Losing Yourself in a Relationship: When "Me" Gets Lost in "We"

In a prior article, Reclaiming a Lost Part of Yourself, I discussed how people, sometimes consciously or unconsciously, disavow parts of themselves and what they can do reclaim those aspects of themselves.  In this article, I'm focusing on a related subject, which involves losing your sense of individuality while you're in a relationship.

Losing Yourself in a Relationship: When "Me" Gets Lost in "We"

Most people know that being in a relationship involves certain compromises, a give-and-take in every day life.  Without a willingness to compromise and be flexible, it would be hard to sustain a long term relationship.

This isn't what I'm referring to in this article.  Rather, I'm referring to situations where you're in a relationship and you don't know who you are any more and where you begin and your partner ends because you've become so merged with each other.

It can be challenging to be a couple and still maintain your individuality, especially if you're spending all your free time together and you're not spending time with your own friends or engaging in your own interests.

Often, this happens over time, and then you find yourself saying, "Who am I?  What happened to me?"

Losing Yourself in a Relationship: When "Me" Gets Lost in "We"

Not only is this a problem for each individual in the relationship, it's also a problem for the relationship.

The very things that brought the two of you together, where each of you brought new and interesting aspects of yourselves to the relationship, gets lost.

It's as if you've both merged and become one person, which can cause boredom to set in (see my article: Relationships: Resist the Urge to Merge).

Some Tips that Might Be Helpful to You:

• Take Time to Reconnect With Your Inner World: A life that's based only on getting pleasure from the external things is a shallow life.  Whether you engage in meditation, yoga, write in a journal or engage in self exploration in therapy, it's important for you to dip into your inner world from time to time because this is the source of your strength, resilience and well-being.  This is also what keeps you in touch with who you are as an individual (see my articles: Discovering a Quiet Place Within Yourself and Reconnecting With Your Inner World).

• Maintain Your Friendships:  The mistake that a lot of people make when they get into a relationship is that they get so involved with their partner that they forget about their friendships.  While it's understandable, especially when a relationship is new, that you want to spend time with your new partner, it's a mistake to give up close friends.  Your friendships need nurturing too and mutually supportive friendships can sustain you through life's ups and downs.  Also, your partner can't fulfill all your needs, so you need different people in your life to fulfill different needs (see my article: Relationships: Your Partner Can't Meet All Your Needs).

• Maintain Your Interests:  If you had interests or hobbies that you really enjoyed before you entered into the relationship, stay connected to those interests.  Having hobbies and interests outside of your relationship can make life more fulfilling and meaningful for you.  It also allows you and your partner to each bring new vitality into the relationship.

• Make Time to Talk About Things That Are Meaningful to Each of You:  Casual conversations are fine, but if all of your conversations tend to be superficial, not only is that boring, but you won't be sharing meaningful parts of yourself with your partner.  Having meaningful conversations means that you're a good communicator and a good listener.  Don't assume that your partner knows what's going on with you or that you know what's going on with your partner without communicating with each other in a meaningful way.

• Be Open to New Experiences:  Not only do you need to maintain your friendships and your interests, but you need to be open to new experiences (see my article: Opening Up to New Possibilities).  That's what keeps life interesting and keeps you growing as an individual.  Your partner might not be interested in the same new experiences that you might want to try, and that's okay.  He or she doesn't have to be.  You don't have to do everything together.  There should be room in your relationship for each of you to pursue new, healthy experiences.  

If you or your partner aren't comfortable maintaining a sense of individuality while you're in a relationship, sooner or later this is going to create problems for each of you as well as the relationship.

Maintaining Your Individuality While Being in a Relationship Can Be Challenging

If each of you is secure with the other and with your relationship, balancing your individuality with being in a relationship will enhance you as individuals as well as enhancing the relationship.

Getting Help in Therapy
As I mentioned before, it can be challenging to maintain your individuality while you're in a relationship.

Both people need to be committed to growing as individuals and as a couple.

If you find that you're unable to do this on your own, you could benefit from working with a licensed mental health professional who has experiencing helping people to create this balance in their lives (see my articles: The Benefits of Therapy and How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing Therapist who works with adult individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Self Care Is NOT Selfish

As a psychotherapist in New York City, I see many psychotherapy clients who were raised to believe that taking care of themselves makes them selfish people.  They were raised to believe that they should always put other people first.  Often, this was part of the family's religious or spiritual beliefs.  

Being raised to feel that taking care of yourself makes you a selfish person can create a lot of problems later on in life, and this can be challenging to overcome.

Self Care Is NOT Selfish

Let's look at a fictionalized scenario, which is a composite of many cases with all identifying information changed:

Beth

When Beth began therapy, she was in an emotional crisis.  She felt that her life was meaningless and lacked direction.

