Archive for April, 2010

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Connections: The Healing Touch of Relationships

Friday, April 16th, 2010

What happens when you get your hand too close to a flame? Instantly, you draw your hand back. It’s immediate. It’s reactive. You get as far away from the source of the pain as you can. This reaction to physical pain is natural. And it also can be our reaction to emotional pain.

When emotionally wounded, we tend to draw back into ourselves. We become suspicious of other people. We even become suspicious of our own motives and decisions. And so, we withdraw from people.

As a result, left alone in our pain, we are cut off from the healing touch that comes from our relationships.

In the first book of the Bible, God said, “It is not good that the man should be alone” (Genesis 2″18). He was speaking in the context of the marriage relationship, but our need for connection is there, outside of marriage as well. We need extended family and good friends. Our connection to other people builds a closely knit community, and within the context of community, we are able to provide for the needs of others and to receive help for our own needs.

Why is it that just when we need people the most, we tend to withdraw ourselves? I believe there are several reasons, which either individually or in combination reinforce our belief that it’s better for us to be alone with our pain:

  • We think others won’t understand what we’re going through
  • We’re distrustful of others because of what we’ve suffered
  • We’re unwilling to forgive those who have added to our pain
  • We’re so depleted that we think we have nothing to give to another person
  • We don’t believe we deserve to be loved again

In each of the beliefs above, there is an element of truth. Yet it is only partial truth. Let’s look at each of these beliefs, expanding our understanding so we can see them from a broader perspective. Ultimately, the truth is that we need others. If we are not able to embrace that truth, we sentence ourselves to the torment of solitary confinement. Invariably, we hurt ourselves even more.

SOURCE: Chapter 7: “Connections,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Families of Those With Eating Disorders: 12 Characteristics

Thursday, April 15th, 2010

We often think we cannot live without the ingrained patterns of our past — whether they be good or bad, positive or negative. But people who lose weight permanently know that if they are to grow in every area of their lives they must look at every area 0f their lives.

The following are characteristics of families of those with food-related problems:

1. Perfectionistic, including high expectations from the father, either verbal or nonverbal. This most often applies to the first-born.

2. Mother frequently dieted, accompanied by an over-emphasis on weight and appearance, compulsive dieting and fasting, diarrhetic use or laxative use.

3. Father distant, fueling an intense desire to to please the father who is typically emotionally unavailable.

4. Parent (0ften the mother) is co-dependent, often denying her own needs and assuming responsibility for everyone else.

5. Rigid discipline with severe punishment, including guilt and shame used as motivation, and perhaps humiliating or hurtful punishment.

6. Sexuality ignored or considered “dirty,” neglecting to give children basic information about sex or no opportunity to discuss sexual issues.

7. Daughters used as confidantes, perhaps with the father complaining to the daughter about the mother, and in fact the child may be used as the parent’s primary form of emotional support.

8. Children forced to be adults, especially daughters who “raised” siblings and children who are not allowed to be children themselves.

9. Children victimized in any way, which may include fondling, incest, neglect or verbal abuse.

10. Parent (often the father) addicted to prescription drugs, alcohol or street drugs.

11. Family members tend to ignore or deny negative emotions, often resulting in explosive anger, or anger and sadness never addressed, even to the point of covering up negative emotions just to please others.

12. Overuse of food for pleasure or reward, with food serving as the primary focus for pleasure and emphasis placed on sweets and rich desserts.

For your ongoing emotional growth and your permanent weight loss, it is important that you look at whether you have avoided — and may still be avoiding — intimacy on some level. Intimacy issues have interfered in your life and sabotaged your success at weight loss.

Now is the time to say, “I need help.”

There’s no point in blaming your past, your family, or even a former abuser, if any. You have simply had numerous unmet needs that you attempted to address through intimacy with food. Now you are moving away from such erroneous thinking and are moving toward joining the two percent of people who lose weight permanently.

SOURCE: Chapter 7, “Developing Intimacy With People,” in Losing Weight Permanently by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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R is for Responsible for My Relationships: Teenagers

Wednesday, April 14th, 2010

Those of you with teenage children may nod your head enthusiastically at the topic of relational responsibility. After all, your children are developing their own friends — often inexplicable to you! You’re concerned about the influence of their friends and about potential sexual activity. This area of relationships for those with teenagers is a minefield, fraught with both anticipated and hidden dangers.

You have a right to be concerned.

Proverbs talks about friends in this way:

“A righteous man is cautious in friendship, but the way of the wicked leads them astray” (Prov. 12:26) and “Do not make friends with a hot-tempered man, do not associate with one easily angered, or you may learn his ways and get yourself ensnared” (Prov. 22:24-25).

