How to Be Open to New Relationship Possibilities After Healing From a Bad Breakup

Opening your heart to new relationship possibilities can be challenging after a bad breakup (see my article: Coping With a Breakup).

After a bad breakup, some people vow to never be in a relationship again. Then there are others who get involved too quickly to avoid feeling the pain of their breakup (see my article: The Many Layers of Grief).

As a psychotherapist in private practice who works with both individual adults and couples, I see both--individuals who rush to get involved too quickly and others who close themselves off to the possibility of getting involved with someone new.

How to Be Open to a New Relationship After a Bad Breakup

Each person has to make their own decision about what's best for them.

For people who want to be open to a new relationship eventually, these tips might be helpful:

• Give Yourself Time to Grieve and Heal: Allow yourself to feel the sadness, anger and disappointment without judging yourself for having these feelings, which are common and normal. Too many people jump into their next relationship to avoid feeling the emotional pain from a recent breakup. This is a mistake. Give yourself the time and space to heal--even if it's taking longer than you might have expected. Along the way practice self compassion and don't judge yourself. Recognize that many people have gone through what you're going through and with time they have healed (see my article: Overcoming Your Fear of Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Sadness).

• Prioritize Self Care: Focus on taking care of yourself by eating nutritious meals, getting enough sleep,  exercising at a pace that's right for you and, in general, focusing on your well-being. Practice self reflection to understand what happened in your last relationship and how you might avoid the same problems in the future (see my article: Allowing Yourself to Feel Your Feelings and Learning From Past Relationships).

• Strengthen Your Emotional Support System: Connect with supportive loved ones. Also consider getting help in therapy from a licensed mental health professional if you're struggling. Avoid isolating (see my article: Why Close Friendships Are Important).

• Develop a Healthy Mindset: Before you get involved in a new relationship, learn to be comfortable with yourself (see my article: What is a Growth Mindset?).

• Try Not to Go to Either Extreme: Try to stay balanced. Don't rush into dating again. Conversely, try not to become so fearful about potential new relationships just because your last relationship didn't work out. Although you might discover that you prefer the solitude of your own company, don't allow fear to foreclose the possibility of being with someone new (see my article: Being Open to New Possibilities).

• Be Intentional When You're Ready: If and when you're ready, look for someone who aligns with your overall values. You don't need to align on every belief, but choose someone with whom you're basically compatible (see my article: The Power of Starting the Day With a Positive Intention).

Conclusion

Getting through the heartbreak of a difficult breakup can leave you feeling sad, disappointed, fearful and anxious. These are common reactions.

After you have grieved, if you prefer to be single and unattached, make that decision based on a healthy mindset and not out of anger, fear or bitterness. You don't have to be in a relationship to be happy. Many people choose to remain single. They have healthy relationships with friends and family and they develop interests and hobbies so life is meaningful.

If you want to be in a relationship after you have grieved your prior breakup, take care of yourself first. Allow yourself to grieve to heal and, after you have healed, think about what you want in your next relationship. Then, learn to be open to new possibilities.

Get Help in Therapy

If you're struggling to grieve or you feel stuck in the grieving process, seek help from a licensed mental health professional.

A skilled psychotherapist can help you through the grieving process so you can heal.

Rather than struggling alone, get help in therapy so you can move through your grief and go on to live a meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT (for couples), Somatic Experiencing and Certified Sex Therapist.

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.

5 Reasons Why Hope is Essential to Your Well-Being

Life can be so challenging at times that you might find yourself balancing feelings of hope and dread (see my article: Focusing on Your Personal Strengths to Get Through Stressful Times).

Hope is Essential to Your Well-Being

While it's important not to be overtaken by dread, it's also important not to live on false hope, which will be discussed later on in this article.

This article will also discuss the role of unresolved trauma and how it can get in the way of having a sense of hope for the future.

5 Reasons Why Hope is Important to Your Sense of Well Being

There are many reasons why hope is important to your sense of well-being, including that it can provide: 

• 1. An Openness to New Possibilities: When you feel hopeful, you're more likely to be open to new and better possibilities for the future.  Even if there's just a glimmer of hope, it can be enough for you to envision a better future for yourself (see my article: Being Open to New Possibilities).