She was in a long-term relationship with Dan, a man who had a high profile career in the entertainment industry.  Their life together revolved around his work, which involved many social engagements, travel and being in the spotlight much of the time.

When they first met, Beth was a freelance writer who was having a degree of success.  During the first several years, she didn't mind that their lives revolved around his career.  Since she wasn't tied down to a work location and she could work from anywhere, she enjoyed the travel and social activities involved in his work.

As Dan's career took off, Beth discovered that the social aspects were taking over more and more of her  free time, so she had little time to write.  Gradually, she let go of her writing career, with Dan's encouragement.  He told her that he needed her help and support to focus on his success.  He was making a lot of money, and he told her that she didn't need to write any more.  They didn't need her income.

Beth went along with this for while.  But, over time, Beth got tired of "being on" at social engagements to advance Dan's career.  When she tried to tell Dan that, at times, she would prefer to stay home than to go to, yet again, another party where she began to feel that the people boring and the conversations banal, Dan became furious with her.

Dan told Beth that she was being selfish.  After all, he said, she knew all too well that people would wonder why he was showing up by himself.   Why would she want to do anything that would ruin his image?   As far as he was concerned, Beth staying at home wasn't an option.

Beth knew that Dan could be the most kind, generous, charming and warm person when he was happy and got his way.  She also knew that he would become angry and say hurtful, spiteful things when she or anyone else got in the way of what he wanted and felt he deserved. 

So, rather than get into an argument, Beth acceded to Dan's wishes.  She took his arm, smiled and made small talk at the party, as Dan expected her to do, while Dan used his charm to further his career at the party.

All the while, Beth felt she was there in body only.  She felt miserable and her mind was a million miles away.  But, over time, she had attended enough of these social events so that she could fake her way through it.

But this was the start of Beth, who was in her early 30s, feeling that she was just going through the motions and watching her life slip away.  Life felt like a series of meaningless social events where she felt more and more disconnected from her inner world.

If he noticed what was happening to Beth, Dan didn't say anything.  It wasn't until Beth became so depressed that she could barely get out of bed that Dan got angry with Beth again.  He criticized her for being lazy and gaining weight.  He told her to "get a grip" and "get over" feeling sorry for herself.  After all, wasn't he providing her with the kind of life that many people only dream about?

After Dan's tirade, Beth wondered if she was being ungrateful, but she couldn't muster the kind of enthusiasm that Dan felt.  She just wanted to stay home for a change instead of being out all the time with people she didn't know well, didn't care about and who didn't care about her beyond her role as Dan's girlfriend.

It was around that time Beth suspected that Dan was having an affair.  He was staying out unusually late and he was barely paying attention to her when they were at home together.  When they went out to parties, he was attentive to her around other people, but Beth knew it was only an act to impress others.

After a while, Dan stopped insisting that Beth come with him to social events.  She knew that he was probably taking another woman.  She wasn't sure how she felt that her relationship was falling apart or how she felt in general.  

She had been pretending for so long to be happy that she wasn't sure anymore what her feelings were.  This is when she decided to start therapy rather than continuing to slip down into depression.

Beth's family history didn't include any major emotional trauma.  The family was close knit with loving parents.  But one thing stood out:  Her family emphasized taking care of others' needs as being much more important than taking care of one's own needs.  They were involved in local charity work and social causes.  

Beth's parents encouraged her to get a good education.  They also encouraged her to write.  But it was always understood that Beth's educational and writing pursuits should be geared towards social causes and helping others.  There was no emphasis on pursuits for the sake of enjoyment or one's own well-being  To them, this would have been selfish.

So, when Dan told Beth that he needed her to focus on his success, this didn't seem unusual to her.  It was in keeping with how she was raised.

The problem was that, over time, it wasn't meaningful enough for Beth, and she felt alienated from her own inner world.  When she tried to explain this to Dan, she knew he had a hard time understanding it.  He was very extroverted, seemingly without a need to nurture his inner world.  He couldn't understand what Beth meant when she tried to explain that she felt like she was losing herself.  

Dan's attitude was that their life together should be enough for her.  And if Beth was unhappy, as far as he was concerned, it was because she was selfish and unappreciative of all his hard work and what he had given to her.

By the time Beth started therapy, she and Dan were coexisting together.  There was no intimacy of any kind.  

Beth worked hard in therapy to reconnect to her inner emotional world.  We used Somatic Experiencing, a mind-body psychotherapy, to help her gain access to her inner world again.  She also resumed writing and submitting her work for publication. 

Over time, Beth began to realize that she lost her sense of self in order to appease Dan.  She had stopped doing the things which made life meaningful to her.  She realized that these were the things that were part of her taking care of herself and when she let them go, she stopped doing what was essential for her well-being.

