individual happiness

5 Ways to Protect Your Energy, Stay Hopeful, and Spread Love No Matter WHAT!

/ Tamara Thompson LMFT

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If you look at me with hate in your heart, if you treat me like a burden, I will shine brighter than the brightest light of that you can be certain. For each hateful word, and mal-intended action directed outward, my love will grow so strong within that my light will counter all hatred. -TF

What can you do when you feel alone and you look around and the world feels like it is in chaos? When true connection with others is scarce because superficial relationships bred online are fed through “likes,” right swipes, and “follows.”

Thanks to the  news we have gruesome video and audio footage of the injustice in the world and it becomes increasingly difficult to keep from falling into a depressive and helpless state. Many would rather go off and be on an island alone than to face the current state of civilization. At a time when many are feeling lonely and detached, we are faced with the reality that, there is a lot of sadness and hatred in our present day America. So how do we stay positive when we are inundated with negativity throughout each day?

Many potential clients reach out sharing that their hearts hurt. They feel connected to the world and therefore feel the pain and heaviness of others. Some identify as HSP (highly sensitive people), others as Empath’s who can feel emotional and physical symptoms of others and of the world. In Judith Orloff’s book, The Empath’s Survival Guide, she shares tools on how Empath’s can protect their energy and use their empathic abilities to support others.

Other clients who are not necessarily bought into the the idea of people being Empaths, are also reporting feeling negatively impacted by the state of the world because it seems like there is one unfortunate event after another leaving them to experience symptoms of anxiety and/or depression. They are feeling as if the world is unsafe and unfair. They are searching for something to make them feel safe, give them hope, bring them happiness, and return their faith in humanity.

So what can we do? How do we stay strong? How do we ensure that we are protecting our individual light? We stay positive! I recognize it is not an easy task but the only way to counter darkness is with light. We have to counter the negative energy with positive energy. Inner light, despite our surroundings. A positive energy that can reside within you regardless of external factors.

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5 THINGS YOU CAN DO TODAY TO PROTECT YOUR ENERGY and SPREAD LOVE

  1. Do NOT internalize: Create a Positive Mantra. You do not get to take it personally. Recognize that we are a part of a collective, none of us stand alone. Rather than give into the hate, and retaliate/react with an equally hateful remark, remind yourself that it is not about you, it is about whoever is doing or saying something hurtful. You are not the one who was carrying hate in your heart, they are. You are responsible for your own energy. Create a mantra or statement that will help you stay grounded and remind you that you do not have to get sucked into someone else’s negative energy/bad mood. Examples of mantra’s are: “In this moment, I choose love,” “I am responsible for my own energy and I choose to stay positive,” or “I am love and light, no one has the power to suck me into their darkness”. You have a choice in that moment, to either keep your positive energy/light or to get sucked into someone else’s negativity. You get to decide.
  1. Be Altruistic. For every negative slur spewed, share something positive. Give what you can in your own unique way. It does not have to be on a grand scale (although it can be). The most important thing is to remember that you are light and you can help others. We all have the ability to spread love. Some examples are, taking someone else’s shift at work, donating clothing, starting a food drive, helping out an elderly neighbor. It can also be as simple as giving someone a compliment, saying thank you, holding a door open for someone, or smiling while giving eye contact to another person. It can be as grand as being a hands on active supporter of a cause you feel passionate about. As long as you are giving, sharing, and supporting from a place of love, you are sharing and spreading light.
  1. Be in Nature. Go for a walk barefoot in the grass (earthing), touch a tree, swim in a lake, sit on the sand, feed an animal, water a plant. Visit a park with various plant life and lakes (if you live in New York City, stroll through Central Park in Manhattan or visit the New York Botanical Garden in the Bronx). Nature is soothing, it will feed your soul. Allow yourself to embrace the beauty in the world, because beauty does exist in the world. Even though there are what feels like heartbreaking things happening in your personal life as well as the world around you, give yourself permission to experience the beauty. If you can not go into nature, take a cold shower or a warm bath and allow the water to cleanse your body and energy. Listen to calming springs, winds, rainfall on a sound machine or with a phone app, allow your mind to visualize the beauty you appreciate. You can bring nature into your home with a plant, a fish, fresh flowers, etc. What you consume can also connect you to nature, such as fresh fruits and vegetables, water and herbal tea. 
  1. Connect with others. Connection matters. In person, face to face, with touch, and laughter but beware of energy vampires (see the next step #5 regarding boundaries) who may dump negative energy on you. Rather seek out individuals who are uplifting and have a similar goal of wanting to spread and share in positive vibes. It matters. Instead of a text, invite a friend over, or meet for coffee, or my a personal favorite, pizza and wine. If you are struggling to get some of the people you know to meet up in person, meet new people! Find a Meetup! Either on Meetup.com or you can download the app to your phone and get started connecting with like minded people right now! Positive energy breeds positive energy and the more you put out, the more you will attract. If you can not meet in person, consider meeting online for a virtual date. The key is to have positive, connecting interactions.
  1. Create Healthy Boundaries You do this by being in tune with your body. Recognizing when an interaction is having a negative effect on you. Your body will send you signals, rapid heart beat, a knot in your stomach, tightness in your chest, a pain in the back of your neck, shortness of breath, a headache that comes out of nowhere. If you are interacting with others one on one, or in an environment such as a social setting, at work, or commuting and begin to feel drained, nervous, or uncomfortable, you get to create a healthy boundary. If you are on a phone call, make a decision to get off of the phone, if you are in an environment that can not be changed, visualize a protective shield or bubble that surrounds you and does not allow the energy of others to penetrate. If you have toxic people in your life, begin to limit contact with them. Pay attention to the signals your body gives you, it is constantly speaking to you and letting you know what it needs. Many of us have gotten comfortable with being uncomfortable, I encourage you to create a way to find comfort within, despite external factors.