• 2. A Sense of Motivation: Hope can motivate you to take action because when you feel hopeful enough--even if you also feel some dread--you're more likely to take positive steps towards the goals or challenges you're facing (see my article: Developing Internal Motivation).

Hope is Essential to Your Well-Being

• 3. A Willingness to Persevere: Goals often require perseverance and perseverance is easier to sustain if you feel hopeful that your goals are achievable. This is especially true for long term goals where you might not always see progress immediately. Hope can sustain you through rough times when you might be tempted to give up (see my article: Achieving Your Goals With Perseverance).

• 4. A Willingness to Overcome Setbacks: With many long term goals, there are often setbacks because progress isn't linear. This is true of many long terms projects. It's also true for psychotherapy.  When you feel hopeful, you're more likely to take temporary setbacks in stride rather than letting setbacks deter you from your goals (see my article: Setbacks Are a Normal Part of Therapy on the Road to Healing).

• 5. An Improvement to Health and Well-Being: A sense of hope can improve your physical and mental well-being. When hope reduces stress, it can improve your immune system. Hope can also reduce anxiety and sadness.  In addition, it can increase your confidence.  Feeling hopeful and wanting to remain in a state of hopefulness can encourage you to surround yourself with like-minded people.

Avoiding False Hope and Unrealistic Expectations

Being hopeful doesn't mean that you latch onto false hope or unrealistic expectations.

It also doesn't mean "never giving up on your dreams" if your dreams aren't achievable or they're based on toxic positivity.

For example, if you have a dream of being an Olympic swimmer, but you never learn to swim, your dream is rooted in false hope and unrealistic expectations.  Or, if you want to become a concert pianist, but you hardly ever practice the piano, you're not going to fulfill your dream.

The examples given above are easy to see, but it's not always clear when you're indulging in false hope. 

For example, if you're in a relationship that has long-standing problems, you might not have a sense of whether your relationship can be salvaged or if it's beyond repair.  

In that case, a couples therapist, who is a relationship expert, can help you both to assess how you feel about the relationship and whether you each feel it's still viable.

Seeking Help in Therapy

If you have unresolved trauma, you might find it challenging to feel hopeful even under the best of circumstances because your prior traumatic experiences can cloud your perspective (see my article: Overcoming Trauma: Separating Then From Now).

Seek Help in Therapy

If you feel you're constantly "waiting for the other shoe to drop" even when there's nothing in your current circumstances to warrant your concern, you could benefit from seeking help from a trauma therapist.

A skilled trauma therapist can help you to free yourself from your traumatic history so you can live a more hopeful and meaningful life.

About Me

I am a licensed New York City psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR, AEDP, EFT, Somatic Experiencing and Sex Therapist.

As a trauma therapist, I have helped many individual adults and couples to overcome their traumatic history (see my article: What is a Trauma Therapist?).

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.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

All too often people are held back from accomplishing their goals because they are hindered by their personal history.  Struggling on their own, they're unable to overcome these obstacles. But psychotherapy offers an opportunity to free yourself from a history that has been holding you back (see my article: The Benefits of Therapy and What's Holding You Back From Achieving Your Goals?).

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

Usually, people don't understand how problems from the past affect them now because these underlying issues are unconscious and it's difficult, on your own, to make the connection between what happened before and what's happening now.

People, who feel stuck, tend to berate themselves for being "lazy" or "stupid" when the actual cause of the problem is unresolved emotional trauma.

While it's generally well known that the past can affect the present, it's often difficult to see this in your own personal situation.  And, even if you're able to see it, it can be difficult to overcome the underlying issues on your own.

Let's take a look at a fictionalized scenario which is representative of these issues:

Max
Max was in a dead end job with little to no possibility of moving up or getting a raise.

He wanted to start his own business as a website developer.  He had developed websites pro bono for his friends and for nonprofit groups, and he received high praise for his skills, so he decided to develop his own website offering his skills to others for a fee.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

Max knew there would be lots of competition because there were already many other businesses that already offered the same services, but Max wanted to give it a try.

After he developed the website for his business, he was ready to launch it, but he delayed because he had a terrible sense of foreboding.  He didn't know why he felt this way, but he decided to hold off for a while until he felt more comfortable with the idea of starting his own business.