When Dan told her that he was leaving her for another woman, Beth felt a mixture of relief and sadness.  She was sad for the love that she and Dan experienced at the beginning of their relationship, but she was relieved to leave behind the life that made her feel so unhappy and detached from herself.

Gradually, as we continued to work together, Beth learned to approach self care with balance.   She also realized that, even though Dan told her that she was selfish, he was actually the one who was being selfish and self centered, and he lacked enough empathy to understand her.

Eventually, she fell in love with a man who was emotionally supportive in a genuine way and who cared about her needs as well as his own.

Getting Help in Therapy

It's easy to slip into a state where you lose sight of the fact that you're not taking care of your own emotional needs--until life seems to lack meaning.

But it's also possible to recover and learn to take care of yourself in meaningful ways with the help of a licensed therapist who specializes in helping clients to live a balanced life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing who works with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many therapy clients to learn to live meaningful lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Also, see my article: Self Care - Feeling Entitled to Take Care of Yourself.

Creating Emotional Balance in Your Life

We've all had days when we feel anxious, frustrated, angry, sad or at our wit's end.  When you're overwhelmed occasionally by these kinds of emotions, it helps to have a reliable way to bring yourself back into emotional balance.  One way, which was originally developed in hypnosis, is to have a Safe Place or Relaxing Place to focus on so you can bring yourself back to a calm state.

Creating Emotional Balance in Your Life

Learning Coping Strategies in Therapy:
When clients come to see me in my psychotherapy private practice in NYC, I usually teach them coping strategies, especially if they're coming in to overcome trauma.  One of those coping strategies is the Safe or Relaxing Place meditation.  Whether you're trying to overcome trauma or you're just having a bad day, learning to do the Safe Place meditation is a good way to help bring yourself back into a state of calm and emotional balance.

Safe Place Meditation:
To begin, think of a place which is linked to a positive memory.  It can be somewhere in nature, like a beach or in the woods.  When you choose a place, it should be completely positive without any negative memories associated with it.  So, for instance, choosing a beach that you like is fine, but not if it causes you to think of times when your parents used to argue at this beach.  A relaxing scene by a waterfall is great, but not if it was the place where your boyfriend broke up with you.

Once you have a place that you associate with feeling calm and relaxed, close your eyes and engage as many of your senses as possible.  First, feel yourself standing in this place.  If you're at the beach, what does it feel like to have your toes in the sand?

Then, look around and notice what you see.  Notice the colors, shapes and textures of things.  Are there any sounds associated with this place?  If so, what are they?  If you're at the beach, do you hear the sound of the waves on the shore or the seagulls flying overhead?  Are there any sensations associated with this place?  Do you feel the warmth of the sun or the breeze off the ocean against your skin.  What about smells?  Smells can be so evocative?  Can you smell the salt in the ocean?  Maybe you can even taste the salt in the air.

With some practice, you can learn to make these sensory experiences vivid.  And, you'll begin to feel yourself calming down.  Notice that your breathing has slowed down and muscles in your body that might have been tight might be relaxing.

You can also give this place a name--whatever works for you that would allow you to associate the name with the calm feeling.  It can be the word "beach," if that's your relaxing place or just "relaxing place."  When you practice pairing the word with the calm feeling, you can just use the word at times when you can't close your eyes to do the meditation.

The place you choose can be either real or imagined, a scene from a movie or a book.  It doesn't matter.  All that matters is that it helps to get you back into emotional balance.

For some people, trying to come up with a relaxing place can be challenging.  If that's the case for you, you can try to think of the face of a person associated with positive experiences.  This can be a friend, a family member, a teacher, a coach or a mentor.  The point is to use the visualization to get yourself back into an emotionally balanced state.

Practicing the Safe (or Relaxing) Place meditation can help you get through a difficult moment, and it only takes a few minutes a day for you to gain the benefits of this meditation.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist.  I am certified in mind-body oriented psychotherapy.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website:  Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.


Also, visit my Psychotherapy Daily News for updates on mental health issues, health education, and science news.

Balancing Your Needs with Being Responsive to the Needs of Our Loved Ones

How do we balance our own needs with being responsive to our loved ones?  

There are times in life when we choose to put aside something that we want in our lives to focus on our loved ones, whether this involves a child, a spouse or an elderly relative.  This is a part of life and, usually, we do this because we love them and they're important to us.  But this is different from a lifelong pattern of constantly putting others' needs first and sacrificing our own.  

Balancing Your Needs With the Needs of Your Loved Ones

For many people, it can be tricky knowing how to balance their needs with what's being asked of them from family and friends.  When there's a lifelong dynamic of consistently putting others' needs over our own, it can leave us feeling adrift in a sea of doubt and dissatisfaction.

