if we don’t know how to take care of ourselves… Furthermore, we shouldn’t be taking care of others who can take care of themselves, anyway! So, keep reading and keep using this week’s tips on how to start loving yourself a little more!
9. Work on valuing your own serenity and peace of mind above all else.
Have you ever noticed that many of the people in your life have constant chaos and drama in their day to day world? Perhaps they try and draw you into the chaos and that creates chaos in your own life? Or maybe there is always a “crisis” or something going “wrong” in their life that they try to pull you into by “venting” to you, or asking you to do things you feel uncomfortable with. This could be coming from family members, friendships, or dating relationships. If this is happening, you might be valuing other’s peace and serenity over your own. This is part of “loving too much”.
Or, maybe the people around you tell you that you have constant drama and chaos in your own life? Perhaps they tell you that you always seem to be engaged in situations that are a “crisis” or messy and chaotic– that things never seem to be just “okay” in your life, or that you seem to consistently have something going “wrong” with some aspect of your life. Some people actually seem to enjoy having the constant drama in their life. It keeps them from having to look at their own emotional pain and life situation and doing something about it. Either way, to work on becoming healthier, stop inviting chaos, drama, and constant struggles in your relationships with others.
Remember… in our relationships, people can only do what we ALLOW them to do!
Work on protecting yourself by setting boundaries with others. This doesn’t mean that you never listen to them or that you can’t be there for them– it means that when you are there for that person, you aren’t doing things that feel unhealthy and uncomfortable for you! Unfortunately, this might mean the loss of some relationships, which can be frightening. Other people don’t necessarily like it when we change– so they may get angry or upset because you are changing how you relate to them. As you work on loving yourself more, however, you will see that peace unfold in your life.
10. Realize that in order for a relationship to work, it must be between partners who share similar values, interests and goals. If someone has a belief system or a value system that doesn’t match yours, you will struggle. And sometimes, people try to change their own value system to match another person’s, which rarely works! For example, if you place a strong value on honesty, but are in a relationship with someone who is consistently dishonest with others or keeps secrets, you aren’t loving yourself to allow this kind of behavior in your life.
Whether it’s a friendship or a romantic relationship, each person in that relationship must be capable to have healthy intimacy for it to work out. Sometimes, we try to change other people to get our own needs met, so realizing that someone else might not be capable of what you are asking for, is important. This can help you let go of changing them and work on changing yourself and your expectations instead. Remember, you are worthy of the best that life has to offer!
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: boundaries, Loving too much, Self Esteem, well-being
Posted in Abuse, boundaries, Codependency, communication, Emotional needs, Family Issues, Marriage, marriage counseling, Relationship Addiction, Relationships, self esteem | No Comments »
Do Teri and Tamara have you wondering, “Do I love too much”? As we continue to talk about loving too much, think about when you first began to have romantic love. Most likely it was a time in adolescence when everything you felt was “big time”. You felt passionately about many things, and love is commonly one of them. Often times teen aged romance is clingy, larger than life, or desperate. (see any movie from the Twilight Saga to refresh your memory). As we grow wiser and more experienced in acknowledging and controlling our emotions we learn to monitor ourselves and our feelings. As you monitor yours, do you feel like you love too much? One way to think about it is, does my love feel healthy and fulfilling? Or does it feel anxious, overwhelming, or exhausting?
If you have already looked at steps 1 and 2, please evaluate the next three steps to help you if you love too much:
3. Be in touch with your feelings and attitudes about every aspect of your life, including your sexuality. Make sure you are not diving into dramatic relationships to escape any feelings you may have. While loving relationships do take work and effort to maintain, they do not require forcing.
4. Cherish every aspect of yourself: your personality, your appearance, your values and beliefs, your body, your interests, and your accomplishments. If you can validate yourself, you will not need to search for a relationship to give yourself a sense of self worth. You will be aware of your own value. You will not need a partner to tell you how awesome you are. You will know it in your soul.
5. Work on developing a high self esteem so you can enjoy being with others, especially others of the opposite sex, who are fine just the way they are. That means stop looking for others who need “fixing”. We see many relationships begin where one partner is trying to “save” the other from various issues, i.e.: addictions, low self worth, unhealthy family connections. Do not choose friendships or partners where you need to be needed to feel a sense of self worth.
I am sure you have heard that you cannot be right in a relationship until you are right with yourself. Please continue to check in tomorrow as Natalie writes more “how to’s”. As always, thank you for reading.