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There are enough things that will happen in your life that you will not have control over. The two things that we do have control over, are our energy and our reactions. We ultimately get to decide if we will keep our energy and our reactions positive.

This blog was written with an intent to instill hope, and as a reminder that when we experience hate in our lives, rather than falling into the deep abyss of depression, or retaliating with an action rooted in hate, we get to pull from our inner light, from a place of trust, and overpower the hate with love. Remember, hate breeds hate, love conquers it!

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“Hate is not conquered by hate; hate is conquered by love. This is a law eternal.” -Buddha

“Darkness cannot drive out darkness, only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate, only love can do that.” – Martin Luther King Jr. 

“It is better to light a candle, than to curse the darkness” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“Light up the darkness” – Bob Marley

TRIGGERED! The Unhealed Wound: Couples Only Survive when Individuals Do Their Work! 7 Steps to Help…

/ Tamara Thompson LMFT

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Do you sometimes feel as if your partner’s main objective in life is to piss you off? Do you find that the harder you try to get along, the more you find yourself getting triggered? Do you think about ending the relationship once and for all  just because you are so frustrated and feel as if you can not take it anymore?

The trigger conversation comes up often in couples work and the question of “why is my partner always triggering me?” has a simple, yet layered answer. There are many who wonder why the partner they love more than anything is the one that hurts them the most. Conflict usually arises when one partner is triggered and reacts/responds with their default coping strategy/defense mechanism (by the way and for the record, that default coping mechanism is usually not your truth). It is often a way to protect yourself that you discovered/created in early childhood or adolescence for survival and although once useful, has probably run its course and is no longer healthy or appropriate.

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So your partner has triggered you, now what? The tendency is to turn to our partner and blame them for hurting us, for bringing up uncomfortable feelings, for our increased anxiety, and/or our inability to move forward. We blame them for our insecurities, the fact that we won’t go to the gym, the fact that our career is not where we want it to be, the fact that we are unhappy. Sometimes we react with a counter punch to shut them down and shut them up or we may become withholding, close off, and turn away, depending on what our coping strategy/defense mechanisms are. We then point the finger and become the innocent victims of our partners cruelty, usually failing to take accountability for our role or how we blew up or shut down once we were triggered. Sharing stories with our friends, family, co-workers, and therapist around how our partner pushes all of the right buttons that cause us to react and act out of character. It is clearly their fault!

Being triggered hurts more from some people than others for a reason, usually because we have higher expectations and hopes of the people we open our hearts to and when those people say or do things that hurt our feelings (even when it is unintentional),the harder the fall…the deeper the wound. Although the wound may be deepening, it is not new and even though they might have said something hurtful, the wound of origin was not caused by them.