Here are a few short vignettes that are examples of this pattern of putting others' needs first:

Paul:
From the time he was a small boy, Paul always wanted to be an airline pilot, but he knew that his father wanted him to be a doctor.  His father wanted to be a doctor himself when he was younger, but he had to help his parents support  a large family, so he went to work instead of going to medical school.  Paul is painfully aware of his father's family history and the many sacrifices his father made.  He feels too guilty to pursue his dream of becoming an airline pilot, so he becomes a doctor to please his father.  Once in the profession, he's deeply unhappy.  He finds he hates it and he's ill at ease with all the patient contact.  But he remains as doctor because he knows it makes his father proud and happy, and he would feel too guilty disappointing his father.

Susan:
Susan's mother, Mary, has a long history of living beyond her means.  When Mary loses her job, she tells Susan that she wants to stop working, rather than look for other work, and she expects Susan to help support her.  Mary is only in her early 50s, in very good health, and there are no other reasons why she can't look for another job.  She just doesn't want to do it.  Over the years, she's depended on Susan to bail her out financially.  Susan just began building a financial safety net for herself, but she's nowhere near what financial experts recommend of having at least six months to a year of savings in case of an emergency.  Supporting her mother would be a very big financial sacrifice.  Rather than supporting her on an ongoing basis, Susan would rather help her mother in the short term until Mary can find another job.  But Susan doesn't feel comfortable telling her mother this, so she agrees to give her mother a substantial part of her salary every month, which keeps Susan from saving for herself.  She's unhappy with this arrangement, but she feels too guilty and that it would be selfish to speak up for herself.

Alice:
Alice recently joined a neighborhood writing group.  Since she began this supportive group, Alice has become much more confident in her writing and she has been seriously considering submitting her short  stories for publication.  The group members have been encouraging her to do so, and they especially urged her to come to the next meeting where the guest speaker will be an editor from a magazine who might be interested in Alice's stories.  As Alice is about to leave for the group meeting, she gets a last minute call from her sister, Betty, who is in tears about the latest argument she had with her husband.  She tells Alice she is coming over because she needs to talk to her right now.  This is the third time this week that Betty has called in tears to talk about her marriage.  Alice had very much been looking forward all month to attending her group and meeting the magazine editor.  But rather than telling Betty that she could talk to her later, she takes off her coat, resigns herself to missing the meeting, and tells Betty it's okay for her to come over now.

What all of these scenarios have in common is an inability to assert one's self in order to balance one's own needs while still being responsive to loved ones.  Each person is taking on his or her loved one's problems or wishes at a sacrifice to him or herself.  

When Shame is at the Core of the Problem
If shame is at the core of being unable to assert your own needs, it can make these situations even more challenging.  By shame, I mean that, often, people who tend to put others' needs first most of the time feel too ashamed to allow themselves to want things for themselves.  Their family upbringing might have been that it's better to always put other people's needs first.

Tactfully setting boundaries with others is your right.  You might know this, but knowing when to do it might be confusing:  Are you being selfish or are you asserting yourself?  

Always Putting Others' Needs First Can Exhaust and Depress You
A pattern of putting others' needs before your own can leave you feeling depleted and depressed.  It can also cause you to feel resentful of others.  On the one hand, you don't want to feel like you're being selfish but on the other hand, you don't want to neglect your own needs.  It can be hard to know where to draw the line.  But if you don't learn where to drawn the line, your life will go by without the things that you really want for yourself.  There are few things sadder than someone who looks back on his or her life and says, "If only I had pursued my dreams..."

Getting Help in Therapy
When you work with a clinician who has expertise in helping people to balance their needs with being responsive to their loved ones, you learn to discover what you really want, when to assert your needs, and how to do it.  

It's not a matter of the psychotherapist telling you what to do.  It's about you discovering and learning to listen to your core self, who usually knows what's right for you so you can lead a more meaningful and fulfilling life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist. 

I have work with individual adults and couples.  I've helped many clients to overcome obstacles that keep them from leading more fulfilling lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

For a related topic, see my article:  Overcoming Fear of Anger

Maintaining a Balanced Life During Early Recovery

Early recovery can be challenging.  It's not unusual for people in early recovery from alcohol or drugs (or other addictive behaviors) to struggle with how to maintain a balance between their recovery activities and life in general.

Maintaining a Balanced Life During Early Recovery

This assumes that individuals are ready to attend 12 Step meetings.  For many people, who have been traumatized emotionally, hearing some of the stories of other people's loss and trauma, can be retraumatizing of them.   For those people, attending therapy with a licensed mental health professional who has expertise with substance abuse and trauma is preferable.

