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  • Connection Rituals – Keeping the Juiciness Alive in Relationships

    Connection Rituals – Keeping the Juiciness Alive in Relationships

    One of the questions asked in couple therapy is what connection rituals do you have? Keeping the juiciness of intimacy alive is paramount in sustaining couples in their challenging and stressful, worlds. 

    Maintaining a secure functioning relationship means taking care of the relationship with the understanding that ‘love is a verb’, as Esther Perel would say.

    The avoidant-anxiously attached partner would normally run at the idea of ritual, as they often feel trapped and swamped by commitment, yet connection rituals free up time for more alone time. Rituals reduce the amount of avoidant’s deactivating strategies such as focusing on small imperfections, flirting with others, pulling away when things are going good, checking out mentally and avoiding physical closeness.

    For the ambivalent-anxiously attached partner these rituals reduce protest behaviours such as excessive attempts to re-establish contact, punishing by withdrawing, keeping score, acting hostile, threatening to leave, manipulation and making the other feel jealous. These connection rituals soothe their fear of abandonment, relieving their nervous system to then allow more space in their life and their partners life. 

    Rituals are supportive for both partners nervous systems and essential in keeping the relationship connection alive and juicy.

    THE BASICS

    These little daily rituals create a big difference in relationships. We often create conflict due to the way we move towards and away from each other, it’s not personal, we are simply wired to each other for our survival. If partners do not manage these movements they start fighting due to the ruptures created and the need for connection or space.

    1. Launching the Day – What is one thing that you can do that creates that juicy connection with each other at the start of each day? For example: eye gazing in bed, coffee on the deck, a shower together, a morning walk, making love. Negotiate and agree upon a ritual that you both commit to every morning. As an avoidant I often feel like squirming out of this one as I like to go running or swimming early in the morning, disappearing into my own space, but I pay the price in my relationship if I do. I miss the juicy connectedness that energizes me for the day. So if you have an avoidant partner give them an escape route ie; “I don’t want to stop you from your day, you just need to give me a hug before you go”
    • Welcome Home Hug – Our worlds are busy, there are a lot of issues to deal with throughout the day, decisions we have to make and pressures put on us creating stress. Calling upon each other to recalibrate ourselves from the demands of the day ensures we do not bring the stresses into the house and emotionally indulge in trying to get the feelings out. So the first thing on arriving home is to seek the other out and give each other a ‘Welcome Home Hug’. This is a hug where you don’t let go until the other is completely relaxed. One way of doing this is to relax your own nervous system and the other begins to relax (in this way we are using mirror neurons to recalibrate each other’s nervous system). “If In Doubt Hug it Out”
    • Landing the Day Together – Soothing each other’s nervous system in the evening can include putting each other to bed, watching a movie together, walking in the evening, reading together, discussing your day. If you are parents with children, allocate a space in the house that when you are seated there you are not to be disturbed, unless it is very urgent! Discuss and negotiate this ritual with each other as it has to work for both. Also note that going to bed at the same time together means that you regulate each other’s nervous system so the one that usually is a night owl often finds they sleep better.

    The key in establishing these rituals is the commitment by both of you in the relationship. If there is a mutual agreement then both are responsible for upholding it. If there is no agreement come back to the drawing board and find what works for you both. If one partner is not interested, you have a problem in the relationship being tipped towards ‘pro-self’ rather than ‘pro-team’. 

    Secure functioning relationships are based on mutuality, fairness, justice and sensitivity. 

    The motivation is that secure functioning relationships allow you both to be better in the world, achieve more, hold more, play more and work effectively as a team whist protecting each other in public and in private. Isn’t that the reason you are in a relationship? Remember, this is a ‘We’ gig not a ‘Me’ gig.

    THE JUICE

    Giving time for weekly rituals sustains your relationship so it sustains you, despite what an avoidantly attached partner thinks. It frees up resources to be able to be better in the world and with each other.