A week turned into a month and a month turned into six months.  And, before he knew it, Max delayed launching his website for a year--even though he couldn't think of any logical reason why he was putting it off.

Whenever his friends would ask him how things were going with the launch of his website, he would tell them that he was still working on it. But his friends knew that Max was very talented and that something else had to be going on.

Finally, his best friend, John, asked Max what was going on and why wasn't he getting started with his business idea.  John knew that Max would be successful if he advertised his services, so he realized that something else had to be going on.

Max and John were friends for many years, so he felt more comfortable talking to John about it than anyone else.  He explained to John that when he was about to launch his site, he had a terrible sense of foreboding and he couldn't go ahead with it.

They talked for a long time over dinner.  John tried to convince Max to "just do it" and tried to bolster Max's confidence.  But he realized that nothing he said was having an impact on Max.  So, he suggested that Max see a therapist.

Max had been in therapy several years ago to deal with the loss of his grandmother when she died.

At the time, Max, who was very close to his grandmother, thought he would never overcome this loss, but his therapist helped him to work through his grief, so Max had a good experience of being in therapy before.  But he wasn't sure how therapy could help him now.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

After he thought about it for a while, Max decided to return to his former therapist to see if she could help him to overcome his fear and procrastination (see my articles: Overcoming Procrastination and  Returning to Therapy).

Max told his therapist that he couldn't think of any rational reason that he was procrastinating launching his website.  He knew he had the skills and the business savvy to do it.  He also knew that he would enjoy this business.

Then, he described the sense of foreboding that came over him when he was about to launch his website.  He had no words to express the sense of foreboding that he felt in his stomach.

How Psychotherapy Helps You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

His therapist worked with the mind-body connection in therapy and she asked him to stay with the sensation as long as it was tolerable to him.  In response, Max said that, although it was uncomfortable, it was tolerable.

His therapist asked Max to just notice what happened next.

At first, Max didn't notice any change, but then he realized that the tension that was in his stomach was moving up through his chest and into his throat.  He said it didn't hurt and it was still tolerable, but it seemed odd to him.

Using a clinical hypnosis technique called the Affect Bridge, his therapist asked him to stay with the sensation and the emotions and go back to the earliest time that he could remember feeling these same sensations and emotions (see my article: Mind-Body Psychotherapy: The Body Offers a Window Into the Unconscious Mind).

At first, Max was skeptical about this, but he stayed with it and a memory came to him.  He said, "I don't know why this memory is coming up now and I don't know if it's related to what we're working on, but I'm remembering a conversation I had with my grandmother when I was four or five years old."

His therapist encouraged Max to stay with the memory, sensations and emotions and tell her what was coming up for him.

Max remembered that he used to see his grandmother everyday during that time because she lived in the apartment upstairs from where he lived with his parents.  Usually, he would have his afternoon snack with his grandmother at the same time every afternoon and they would talk.

He remembered on this particular day that his grandmother was reminiscing about her father when she was a little girl in her native country.  She had loved and admired her father very much, and she spent a lot of time with him while he worked in his workshop.

At the time, she thought her father was a genius, especially when it came to fixing things.  He had such a good reputation at what he did that people from their town and the surrounding towns would come with broken appliances or radios, after they had been to other people who told them that it couldn't be fixed, and her father fixed it without a problem.

Although he was admired by most people, there were a few people who had similar businesses who were angry and jealous because they felt he was taking business away from them.

His grandmother told Max that her father invented a farm tool that he was very proud of at the time.  He had hoped that tool, which was unique, would interest local farmers and that he would become financially successful as a result.

When word got out about her father's new farm tool, the men who were jealous of him began to spread malicious gossip about him.  They also maligned his invention.

Although people in the town generally liked her father, for some reason, they believed the gossip and began to stay away from his shop.

At first, her father didn't understand why his business had dropped off so much.  Then, word got back to him about the stories that were circulating about him, and he was stunned.

He realized that his competitors were jealous about his invention and they were behind the vicious rumors.  He also knew that the rumors wouldn't stop until he stopped trying to promote his invention, so he quietly put it away.  And, sure enough, the gossip stopped and people gradually came back to his business.