Other people, who are in early recovery and who aren't triggered by going to meetings, are relieved to have a place in 12 Step meetings where they feel understood and they gain a new sense of hope and renewal.


But sometimes, by focusing only on 12 Step meetings, they neglect their primary relationships and responsibilities. The result is that their lives become unbalanced and this often causes conflicts with their families.

Early Recovery Requires Commitment

It's easy to see how things can become so unbalanced.

Early recovery involves a big commitment of time and energy. For many people in early recovery going to 12 Step meetings on a daily basis is the only thing standing in their way to keep them from acting on their cravings for alcohol and/or drugs.

 For them, the 12 Step slogan of "One Day at a Time" might be more like "One Minute at a Time" or "One Second at a Time" as they struggle not to give in to those cravings.

The 12 Step meetings, the fellowship in the meetings, and their sponsors are like life lines. If they're already suffering from substance abuse-related health problems, early recovery activities could be all that's keeping them from death's door.

But the toll this can take on family and close relationships can be huge.

Initially, spouses or partners of people in early recovery are usually so glad that their loved one stopped abusing substances and gotten help. These family members might have been asking and pleading with their loved one to get help for years. But when they see that early recovery activities seem to have taken over their loved one's life, they often feel disappointed and alienated from their loved one.

Whereas before their loved one wasn't available to them because of the substance abuse, now they feel he or she isn't around because of early recovery activities. This can be very disappointing and frustrating. It can lead to arguments as family members ask for more time and attention.

 People in early recovery, in turn, often feel that spouses and family members don't understand. They might begin to shut down emotionally even when they are around their spouses and families. All of this can lead to further alienation and a sense of hopelessness for everyone involved.

Repairing Relationships During Early Recovery

What can be done to repair these relationships and to achieve balance?

Well, to start, the person in early recovery can benefit from talking to people in the 12 Step rooms who have a lot more experience and success in recovery and who have learned to achieve balance in their lives.

Learning to achieve this balance can be a challenge, especially if the person new to recovery might never have led a balanced life before.

A seasoned sponsor can help someone in early recovery to navigate through this challenge to help achieve this balance.

With more experience in recovery, this often happens more easily, as compared to the early stages of recovery.

Spouses and loved ones of people in early recovery can benefit from attending Al-Anon to get support and a sense of hope. Sponsorship is also available to them in Al-Anon.

Getting Help in Therapy
A licensed therapist with expertise in substance abuse and trauma can help clients in recovery to develop the necessary coping skills to maintain a balanced life.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist who provides psychotherapy services to individuals and couples, including contemporary dynamic talk therapy, EMDR, clinical hypnosis, and Somatic Experiencing.

Helping clients with substance abuse and emotional trauma are among my specialities.

To find out more a out me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

In a prior blog post I discussed The Power of Rituals.  I'd like to continue the discussion in this blog post by discussing the Power of Creating Personal Rituals.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

What Do We Mean by Creating Personal Rituals?
As I discussed in my last blog post, we all have mundane personal rituals that we engage in, whether we're aware of it or not. For some people, it's having a cup of coffee or tea in the morning or reading the newspaper, listening to the weather report, or other similar rituals. Even these simple rituals can bring a certain amount of comfort and a sense of stability. The personal rituals that I'm referring to are rituals that we can create for ourselves that have special meaningful for us.

Examples of Personal Rituals:

Several years ago, a close friend's mother died. My friend, who was very close to her mother, arranged for a wake and a memorial service. She was very grateful for all the comfort that she received from relatives and friends during that time. But after it was over, she felt empty inside, as if she needed something more.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

When we talked about it, she told me what she missed the most was having her morning conversations with her mother. She talked about picking up the phone on many mornings to call her mother, after her mother died, and then suddenly remembering that her mother was gone. These moments filled her with so much sadness. And yet, she felt, on some level, that her mother was still alive in a way.

As we talked about it, it became clear that my friend's experience of feeling that her mother was still alive was her own internal experience of her mother, which was very strong. I suggested to her that, even though her mother was not alive any more, she could still "talk" to her mother in her mind through meditation or in a ritual that she created for herself to honor their relationship.

Since my friend had never done this before, she felt a little strange at first. But as she thought about how she wanted to do this, she began by setting a special place on her bedroom dresser where she placed a few pictures of her mother and herself at various ages, including pictures of her mother and her when my friend was a child, a teen, an adult, and more recent pictures of them before her mother died. These pictures represented the various stages in their relationship from a close relationship when she was a child to a rocky adolescence with her mother, and to a more stable period when my friend became an adult and she and her mother reconciled their relationship. After she arranged the pictures to her satisfaction, she decided to place her mother's favorite flowers, irises, in a beautiful vase near the pictures. Then, she added a candle in her mother's favorite color, pink.