Friends have influence over us. Teenagers especially tend to be “pack animals” and adopt the attitudes, beliefs, and values of the group with whom they associate. Pointing this out to teenagers can be a dicey proposition, as they tend to cling tightly to the image of defiant independence. Take, for example, teenage styles of dress, hair, or ornamentation. Teens adopt these styles as a way to declare personal independence, without taking into account their desire to fit into a group mentality. This paradox is visible to you, as the adult, but not necessarily to your teen.

The teenage years are a time of personal formation; your teen is making decisions about what sort of a person he or she wants to be. That is why it’s vital he or she has been given the tools needed to navigate these tricky waters. These tools aren’t handed to your children at fourteen, fifteen, or sixteen. Rather, over the course of their childhood, these tools are given, refined, supported, and encouraged.

Relational responsibility should be taught from infancy in order to support positive choices in adolescence and beyond. However, it is never too late to start teaching and modeling these concepts. Teenagers are still teachable and will listen to loving, commonsense advice. If your children are young, begin to teach these principles now. With solid grounding, your child can better weather the inevitable storms of adolescence, especially in the realm of relationships.

SOURCE: Chapter 8, “R is for Responsible for My Relationships,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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The Joy of Confident Living: Refuse to Quit!

Tuesday, April 13th, 2010

At some point in our lives, we will find ourselves burned out, emotionally exhausted, depressed, distressed, and afraid ever to risk again.

Things don’t work out as we think they should. Intimate relationships come to an end. Friends and family die, leaving us at a loss. Our children listen to their own drummers and couldn’t care less about our core values. We lose our jobs, our courage, our time, our hair, and our confidence. We’ve all been there more times than we’d like to admit.

But the comforting news is that we are not alone, because this scourge of discouragement has plagued some of the most familiar names in history.

Consider these individuals and the challenges they faced:

  • Walt Disney was fired by a newspaper editor because he “lacked ideas.” Disney went bankrupt several times before he developed a theme park now known as “the happiest place on earth.”
  • A diving accident in 1967 left Joni Eareckson Tada a quadraplegic. Gradually Joni discovered a personal joy and peace in God so powerful that her life now inspires thousands worldwide. A talented vocalist, aritst, and writer, she is a leading advocate for disabled persons.
  • An “expert” said of football great Vance Lombardi, “He possesses minimal football knowledge and lacks motivation.”
  • The mother and father of the famed opera singer Enrico Caruso wanted him to have a career in engineering. His teachers said he had no voice at all and simply could not sing.
  • Albert Einstein did not speak until he was four years old. He didn’t read until he was seven. His teacher described Albert as “mentally slow, unsociable, and adrift forever in his foolish dreams.” He was expelled and was refused admittance to the Zurich Polytechnic School.
  • Louisa May Alcott, author of Little Women, was told by her family that it might be best if she’d look for work as a servant or seamstress.
  • Jackie Robinson, grandson of a slave and abandoned at six years of age by his father, broke the color barrier in baseball and was voted the National League’s most valuable player in 1949.
  • John Bunyan, while languishing in an English prison for twelves years for preaching in non-sanctioned places, wrote Grace Abounding and Confessions of Faith and began formulating his major work, Pilgrim’s Progress.
  • Leo Tolstoy, author of War and Peace, failed college. His teachers considered him “both unable and unwilling to learn.”
  • Babe Ruth, arguably the greatest athlete of all time and famous for setting the home run record also held the record for most strikeouts.
  • Winston Churchill flunked sixth grade. He did not become prime minister of England until age sixty-two, and then only after a lifetime of defeats and missed opportunities. The greatest contributions he made to his country and the free world came when he was a senior citizen.
  • After Fred Astaire’s first screen test, the memorandum from the MGM testing director, dated 1933, read, “Can’t act. Slightly bald, Can dance a little.” Astaire kept that memo over the fireplace in his Beverly Hills home.

What made these people — most considered failures — persevere despite insurmountable odds? It wasn’t their education, their good looks, or, in most cases, even their IQ. It was something less tangible.

There was something different in their spirit that set them apart:

  1. They faced their fears, and conquered them.
  2. They stayed focused and flexible, and they had fun!
  3. They refused to give up on their dreams.
  4. They maintained a spirit of optimism.
  5. They though with their hearts.
  6. They used their stumbling blocks as stepping stones.

When you admit that most of you fears are homegrown, you can then make the decision to stop feeding them, pull them up by the roots, and regain control of your life.