    Ideas for rituals throughout the week could be

    • Eye gazing (Soul gazing)– We all want to be seen, to feel as though we matter and thrive on secure connection. “I see YOU, you have my full attention” is portrayed in taking the time to really look at each other and breathe each other in. 
    • Random acts of affection – Long passionate kisses, flirting etc in private or public – check whether your partner is comfortable with signs of affection in public. This can be done whilst passing in the hall, or coming out of an office into the house and family.
    • Shared Hobbies – what do you love doing together? Make time for this on a weekly basis.
    • Plan for quality time over quantity – Saying when you need ME time/space or more connection. Negotiate connection and space from each other. Remember behaviour is propelled by needs. Therefore ask when there is a need for more connection or space rather than fighting for it.   
    • Making a meal and enjoying it together, switching off phones and screens just enjoying each other’s company.
    • Cuddling in bed – Even when tired, making the effort to physically connect and hold each other. 
    • Radical Honesty – Energy is wasted by not being truthful. Relationship WE checkups. Not to be done in bed, find a space to do this and meet once a week. A question to ask is: How can I be better in our relationship? What have you loved me doing, or being this week?
    • Exercise Together – What do you both like doing together? Create something and do it regularly. Examples are biking walks, kayaking, swimming followed by a meal a few times a week.
    • Dates – whether it is for coffee, breakfast or dinner or pleasure pauses throughout your work day, make time for novel experiences throughout your week. It amplifies your connection and creates great stories
    • Games – there are a number of couple adventure or bedroom games. Add laughter and adventure into your relationship.

    One of the myths we have is the difference between co-dependency and interdependency. Interdependency does not sacrifice an individuals needs. Rituals give us the inspiration, love and energy to be better in the world as it shores up resources. 

    FESTIVE SEASON RITUALS

    • Watch each other’s favourite seasonal movies or shows 
    • Prepare a themed meal and enjoy it together, distraction free 
    • Take a walk around your neighbourhood and admire the Christmas lights and different stress decorations 
    • Find a local volunteer opportunity to start together or contribute to over the festive season
    • Start a two-person book club and read a book together 
    • Share what you’re thankful for with your loved ones 
    • Create your own festive season tradition!

    A FEW STEPS

    How are you going to revitalise, nurture and keep your connection alive over the new year?

    Make time to discuss what connection rituals work for you both.

    Set them up and trial it for a week and then review at the week what works and what doesn’t and alter accordingly.

    Keep creating rituals that take care of the relationship and the “WE” gig.

  • The ‘F’ Word

    The ‘F’ Word

    Feelings! We don’t like to think about them, feel them, acknowledge them, and yet they remain, and at times completely take over our experience of ourself.

    Some people go so far as to completely try to avoid them, resulting in high anxiety. Some default to anger in the hope of gaining some sense of safety from other distressing feelings. Some leave their bodies to ensure nothing is felt. Some people drink, take drugs to escape them. Yet the fact remains – we all have feelings!

     

    What are Feelings?

    Dr. Bryn Farnsworth describes feelings as the conscious experience of emotional reactions. While emotions are associated with bodily reactions that are activated through neurotransmitters and hormones released by the brain. Paul C Holinger M.D. outlines a range of definitions trying to capitulate the complexities of emotions including: Sensorimotor reflexive, Sensorimotor enactive, Preoperational, Concrete operational and Formal operational.

    Much research has compared feelings with emotions and their differences, depending on emotional and cognitive development.

    If you are not a neuroscientist or neuropsychologist and you are just wanting a quick definition, the bottomline is they are ‘electrical energy’ in the body. How they move, or get stuck in the body is the key to being a slave to them or being a master of them.

    Mastering Feelings

    What to do with feelings is the real mastery!

    Firstly, the mind works vigilantly looking outwards for a way to get rid of these feelings, resulting in feelings being resisted, which in turn locks them in the body as energy, pain and anguish. We try to change our environment, the people around us, our mind etc, yet feelings remain. Literally what we resist persists!  Turning the mind inwards means there is no resistance to the feelings.

     

    Try This For A Minute

    Instead of turning your mind outwards to change people or places turn your mind inwards and surrender to the feeling. Now the trick is, you cannot ‘do’ surrender with the mind. This is definitely not the realm of the mind. The step the mind can do is simply turn inwards. Then for a moment let go into the feeling with your whole being. Stop and Drop into it. Surrender. Not with any particular outcome in mind, other than to let the feeling have you. No resistance. For one moment don’t pick up anything or move away from the feeling, let it overtake you. tricky for the mind as it thinks it will die at times. What happens then?

    No resistance to energy means the energy simply flows through you. The ultimate alchemy of the soul! At times anxious can be transmuted into bliss simply by surrendering.

    I know it sounds easy, but the mind always makes things more difficult. So without the story the mind tells you, simply directly experience the feeling….What happens?

     

     

    Bibliography

    Farnsworth, Bryn PhD., April 2020. How to Measure Emotions and Feelings (And the Difference Between Them)  https://imotions.com/blog/difference-feelings-emotions/

    Holinger, Paul C., M.D. March 2016, What Are Feelings? How are they related to drives or instincts? https://www.psychologytoday.com/au/blog/great-kids-great-parents/201603/what-are-feelings

  • ‘Mental Health Wellness Tips for Quarantine’ by Eileen Feliciano

    ‘Mental Health Wellness Tips for Quarantine’ by Eileen Feliciano

    After having thirty-one sessions this week with clients where the singular focus was COVID-19 and how to cope, I decided to consolidate my advice and make a list that I hope is helpful to all. I can’t control a lot of what is going on right now, but I can contribute this.
     