As she was creating this special space for her mother, my friend told me how comforting it was for her to set up this area that was dedicated to the memory of her mother and their relationship. She said it was also very satisfying to be creative and have this space be exactly as she wanted it to be. Then, when she was ready, she sat in front of the pictures and the lit candle. She allowed herself to do whatever felt right on that particular day without worrying about what she "should" do or how it ought to be. On certain days, she meditated silently. On other days, she "talked" to her mother about how she felt or her cares, concerns, or positive things that were going on in her life. On other days, she cried. On other days, she told her mother about the funny and wonderful things that were going on in her life.

After a few weeks, my friend felt that she was really connecting to her mother. She didn't make any judgments about what this meant, whether it was purely an internal experience or whether it was also a connection to her mother in the hereafter. She just allowed herself to have the experience and she knew that it was very comforting to her. After a couple of months, she no longer felt the need to do the ritual. By then, she was able to remember and experience her mother as being alive within herself without the ritual, and all she needed to do was think about her whenever she wanted. The ritual has served as a transitional time and space in her mourning.

During the next year or so, a couple of other friends lost their mothers. As we talked about these losses, we decided to get together and perform our own group ritual for the loved ones in our lives who had died. It was sort of a small, personal, memorial service. Each person brought pictures and a special memento that related to their loved one who had died. I brought pictures of my paternal grandfather, including a young, handsome picture of him in his Army uniform and more recent pictures of him before he died. Other friends brought pictures of their parents, siblings, friends, and pets.

We sat in a circle with candles lit on a low, small table and each one of us took turns "introducing" our loved one and saying something about him or her, whether it was a special memory, a story, or why this person was so special to us. In this way, we honored our deceased loved ones in this shared ritual.

Other personal rituals might include setting an intention for the day when you wake up, meditating at a time that feels right for you, praying, reading inspirational literature at a certain time of day, using visualizations, taking a special bath with herbs and candles, or whatever other rituals that would be meaningful to you.

The Power of Creating Personal Rituals

When people create their own rituals, they often experience it as liberating, creative, and emotionally satisfying, especially if they can give themselves permission to create the ritual in whatever way is most meaningful to them without judging themselves.

When we create meaningful rituals for ourselves, we often reach deep inside ourselves and connect to the core of our being. The symbolism of the rituals, including using particular pictures, colors, scents, music, and visualizations helps to deepen our experience, which is deeply satisfying on an emotional and psychological level.

Meaningful rituals often touch us in a deeper way that just using our logical, rational minds alone could ever do. And when we're immersed in a meaningful ritual, we often realize that, in our everyday busy lives, we've neglected that part of ourselves that needs to feel connected to deeper meaningful experiences.

Creating Your Own Meaningful Personal Ritual:

I've given you an example of how a friend created her own personal ritual, which helped her through a difficult time. You can create your own meaningful personal ritual and it can be to honor anything that you want including: a way to express gratitude for what you have in your life, a relaxing ritual at the end of the day to calm and soothe yourself (a bath with your favorite bath salts, oils, candles and incense can be very relaxing), a celebration of an accomplishment, and so on.

If you feel you would like to do this and you've never done it before, give yourself permission to be creative without judging yourself. No one needs to know about your personal ritual if you feel self conscious about it. Creating a personal ritual can get you in touch with that childlike, playful side of yourself. One of the keys to creating your own ritual is that it must feel meaningful and special to you, regardless of what you think others might think or what your own inner critical voice might be telling you.


When you create your own ritual, you often enter into your inner world in a special, timeless, transitional space, especially if you allow yourself to become immersed in the experience. It might feel like a solemn place where you just want to be quiet, or it might feel like a light, uplifting experience where you feel like you want to dance or sing.

The great thing is that you have the freedom to create whatever you want and it be as spartan or as elaborate as you want it to be. You can use whatever symbols you need to help in deepening the experience for yourself. You have the freedom to do it for as long as it feels meaningful or to change it in whatever way that you want or stop whenever you want.

Journaling about your experiences with personal rituals can also help to capture the feelings, thoughts, and ideas that you have while performing the ritual. By journaling, I don't mean keeping a diary where you feel obligated to write something everyday. By journaling, I mean writing whatever captures the experience. It could be one word. It could be a drawing. It could be pages long if you feel inspired to write. 

Journaling about your experiences with personal rituals helps you to dialogue with yourself, if you want to, about the experience. It also helps you to look back on these experiences and to remember them.

People who enjoy creating rituals often experience their personal rituals as a part of having a meaningful life that helps them to feel more emotionally and psychologically balanced, while also continuing to take care of the everyday things that need your attention.