Max's grandmother remembered this time as being a very humiliating and sad time for her father, for her and the rest of the family.  When she spoke about it, she talked about her father and the rest of the family being powerless to stop what was happening at the time.

Then, she looked directly at Max and she told him, "It's better to remain humble than to be proud and try to rise above where you are or people will try to destroy you."

Max remembers feeling shocked and anxious as a child after he heard his grandmother's story about her father.  At the time, he knew that, even though this was an old memory for his grandmother, she was still very affected by it.  He could see the sadness and fear in her eyes and, as a child, he thought about it for a long time, although he didn't completely understand it because he was so young.

When Max discussed this memory further with his therapist, he had the sudden realization that this was what was holding him back.  He wasn't sure why or how, but he felt it in his gut (see my article: An Unconscious Identification With a Loved One Can Create an Obstacle to Change).

Then, he remembered many other times that his grandmother gave him similar advice based on her traumatic experiences as a child.

Although he knew that his grandmother had been traumatized and she was only trying to protect him, he also felt annoyed that he had been burdened with these ideas at such a young child.

"But how could such a memory from so long ago still be affecting me?" Max asked his therapist.

His therapist responded by telling Max that although this memory wasn't in the forefront of his mind, it had remained in his unconscious and had made an emotional impact on him at an early age, especially since his grandmother had such a big influence on him.

His therapist explained that the memory got triggered, without his realizing it, when Max was about to launch his website to advertise his services.  Even though his grandmother told him this story a long time ago, the memory remained in his unconscious mind and became the impediment to his going forward (see my article: Freeing Yourself From Family Expectations and Beliefs That Are Harmful to You).

Using EMDR Therapy, his therapist helped Max to work through this obstacle (see my articles: How EMDR Therapy Works - Part 1, How EMDR Therapy Works - Part 2: Overcoming Trauma and How Experiential Therapy, Like EMDR Therapy, Can Help to Achieve an Emotional Breakthrough).

Over time, Max was able to separate his experience from his grandmother's experience (see my article: Working Through Emotional Trauma: Psychotherapy Helps You to Separate "Then" From "Now").

Gradually, he became comfortable with the idea of launching his website and he also became open to new possibilities in his life, including that he could be a successful business owner.

How Psychotherapy Can Help You to Open Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

By the time he launched his website, he had no fear, conscious or unconscious.  He anticipated that he would enjoy his business and he would be successful.

Conclusion
Often, people are stuck for reasons that they don't understand because the reasons are unconscious.

The Affect Bridge from clinical hypnosis is one of many ways that skilled therapists, who are hypnotherapists, help clients to overcome unconscious obstacles so that clients can become open to new possibilities and new ways of seeing themselves.

Getting Help in Therapy
Clients are often surprised to discover that unconscious memories that are creating obstacles for them.

Getting to these unconscious memories on your own would be very difficult.

If you're feeling stuck and you've been unable to move forward on your own, rather than suffering alone, you can get help from a licensed mental health professional who can help you identify the obstacles and work through them.

The first step, which is often the hardest, is making a call for a consultation, but it can make all the difference between remaining stuck and freeing yourself from your history (see my article: How to Choose a Psychotherapist).

About Me
I am a licensed NYC psychotherapist, hypnotherapist, EMDR and Somatic Experiencing therapist who works 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.

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

As a psychotherapist in NYC, I am continually amazed at the new possibilities that open up in people's lives when they work through old wounds or trauma that have kept them trapped, sometimes for many years, in old, constricted patterns that have robbed their lives of joy and aliveness.

Opening Up to New Possibilities in Your Life

I have many different treatment modalities that I use, including psychodynamic psychotherapy, cognitive behavioral treatment, and mind-body oriented psychotherapy like clinical hypnosis, EMDR, and Somatic Experiencing, depending upon the needs of the client. I usually find that clients' lives often begin to open up in ways that they never imagined possible when they work through problems that they didn't even realize were holding them back in their lives.

The following vignette, which is a composite of many cases with no identifying information (to protect confidentiality) is an example of this phenomenon:

Nina:
Nina was in her early 40s when she came to see me. At the time, she had not been in a relationship for several years.