    1. Stick to a routine. Go to sleep and wake up at a reasonable time, write a schedule that is varied and includes time for work as well as self-care.
     
    2. Dress for the social life you want, not the social life you have. Get showered and dressed in comfortable clothes, wash your face, brush your teeth. Take the time to do a bath or a facial. Put on some bright colors. It is amazing how our dress can impact our mood.
     
    3. Get out at least once a day, for at least thirty minutes. If you are concerned of contact, try first thing in the morning, or later in the evening, and try less traveled streets and avenues. If you are high risk or living with those who are high risk, open the windows and blast the fan. It is amazing how much fresh air can do for spirits.
     
    4. Find some time to move each day, again daily for at least thirty minutes. If you don’t feel comfortable going outside, there are many YouTube videos that offer free movement classes, and if all else fails, turn on the music and have a dance party!
     
    5. Reach out to others, you guessed it, at least once daily for thirty minutes. Try to do FaceTime, Skype, phone calls, texting—connect with other people to seek and provide support. Don’t forget to do this for your children as well. Set up virtual playdates with friends daily via FaceTime, Facebook Messenger Kids, Zoom, etc—your kids miss their friends, too!
     
    6. Stay hydrated and eat well. This one may seem obvious, but stress and eating often don’t mix well, and we find ourselves over-indulging, forgetting to eat, and avoiding food. Drink plenty of water, eat some good and nutritious foods, and challenge yourself to learn how to cook something new!
     
    7. Develop a self-care toolkit. This can look different for everyone. A lot of successful self-care strategies involve a sensory component (seven senses: touch, taste, sight, hearing, smell, vestibular (movement) and proprioceptive (comforting pressure). An idea for each: a soft blanket or stuffed animal, a hot chocolate, photos of vacations, comforting music, lavender or eucalyptus oil, a small swing or rocking chair, a weighted blanket. A journal, an inspirational book, or a mandala coloring book is wonderful, bubbles to blow or blowing watercolor on paper through a straw are visually appealing as well as work on controlled breath. Mint gum, Listerine strips, ginger ale, frozen Starburst, ice packs, and cold are also good for anxiety regulation. For children, it is great to help them create a self-regulation comfort box (often a shoe-box or bin they can decorate) that they can use on the ready for first-aid when overwhelmed.
     
    8. Spend extra time playing with children. Children will rarely communicate how they are feeling, but will often make a bid for attention and communication through play. Don’t be surprised to see therapeutic themes of illness, doctor visits, and isolation play through. Understand that play is cathartic and helpful for children—it is how they process their world and problem solve, and there’s a lot they are seeing and experiencing in the now.
     
    9. Give everyone the benefit of the doubt, and a wide berth. A lot of cooped up time can bring out the worst in everyone. Each person will have moments when they will not be at their best. It is important to move with grace through blowups, to not show up to every argument you are invited to, and to not hold grudges and continue disagreements. Everyone is doing the best they can to make it through this.
     
    10. Everyone find their own retreat space. Space is at a premium, particularly with city living. It is important that people think through their own separate space for work and for relaxation. For children, help them identify a place where they can go to retreat when stressed. You can make this place cozy by using blankets, pillows, cushions, scarves, beanbags, tents, and “forts”. It is good to know that even when we are on top of each other, we have our own special place to go to be alone.
     
    11. Expect behavioral issues in children, and respond gently. We are all struggling with disruption in routine, none more than children, who rely on routines constructed by others to make them feel safe and to know what comes next. Expect increased anxiety, worries and fears, nightmares, difficulty separating or sleeping, testing limits, and meltdowns. Do not introduce major behavioral plans or consequences at this time—hold stable and focus on emotional connection.
     
    12. Focus on safety and attachment. We are going to be living for a bit with the unprecedented demand of meeting all work deadlines, homeschooling children, running a sterile household, and making a whole lot of entertainment in confinement. We can get wrapped up in meeting expectations in all domains, but we must remember that these are scary and unpredictable times for children. Focus on strengthening the connection through time spent following their lead, through physical touch, through play, through therapeutic books, and via verbal reassurances that you will be there for them in this time.
     
    13. Lower expectations and practice radical self-acceptance. This idea is connected with #12. We are doing too many things in this moment, under fear and stress. This does not make a formula for excellence. Instead, give yourself what psychologists call “radical self acceptance”: accepting everything about yourself, your current situation, and your life without question, blame, or pushback. You cannot fail at this—there is no roadmap, no precedent for this, and we are all truly doing the best we can in an impossible situation.
     