About Me

I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, Somatic Experiencing therapist, and EMDR therapist. I work with both individuals and couples.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Overcoming Workaholism

What is Workaholism?
Workaholism is a powerful obsession. It occurs when a people don't have a healthy balance between work and the other areas of their lives: their relationships, family, friends, leisure time, and social activities. 

Overcoming Workaholism

People who work excessively derive their sense of self and feel good about themselves primarily through work activities. They use work to derive a sense of approval, respect and success. They might spend 60-70 hours or more per week working. They have a hard time slowing down and relaxing. 

They often feel irritable and uncomfortable when they're not working. For some workaholics, even if they're not actually working, they're thinking about work most of the time. It's their main preoccupation. Often, relationships with their partners, children, and family suffer.

We Encourage Workaholism in Our Society
In our society, we often, unwittingly, encourage workaholism to the detriment of the individuals involved. Workaholics are often rewarded with praise, status, and money. Rather than encouraging people to have a healthy balance between work and personal life, many work settings take a narrow view only in terms of how their employees add to the bottom line.

But, over time, workaholism takes its toll on the individual's health and his or her relationships. Often, over time, when workaholics can't relax, workaholism will also take a toll on their work life because an extreme workaholic will eventually suffer from "burn out."

Martin (a composite of several cases with all identifying information changed):
When Martin came to see me for his first session, I found him pacing up and down in my reception area, on his cell phone and looking at his Blackberry at the same time. He sat at the edge of my couch and he had difficulty settling down. I encouraged Martin to take a few deep breaths before we began talking because he seemed so agitated. After a few minutes, he was able to calm down somewhat, but he kept glancing nervously at his Blackberry. I could tell that he was annoyed when I asked him to turn off his phone and put away the Blackberry.

Martin was referred to me by his coach, who had been trying to help him achieve more balance in his life. According to Martin's coach, Martin, who had been a successful salesman, was suffering from burn out. His burn out was evident in his insomnia, exhaustion, poor diet, problems at home with his wife, who felt neglected by him and, ultimately, in his sales performance.

Martin's personal life and ability to take care of himself (e.g., learn to relax, get to bed at a reasonable hour, eat nutritious meals, and so on) had been declining for some time. It wasn't until his boss spoke to Martin about his declining work performance that Martin sought out an executive coach. He found it intolerable that his work performance was slipping.

At first, he thought that he could just whip himself back into shape and his sales numbers would soar again, as they usually did. But Martin was running on empty, and if he couldn't whip himself back to where he had been before, he didn't know what to do. He thought that if he hired an executive coach, he could get back to his peak performance. But his coach recognized early on that Martin had more serious emotional problems that were beyond coaching. So, he referred Marin to me.

Initially, Martin had difficulty seeing that his life was completely out of balance. He had worked compulsively for so long that it seemed normal to him to work 80-100 hours a week. Even when he was not physically working, he was thinking obsessively about work. His wife was completely fed up with Martin's workaholism, and when she threatened to divorce him, Martin began to finally admit that he had a problem that could not be solved by beating himself up constantly.

Admitting that he had a serious problem was the first step in Martin's recovery from workaholism. But learning to actually let go of his obsessive need to work was a big challenge for him. As a result, work in therapy went slowly at first. But, gradually, over time, he began to understand that his obsessive need to work was just like any other addictive behavior.

Since he didn't know how to relax, at first, he had to learn to schedule in leisure time into his week. With some difficulty, he learned to meditate in our therapy sessions and he started meditating once a day in the mornings. He and his wife also scheduled a date night once a week. During their date night, Martin learned to turn off his phone and focus on his wife. Gradually, he learned to incorporate other leisure activities in his life.

As Martin learned to relax and take better care of himself, his work performance also improved substantially, even though he was spending a lot less time working. Because he was taking care of himself, he approached his work with much more vitality and creativity. His boss noticed and commended him for his improved performance. But Martin had to learn not to allow that praise to trigger him into starting to work obsessively again.

As we explored Martin's family background, it became evident that praise and admiration were strong triggers that drove Martin's workaholism. His father, who was usually emotionally distant, was a workaholic himself. He only praised Martin and showed any affection for him when Martin achieved perfect grades (all A's). His father could not tolerate anything less than perfection. So, as a child, Martin pushed himself harder and harder to gain his father's praise, which meant everything to him. Martin's relentless need to achieve as a child was the beginning of his workaholism.

Part of Martin's work in therapy was to grieve that he didn't have a father who could express affection to him for Martin just being himself. Martin grew up feeling that he was "not enough" and had to excel at whatever he did, especially schoolwork, in order for his father to love him. He only felt as good as his current grades. He was very competitive with his fellow students and felt that he always had to be the best.