SOURCE: Chapter 8: “The Joy of Confident Living” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Rebuilding Relationships: Boundaries

Monday, April 12th, 2010

What do you do with relationships that you have tried to mend, but they remain broken? Once you honestly assess the relationship and realize you are neither magnifying nor minimizing your responsibility in the brokenness of that relationship, you may need to accept the reality that changes are necessary.

To assist you in honestly assessing a particular relationship, ask yourself the following 14 questions:

  1. Do you expect this person to protect you emotionally?
  2. Do you expect this person to hurt you emotionally?
  3. Do you allow this person to hurt you emotionally?
  4. Do you allow this person to manipulate you?
  5. Does a part of you feel safer whenever this person is in control?
  6. Does a part of you only feel safe when you are in control and not this person?
  7. Are you manipulating this person through your depression?
  8. Do you have a habit of discounting or minimizing your own needs to this person?
  9. Do you prevent this person from knowing and filling your needs?
  10. Do you derive your sense of self-worth from your ability to meet this person’s needs?
  11. Do you actively promote yourself as a martyr in this relationship?
  12. Do you avoid solving problems in this relationship?
  13. Are you unable to relax and have fun in this relationship?
  14. Are you afraid to be truthful in this relationship?

If you answered yes to any of these questions, this indicates an out-of-balance relationship that you should mend or modify.

Sometimes we are in relationships with extremely negative people. They are our primary drainers. Sadly, these individuals are often members of our family, who through family ties feel they have a right to act as an emotional, physical, or financial drain on our lives. If you continue in these same kind of draining relationships, your ability to overcome depression can be seriously compromised. When a draining relationship brings you to a continued state of depression, it is time to change that relationship for your health and well-being. This can be a significant decision, not to be taken lightly.

In order to help you determine if a relationship is one you need to modify, consider whether or not this person is at the source of, or contributes to, your negative patterns, perceptions, and deceptive self-talk. If this is the case, you will want to modify your relationship with this person, if not eliminate it altogether.

If this person is a member of your family, it may not be possible for you to cut off contact. Wherever possible, you should attempt to mend this relationship, hopeful of change from the other person. If you have tried and have made the changes you feel able to make, yet it still remains a significant drain on you, then you will need to modify the boundaries of that relationship.

Communicating these boundaries should not be done in a confrontational manner. Boundaries should be stated in a natural, matter-of-fact way. You do not need to apologize or feel guilty about setting boundaries. They are normal and healthy for all relationships. Generally, when you are mending a relationship, you are setting boundaries for your own behavior. When you are looking to modify a relationship, you are setting boundaries for the behavior of others.

SOURCE: Chapter 5, “Family Dynamics,” in Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Finding a Common Purpose With a Perfect God

Friday, April 9th, 2010

Intimacy is enhanced by experiencing a common purpose. People at odds with each other are rarely able to achieve true intimacy on a deep emotional level. So how do you find a common purpose? It is difficult enough with couples who truly love each other.

We are so different from God, how can we achieve a common purpose?

The answer is through Christ. Listen to Paul, “If then there is any encouragement in Christ, any consolation from love, any sharing in the Spirit, any compassion and sympathy, make my joy complete: be of the same mind, having the same love, being in full accord and of one mind” (Philippians 2:1-2). Having the mind of Christ allows us to bridge the gap between our own wants and desires and the will of God.

Oh, we may want a common purpose with God, but often we ask God to agree to our purposes. Rick Warren says in the very beginning of his exceptional book, The Purpose Driven Life, “It’s not about you.” Finding a common purpose with God is all about God. You must trust him to know and understand the purposes that are perfectly suited for you. This requires obedience, an invaluable component of spiritual intimacy with God. Obedience keeps us in a love relationship with him. Jesus put it quite simply: “If you love me, you will keep my commandments” (John 14:15).

Does this mean that God no longer loves us when we are disobedient? Of course it doesn’t! What it does mean is that a continual, willful pattern of disobedience and disrespect is as harmful to your relationship with God as it would be to another person.

In Fresh Encounter, Henry Blackaby and Claude King deal with this concept of love and obedience. They write, “If you return to your first love, a love relationship with God, you will resolve the disobedience problem in your life.” Work on your loving relationship with God, and obedience will follow as a natural consequence.

We are not reaching for a perfect relationship with God; we’re reaching for a relationship with a perfect God. Don’t worry about trying to attain perfection; God’s already got that covered. Just work on getting to know and love him more each and every day. This spiritual intimacy will allow his Spirit to reach down into your deepest pain and bring healing to your life.