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: Healthy Relationships, Relationships, Self Esteem
Posted in Anxiety, Codependency, Emotional needs, Relationship Addiction, self esteem, Uncategorized | No Comments »
In our society, the term “self-esteem” is frequently used, but what exactly does it look like to have “high self-esteem” or “low self-esteem”? This week, Imagine Hope is discussing the characteristics of both high and low self-esteem. Yesterday, Natalie reviewed several different ways a person with low self-esteem might behave. Today we will continue wrap up with the rest of the characteristics of low self-esteem and provide some resources that might be of interest to you!
6. A person with low self-esteem may reject many of their own feelings and desires as unacceptable. Sometimes, a person with low self-esteem doesn’t feel worthy of these feelings and desires.
7. A person with low self-esteem doesn’t express their feelings or opinions for fear that other people will not like what they are saying. The result is that the other person has no idea what they want and this guarantees that the person with low self-esteem will not get what they need.
8. A person with low self-esteem is likely to be less popular than people with high self-esteem because of the gloomy outlook they project and their dependency on others. Others may feel burdened about having to build their egos.
Attitudes about oneself are not built into genes but are learned from a number of sources. People are taught to view themselves as possessing high or low self-esteem by their families, by teachers, churches and society. Anything learned can be unlearned. The hopeful message is that it is possible to increase self-esteem no matter what your age. It is never too late! People can always learn new things, feel better about themselves and change their lives. If you really want to work at raising your self-esteem, it can be done.
Want more information on self-esteem? Here are some good resources to check out:
Self-Esteem by Matthew McKay and Patrick Fanning
The Self-Esteem Workbook by Glenn Schiraldi
Self Matters by Phil McGraw
The Dark Side of the Light Chasers by Debbie Ford
Tags: books on self-esteem, low self esteem, Self Esteem
Posted in Codependency, self esteem | No Comments »
We are influenced daily by friends, family, work associates, community, the media, etc… All of these outlets can affect our self-esteem if we try to be like these influences, rather than developing and enjoying our own specific talents and strengths.
What is a person with high self-esteem like?
4. They accept all of themselves – both the negatives and the positives. Let’s face it. We’re not perfect, and people with high self-esteem are able to acknowledge this. They realize they have negative attributes, and embrace those negatives, verses trying to hide them.
5. They see themselves as important, competent and capable of making their own decisions. Sure, they may ask for another’s opinion from time to time, but they don’t let other people make their minds up for them. They’re not dependent on other people’s opinions.
6. They ask for help when they want it. People with high self-esteem don’t see it as “failure” or “weakness” when they ask others for help.
7. They allow themselves to be in touch with their whole range of feelings – sadness, anger, joy, love, embarrassment, etc… They accept all of their feelings as a part of their self. By doing this, it is easier to love & care for themselves and express all of their emotions with others.
8. They do not torture themselves with personal flaws or imperfections, but build on their strength for growth. They don’t believe they are perfect, & accept their imperfections as part of being human, changing what they realistically can change.
9. They have the power and responsibility to design their own life to make it happier & more fulfilling & take an active approach toward life. They do not have a victim outlook, but instead take responsibility for what happens in their own life.
See yourself in any of these? Good! Please come back as Natalie & Joleen will go over the characteristics of low self-esteem later in the week & provide resources. Thanks!
Tags: Self Esteem
Posted in Healthy Living | No Comments »
Self- esteem is the way we see ourselves as good or bad when compared with others. When we compare ourselves to others, it can cause a lot of trouble with our self talk. It’s ok to admire others and use their accomplishments as motivation for goals for yourself, but it can be risky that it could end with you beating up on yourself with negative self-talk. Self-esteem can be influenced by everything around us. What others say about us and to us can make a big impact on what level our self-esteem reaches.
This week we will go over traits of people who have high and low self-esteem to help you see what these concepts mean and how they play out in your life.
What is a person with high self-esteem like?
1. They project poise, self-confidence and optimism which comes from feeling satisfied with themselves. They have learned the art of being their own best friend and biggest booster and do not depend on the praise and encouragement of others in order to like themselves.
2. People who have high self-esteem are doers. They are participators, activators, and facilitators.
3. They don’t feel worthless if someone says no to them or if they are handed a criticism. Instead they take a constructive problem-solving approach to criticism and analyze negative feedback they have received. This may provide useful clues to them about aspects of themselves they want to try to change.
Check back with us tomorrow as Tamara covers more traits of high self-esteem. Then the rest of the week we will be looking at traits of low self-esteem. Thanks for reading!
Written by Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW
Teri Claassen MSW, LCSW is a licensed therapist at Imagine Hope Counseling Group. Teri enjoys doing marriage counseling, individual counseling, couples and relationship counseling. Teri also does 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: High self-estem, Self Esteem
Posted in Codependency, depression, Individual Therapy, Therapy | No Comments »
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