The type of work that Martin chose was also conducive to his workaholic style. He was paid by commission and his salary structure fueled his obsession to earn more and more money. But no matter how much he earned, he only felt gratified for a while before he felt the need to earn more. Prior to coming to therapy, Martin was caught in a vicious cycle of greed. As an adult, instead of measuring himself by his grades, he now measured himself by the amount of money that he earned. In many ways, this was worse than performing for grades because his earning potential was nearly limitless if he brought in the business. The sales numbers for all the sales people were also always available for Martin and his colleagues to see, so that also fueled Martin's obsession to work compulsively.

Martin's therapy was not short term. After he was engaged in therapy and learned to be curious about his problems, he was able to delve deeper into the roots of his compulsively. It wasn't easy for him, but Martin came to his sessions regularly. Over time, he learned to have more balance in his life and he found his life much more fulfilling.

Workaholism Also Shows Up at Home
Workaholism is not just about what people do in their careers. It can also show up at home: The man or woman who cleans obsessively at home is also a workaholic. It's the same obsessive need that drives the person at work.

If you're a workaholic, learning to slow down is often a challenge. Learning not to treat yourself like you're a human being and not a production machine can also be challenging. But the benefits to your overall well being and your relationships cannot be overestimated.

Getting Help in Therapy

People who are workaholics often cannot learn to stop working obsessively on their own.

If you think you're a workaholic, ask for support from your loved ones and get help from a licensed psychotherapist.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and EMDR therapist. I have helped many clients overcome obsessive and addictive behaviors.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.

Living a Balanced Life

What does "a balanced life" mean to you?

Living a Balanced Life

It often helps to start by asking yourself:

• What are the various areas in your life that are important to you?
• Do they come together to form a meaningful whole?

What are the categories you would include to have a balanced life?

Everyone is different when it comes to defining what is meaningful.  

Here's a Possible List of What Might Be Meaningful to You:

Your Family (including pets)

Your Health

Your Love Life

Your Friends/Social Support

Your Career/Professional Life

Your Sense of Spirituality

Your Playful Side

Your Personal Growth

Your Sense of Financial Security

Maybe your list would have other categories than the examples that I've given.

How satisfied are you with the categories you've defined?
If you made a list of these categories and took the time to think about each one carefully:

• How satisfied are you with each one, rating each one on a scale of 0-100% (with 0% being not at all satisfied and 100% being completely satisfied and not wanting to change a thing)? 
• As you think about and rate each category, what have you noticed?
• Are there certain areas that you would like to improve? 
• What might it take to improve a particular area by 5%.

For instance, if you are only 10% satisfied with your overall learning and growth, what small step could you take to increase your satisfaction in this area so that you could go from 10% to 15% satisfaction?

You might say: "Why aim so low? I want to be at least 95% satisfied with where I am and I want that now."

I would say that this is an excellent goal to aspire to ultimately, and that it shows how important this area is to you.

I would also ask: "When you think about going from 10% to 95% satisfaction immediately and what it would actually take to achieve that, does it feel overwhelming to you?" Chances are it does. So, in most cases, I recommend that you start by taking small, manageable and achievable steps that will be more likely to lead you to your ultimate goal.

Think of it as a process. If you try to do too much at once, you might become discouraged and give up your efforts all together. Has this ever happened to you?

As you look at your categories, do you find that you are spending more time and effort in certain areas that you care less about and less time in other areas that are actually more important to you?

What can you do to align your priorities so that you feel that you are living a more balanced life? 
For instance, if you are spending most of your time focused on your career and you are not allowing any time at all for play and fun in your life, what small step could you take to bring more balance into this area of your life?

Again, notice that, in most cases, I am suggesting "baby steps" to start and not a complete and immediate overhaul. With each small step that you achieve, you are more likely to build confidence and satisfaction. This, in turn, will increase your motivation to take the next step.

Once again, a balanced life means different things to different people. Start by identifying what you feel makes up a balanced life for you. Think about where you are in terms of overall satisfaction and then set small, manageable goals that will lead you to your ultimate goal.

Getting Help in Therapy
It may be difficult to get started on this process. You might know that you want to lead a more balanced life, but maybe you tend to put off thinking about it. 

It often helps to work with a professional where you have a weekly time and place to focus on your goals. The time and effort that you spend on it now will usually reap rewards for you in the long run.

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist and EMDR Therapist.  

I work with individual adults and couples.

I have helped many clients to live a more balanced life and to achieve overall satisfaction with their lives.

To find out more about me, visit my website: Josephine Ferraro, LCSW - NYC Psychotherapist.

To set up a consultation, call me at (917) 742-2624 during business hours or email me.