SOURCE: Chapter 6: “Spiritual Intimacy,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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5 Steps to a Healthier You

Thursday, April 8th, 2010

When you say, “I care about myself, and I am becoming the person I was meant to be;  I like what God has created, and I am a person who is losing weight permanently,” then a wonderful world of self-acceptance begins to unfold. The book of ancient wisdom reminds us that as a person thinks in his heart, so he is. That’s a very old saying, but no less true today than when it was written.

Think good thoughts of yourself. Never put yourself down. What you think, you are. Your subconscious hears it all and believes it all. Treat it with respect. It is one of the most important parts of something called YOU.

Ultimately, all these positive thoughts can and should lead to positive action:

1. Change the way you eat. Eat a healthy breakfast every day and cut down on the fat in your diet. Engage in an activity you enjoy for 15 minutes each day. The only rule is to move your body. Start drinking water and eliminate all sodas and diet drinks. And put your scale away.  Do all this for 30 days, then weigh yourself.

2. Begin a confidential journal that describes your innermost feelings. In your journal or notebook, take a daily inventory about how you feel about the three deadly emotions that must be dealt with by people who lose weight permanently: anger, fear, and guilt. You are not writing an essay for anyone else. These are your personal expressions. Write on these areas for one month.

3. Begin using the proper dietary supplements (not diet pills) to help you nourish your body, which may have been too long deprived of proper nutrients. Choose supplements from a source that you trust. It’s important that these supplements are designed specifically for people in recovery. If you are under the care of a physician for a particular medical condition, check with him or her before beginning the supplements.

4. Examine your emotional health. Studies indicate that 80 percent of people with eating disorders have been a victim of some form of abuse. If you experienced abuse, it may have been verbal, sexual, emotional, or physical. Write down your thoughts on your past. How have past events pushed you toward food? How can you best deal with that past and join those who lose weight permanently? If your abuse was long-term or extreme, we strongly suggest you make an appointment with a professional counselor.

5. Read and listen. Fortunately, there are some great books and audio available to help you get on track to permanent weight loss through healthy, balanced nutrition. These are not diet materials, nor are they intended to foster guilt or create shame. I highly recommend:

Eat Smart, Think Smart by Robert Haas

The Psychology of Living Lean by Denis Waitley

Graham Kerr’s Kitchen by Graham Kerr

Thin Tastes Better by Stephen P. Gullo

Dr. Cookie Cookbook by Marvin A. Wayne, M.D.

Wellness Medicine by Robert A. Anderson

Of course, I also suggest the book from which the material for this blog post is drawn — my own book, Losing Weight Permanently: Secrets From the 2 Percent Club.

SOURCE: Chapter 6, “A Nutritional Plan that Really Works,” in Losing Weight Permanently by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Parenting Styles: 3 Types to Avoid

Wednesday, April 7th, 2010

In Raising an Emotionally Intelligent Child, Dr. John Gottman cautions against three types of parenting styles:

1) Dismissing parents, who marginalize their children’s emotions

2) Disapproving parents, who are critical of their children’s emotions

3) Laissez-faire parents, who accept whatever emotions their children display but set no limits for those displays

None of these styles positively integrates the natural emotions of children into healthy parenting. If you dismiss your children’s emotional states, you dismiss your children, and your ability to influence them diminishes also. If you constantly express disapproval of your children, you crush their spirit. They will either reject you or rebel against you. If you adopt an “anything goes” attitude toward your children’s emotions, you deny them the opportunity to learn to regulate their emotional states. None of these teaches your child emotional responsibility.

Children need to test out their emotions. They need to experience them, express them, and learn to deal with them. How you react emotionally is being observed and factored into this amazing learning process. I have dealt with innumerable people who were shut down emotionally by their parents as children. These individuals struggle for years and must retrace their childhood steps in order to get back on the right path emotionally. I have also dealt with people who were taught by example to express whatever emotion they felt in whatever way they chose. Their family and friends generally find them to be unsafe and abusive. These individuals also must learn anew how to relate to other people.

Don’t be afraid of your children’s emotions. Be alert to them. Learn from them, and model back to your children healthy emotional responses.

Ask God to help you personally integrate and model emotional responsibility.

SOURCE: Chapter 7, “R is for Responsible for My Emotions,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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7 Ways to Grow Through Life’s Storms

Tuesday, April 6th, 2010

Your road to becoming strong again must work through the whole series of past storms that have wreaked havoc on your body, soul, and spirit. But the good news is that now you know you weathered those storms; they helped you grow in ways that you were not even aware and they have shaped you into the person you have now become. Often it’s only when our eyes have been washed clear with buckets of tears that we will ever get a handle on the larger vision for ourselves and our place in the world.