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The current trigger activates an old wound and not just any wound, a wound we have not fully healed from and may not be aware of. The wound of origin. That first wound that made you feel alone, abandoned, unworthy, unsafe, etc. Sometimes, our partners unintentionally trigger us, yet we make them wrong and leave no room for explanation, we tell ourselves the same narrative that we have carried around for years. When we are bought into our own negative thought patterns, we learn to extract all the information we feel will support our negative narrative, the one where our partner does not love us, is inconsiderate, is selfish and end up struggling to see all of the positive attributes our partners possess, all the ways they show love, and all the things they are presently doing “right.”

7 Things to do when your Partner Triggers you:

  1. So you have been hurt, something that your partner has done (or didn’t do), said (or didn’t say) has brought about an uncomfortable emotion. As soon as you recognize that you have been triggered, STOP (visualizing a Stop sign may help).
  2. Remind yourself that you are working towards having more self-awareness. Your goal is to respond, not react. You are working towards gaining emotional maturity.
  3. Turn towards your partner and share that you have been triggered, let them know what triggered you and the thoughts and feelings coming up for you around that trigger. If you are unsure of what you are feeling (go to step 5), ask for a few minutes to process what is coming up for you.
  4. Give your partner an opportunity to show up for you and the relationship. Give them a chance to validate your feelings and in turn, thank and validate them.
  5. Take a time out. Give yourself a few minutes to process what just happened. Usually the conversation escalates quickly after the trigger, slow down. Sit with yourself and identify what emotion is coming up for you and think back to your earliest memory of experiencing that emotion. Think about the thoughts that came up for you. What did that experience tell you about the world around you? and who you are in this world?
  6. Share with your partner what you learned about yourself and together you can work towards finding ways to work through the trigger when it arises. Discuss what they did or said that had a negative impact on you and share how it relates/links to a past wound.
  7. Acknowledge for yourself that you did it! You did something different, you just had a “win” because you handled being triggered differently! You are on the road to putting the pieces together, having an increased level of self awareness, and becoming less reactive when you are triggered by your partner.

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Everyone gets triggered it’s what you do in those moments that matter. The awareness and understanding of what is happening for you in the moment and why, will decrease reactivity. Return to the wound of origin, nurture your inner child, provide the support for yourself you wish you would have received at that time, the support you need now. HEAL. Only you have the ability to heal your heart, to provide the safety, compassion, and acceptance to all the parts of yourself. If you look to your partner to do it for you, they will fail.

If you truly want to connect with your partner and move past difficult conversations, you have to do your work. 

The trigger is an opportunity, it is a road-map to the place in your heart that is wounded.

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New Response – When triggered, rather than getting lost in the anger, practice appreciation for the fact that you now have information that will support you with finding, healing and releasing the wound of origin. If you do not do this work, you will continue to be triggered, you will continue to blame your partner, you will continue to have conflict, you will continue to be guarded, you will continue to be fearful, you will continue to be stuck and what causes the most danger to a relationship, is having unfair and unrealistic expectations around your partner’s role/responsibility in “making” you happy. 

Each of us has been wounded, no one comes out of childhood unscarred. The “work” is about knowing what those wounds are and how they are showing up in your life right now, present day, in this moment. You have the ability to create a more fulfilling life and a more fulfilling relationship. Yes, in a partnership you get to love and support one another however you can not do all the work for another person and they can not do all the work for you. It is impossible to grow together if one partner is stuck. Once you become emotionally mature you can make clear/rational decisions about your relationship. 

Avoidance, fear and denial will attempt to keep you stuck and blaming others. Awareness, acceptance, self-compassion and courage will provide the positive energy, clarity, and light that will set you free! Turn inward, identify, process, release, heal and share your journey with your partner every step of the way.  The key to a couple growing together is the acceptance that during the couple journey, there will be times in which you have to travel part of the way on your own and trusting that once you do, you will come back to one another with an increased awareness of self and more connected to one another.

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Wishing you effective conversations, peaceful resolutions, and the ability to take ownership of your emotions. All couples disagree at times, learning how to move past the disagreement and come out stronger is the best gift you can give to one another and to yourself. You’ve got this!

  • If you feel you may be in an abusive (mentally, physically, or emotionally) relationship, do not blame yourself, seek the help of a licensed professional who can support you with determining if you are a victim of abuse.