    14. Limit social media and COVID conversation, especially around children. One can find tons of information on COVID-19 to consume, and it changes minute to minute. The information is often sensationalized, negatively skewed, and alarmist. Find a few trusted sources that you can check in with consistently, limit it to a few times a day, and set a time limit for yourself on how much you consume (again 30 minutes tops, 2-3 times daily). Keep news and alarming conversations out of earshot from children—they see and hear everything, and can become very frightened by what they hear.
     
    15. Notice the good in the world, the helpers. There is a lot of scary, negative, and overwhelming information to take in regarding this pandemic. There are also a ton of stories of people sacrificing, donating, and supporting one another in miraculous ways. It is important to counter-balance the heavy information with the hopeful information.
     
    16. Help others. Find ways, big and small, to give back to others. Support restaurants, offer to grocery shop, check in with elderly neighbors, write psychological wellness tips for others—helping others gives us a sense of agency when things seem out of control.
     
    17. Find something you can control, and control the heck out of it. In moments of big uncertainty and overwhelm, control your little corner of the world. Organize your bookshelf, purge your closet, put together that furniture, group your toys. It helps to anchor and ground us when the bigger things are chaotic.
     
    18. Find a long-term project to dive into. Now is the time to learn how to play the keyboard, put together a huge jigsaw puzzle, start a 15 hour game of Risk, paint a picture, read the Harry Potter series, binge watch an 8-season show, crochet a blanket, solve a Rubix cube, or develop a new town in Animal Crossing. Find something that will keep you busy, distracted, and engaged to take breaks from what is going on in the outside world.
     
    19. Engage in repetitive movements and left-right movements. Research has shown that repetitive movement (knitting, coloring, painting, clay sculpting, jump roping etc) especially left-right movement (running, drumming, skating, hopping) can be effective at self-soothing and maintaining self-regulation in moments of distress.
     
    20. Find an expressive art and go for it. Our emotional brain is very receptive to the creative arts, and it is a direct portal for release of feeling. Find something that is creative (sculpting, drawing, dancing, music, singing, playing) and give it your all. See how relieved you can feel. It is a very effective way of helping kids to emote and communicate as well!
     
    21. Find lightness and humor in each day. There is a lot to be worried about, and with good reason. Counterbalance this heaviness with something funny each day: cat videos on YouTube, a stand-up show on Netflix, a funny movie—we all need a little comedic relief in our day, every day.
     
    22. Reach out for help—your team is there for you. If you have a therapist or psychiatrist, they are available to you, even at a distance. Keep up your medications and your therapy sessions the best you can. If you are having difficulty coping, seek out help for the first time. There are mental health people on the ready to help you through this crisis. Your children’s teachers and related service providers will do anything within their power to help, especially for those parents tasked with the difficult task of being a whole treatment team to their child with special challenges. Seek support groups of fellow home-schoolers, parents, and neighbors to feel connected. There is help and support out there, any time of the day—although we are physically distant, we can always connect virtually.
     
    23. “Chunk” your quarantine, take it moment by moment. We have no road map for this. We don’t know what this will look like in 1 day, 1 week, or 1 month from now. Often, when I work with patients who have anxiety around overwhelming issues, I suggest that they engage in a strategy called “chunking”—focusing on whatever bite-sized piece of a challenge that feels manageable. Whether that be 5 minutes, a day, or a week at a time—find what feels doable for you, and set a time stamp for how far ahead in the future you will let yourself worry. Take each chunk one at a time, and move through stress in pieces.
     
    24. Remind yourself daily that this is temporary. It seems in the midst of this quarantine that it will never end. It is terrifying to think of the road stretching ahead of us. Please take time to remind yourself that although this is very scary and difficult, and will go on for an undetermined amount of time, it is a season of life and it will pass. We will return to feeing free, safe, busy, and connected in the days ahead.
     
    25. Find the lesson. This whole crisis can seem sad, senseless, and at times, avoidable. When psychologists work with trauma, a key feature to helping someone work through said trauma is to help them find their agency, the potential positive outcomes they can effect, the meaning and construction that can come out of destruction. What can each of us learn here, in big and small ways, from this crisis? What needs to change in ourselves, our homes, our communities, our nation, and our world?
     
    ——
     
    I was surprised and heartened that this has been shared so widely! People have asked me to credential myself, so to that end, I am a doctoral level Psychologist in NYS with a Psy.D. in the specialities of School and Clinical Psychology. Eileen Feliciano, NYS psychologist: