Heal, Grow, Empower, Transcend
Learn healing methods for all forms of emotional hurt:
Betrayal
Abuse
Trauma
Contents
Principles of Healing & Growth
Wipe Footprints from the Heart & Soul
Healing Identity
Transcend Emotional Pain
Healing Painful Memories
Validation & Empowerment
Radical Self-Value
The Web of Emotion
A dozen exercises in text form
Dr. Stosny’s Blog on Psychology Today.
Heal, Grow, Empower, Transcend Questions
Here are a few questions that came up during beta testing of the Heal, Grow, Empower, Transcend course.
A couple of people asked how they can develop a Healing Identity when they are still being reminded of past hurts.
That is actually the most important time to develop a Healing Identity.
The brain heals itself by associating healing and corrective images with painful ones.
Triggers of past hurt present the optimal time to remind yourself of your strengths, resilience, deeper values, and your commitment to focus on what you need to do to be well.
One question was from a boot camp graduate who asked about jealousy and drinking.
Those are not topics of this Webinar series, but there was a Webinar on jealousy sent to all boot camp graduates.
It’s the responsibility of the jealous partner to regulate his/her jealousy.
Any attempt of the other partner to regulate the partner’s jealousy will fail.
The same is true of negative characteristics you attribute to a partner, such as selfishness or perfectionism.
Rather than address “conditions” or “characteristics,” negotiate about specific behaviors, without characterizing them.
Another questions concerned alcohol abuse.
Drinking is a poor substitute for emotion regulation.
After two drinks, the ability to self-regulate is vastly diminished.
Practice emotion regulation on core hurts when you have an urge to drink.
Another question about core value.
Core value is about support, not control.
Core value is not the same as “feeling good.”
It’s about feeling authentic and worthy of love.
Core value is about doing what you believe is right.
You cannot have a good relationship if you’re not in your core value.
But that alone doesn’t guarantee that the relationship will be good, especially when there is a long history of violating your core value within the relationship.
Another question was about the difference between betrayal and disappointment, which used a table comparing:
“What we trust loved ones to do”
to
“What we prefer that loved ones do.”
Of course preferences are okay, but they are subject to disappointment.
It’s not possible for loved ones to meet all their preferences.
Disappointment is inevitable in human relationships; betrayal should never occur.
We need to keep them distinct if we hope to have good relationships.
Be especially careful to distinguish distrust with temperamental differences.
The mammalian brain is a better safe-than-sorry organism. It naturally distrusts differences.
Yet couples invariably differ in temperament.
You can negotiate about specific behaviors, but not about innate temperamental differences.
In regard to PTS symptoms, review that section of Session Two of the Webinar.
If practicing the techniques do not help, seek a medication evaluation from a psychiatrist, for the reasons stated in the session.
The purpose of the exercises is to help you work through problems and problematic emotions that curtail healing and growth.
A number of questions can be answered by working through the exercises with your specific details.
That is far more empowering than me giving you answers.
When answers come from your core value, they are more authentic.
Try filling out the exercises to see if they guide you as intended.
Photo by Ivan Samkov from Pexels