Although you may never fully understand why or how the storms of your past have freshened the air your breathe today, you can find a healthy, new perspective that grants you the freedom to:

  1. Take time to think; it is the source of your power.
  2. Take time to play; it is the secret of your youth.
  3. Take time to read; it is the foundation of your knowledge.
  4. Take time to dream; it will take you to the stars.
  5. Take time to laugh; it really is your best medicine.
  6. Take time to pray; it is your tough with the almighty God.
  7. Take time to reach out to others; it will give your life significance.

It’s hard to believe that a person like Mother Teresa ever fell victim in anger or animosity to her past. Perhaps it’s because of how she always saw the impoverished of body and spirit through the eyes of Christ. As you ponder those difficult areas of your past — ghosts that may still haunt you and that remain hurtful — allow the words Mother Teresa often spoke to sweep over your spirit:

“I come to you, Jesus, to take your touch before I begin my day. Let your eyes rest upon my eyes for awhile. Let me take to my work the assurance of your friendship. Fill my mind to the last, through the desert of noise. Let your blessed sunshine fill my thoughts, and give me strength for those who need me.”

SOURCE: Chapter 5: “Removing the Ghosts of Your Past” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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How to Identify Family Patterns of Emotional Abuse

Monday, April 5th, 2010

Some of the most destructive family patterns and perceptions come from abusive situations.

The devastation of physical and/or sexual abuse is overt and terrible. Less visible, but still harmful, is the emotional abuse that can result from imperfect family relationships. So much emotional abuse is caused by the negative, destructive messages communicated to children while growing up.

THINK ABOUT IT

Family members can perpetuate emotional abuse without recognizing the amount of harm being done. The intentions of adults in a family may not be to pass along negative responses to their children, yet through their own inability to control these responses, they set up a negative pattern for their children to follow. As children follow these patterns, the negative perceptions that accompany them become grounded in their lives.

Without ever being told, children develop a working model for life based upon the suspicion, insecurity, perfectionism, self-centeredness, frustration, or oppressive behavior of their parents. This model produces feelings of worthlessness, helplessness, and hopelessness, all of which suffocate optimism, hope, and joy.

You may have a background where abuse of this type, or worse, was evident in your family. It will not be difficult for you to pinpoint how these negative experiences have affected your ability to balance yourself emotionally. Or you may look back at your childhood and conclude your family can’t be a source of your depression, because you didn’t have an abusive experience.

Whatever your preconceived ideas may already be, take the time to truly examine the patterns you learned from your family.

As much as parents and adults try to minimize the damage done to their children through their own mistakes and faulty behaviors, it is not possible to completely eliminate negative influences. A careless comment or unkind remark can be enough to plant a seed in a child’s mind that grows into a poor perception.

This is not a search through your past to assign blame, but rather a mature look at the learned responses from your family to discover those that might be contributing to the strength and longevity of your depression. It is so important for you to be able to identify the burdens from past relationships that may be slowing down your rate of recovery. Once you discover these hindrances, you will be equipped to develop an effective plan for moving forward.

WRITE IT DOWN

Use the following statements as a starting point for writing down your recollections:

  • Good things my family taught me about life
  • Negative things my family taught me about life
  • Good things my family taught me about myself
  • Negative things my family taught me about myself

It is important for you to remember the good and positive responses to life you learned growing up. Most likely, your experiences with your family will be a mixed bag of good and bad, positive and negative, uplifting and deflating. While you want to be cognizant of the negative, don’t forget to highlight positive things you learned. For each negative life response, write a new positive one. These will help you celebrate the good patterns your family has brought to you.

You might want to write down the members of your immediate family — parents, siblings, and grandparents. (If you have nontraditional family experiences, use those individuals you consider to be significant mentors.) Think about how you related to each of these family members and what you learned about yourself from them. How did they treat you? What were some ways they hurt you? What were some ways they made you feel valuable and special?

Remember that negative responses may come easier than the positive ones. Be patient and allow the positive ones to rise to the surface of your memory.

Write at least three examples of both negative and positive statements that you remember your family member saying to you. Feel free to write down more as they come to you.

MOVE FORWARD

As you recover from depression, you may find that your circle of support will not come from members of your family. It may be necessary for you to use other relationships to provide the support you need. Your family may be too close to objectively  view your recovery. Members of your family may not be prepared to accept the truth you’ve uncovered through this process. Don’t allow their lack of acceptance to deter you in seeking the truth.

The goal is not to protect the family; the goal is to recapture a life filled with optimism, hope, and joy. If you need to discard flawed family patterns and perceptions, it is your perogative as an adult to do so.

Are you depressed? Though no replacement for a formal diagnosis,  this survey can help you recognize the signs.

SOURCE: Chapter 5, “Family Dynamics,” in Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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