She was very lonely and wanted to be in a relationship, but whenever she began dating someone that she liked, she was overcome with so much fear and self doubt that, without realizing it at the time, she would find a way to sabotage the relationship before it could develop any further.

Nina realized that she was sabotaging her relationships

It was only after the relationships ended that she realized that she had sabotaged them, but by then it was too late. She knew that she was caught in an old pattern that was keeping her stuck, but she didn't know how to break the cycle.

Not surprisingly, she had the same pattern with her prior psychotherapists. She would become so uncomfortable in her therapy that, even when she liked the therapist at the start of therapy, she would become too anxious to stay in therapy when she and the therapist began delving into some of her core issues.

At the point when she came to see me, she was feeling the same fear and ambivalence about what might come up in therapy that might make her want to run out the door.

Given how fearful and ambivalent Nina felt about beginning therapy again, it was important to begin the work by helping Nina to have a sense of safety in the therapy. We began by doing some emotionally grounding exercises to help her feel calm.

We also worked on her picturing in her mind's eye various friends, allies and protector figures that she could call on in her mind to be with her when she began to feel afraid. In addition, we worked on Nina establishing a safe or relaxing place where she could go in her mind whenever anything that we talked about made her feel too uncomfortable.

Just from doing these simple, but powerful, exercises, I could see her breathing calmed down, her jaw unclenched, and the color came back into her face. These exercises helped Nina to stay present in the sessions and, knowing that we could stop whenever she began to feel too uncomfortable, allowed her to feel safer and in control.

We also worked with her problems in a titrated way. We didn't dive into the most traumatic issues immediately because these issues were too emotionally activating for Nina. Instead, we would do a piece of the work that felt tolerable to her in each session and, based on Somatic Experiencing principles, we might go back and forth between the talking about the problem and Nina visualizing her safe or relaxing place.

In Somatic Experiencing this is called pendulation, which means that the client and therapist "pendulate" between Nina actively working on a problem and experiencing the calm and safety of visualizing the safe place or her supportive friends, allies and protective figures.

This pendulation might happen several times in a session, depending upon Nina's needs. However, as Nina began to build more resilience and emotional capacity over time, she relied on these techniques less.

With regard to Nina's fears and self doubts in intimate relationships, as we explored her family history, we began to make connections between her current feelings and how she was shamed in her family as a child.

Her parents, who were otherwise loving and well-meaning people, were very concerned that their children shouldn't developed "swelled heads" or become too egotistical. So, to counteract this concern, their pattern was to down play any of their children's accomplishments.

So, when any of the children, including Nina, brought home an "A" from school or won a prize for accomplishing something outstanding, rather than praising their children, they would warn them about the dangers of "resting on their laurels" and becoming complacent.

The effect for Nina was that she could almost never feel a sense of healthy pride or joy about what she accomplished. Instead, she developed a pattern of discounting what she had accomplished, and she worried about what she would have to do next. At an early age, her life was robbed of the joy, aliveness, and self confidence she might have felt if she was allowed to bask in healthy pride.

Nina's parents were also very worried and insecure about the future. Even though, from a practical point of view, the family was financially secure and there was no objective reason to think that they would become destitute, both parents lived their lives as if their financial security could be robbed at any moment.

They imparted to their children that they all had to be very careful and on guard about what might happen in the future that could take everything away at a moment's notice. No doubt, Nina's parents were very affected by their own experiences of trauma in their families of origin, and they never went to therapy to work this out.

In addition, although they were well liked in their community, when they were behind closed doors at home with Nina and their siblings, her parents warned them against trusting people too much outside of their family.

As a child, whenever Nina brought home a new friend, her parents were polite and friendly. But when that friend left, her parents expressed their wariness about what these friends' parents might be like and that Nina had to be very careful with "outsiders."

Although Nina could see, even when she was a young child, that her parents' fears and worries were extreme, she couldn't help internalizing these fears herself. As an adult, she realized that these fears that she internalized kept her from getting very close to men.

She wanted very much to be different from her parents, but her parents' repeated warnings, from the time that Nina was very young, caused the internalization process to go very deep in her. So that, even though she wanted to be different, she continued to have these same fears.

Nina described her pattern in romantic relationships to be one where she started out really liking the man that she was seeing and wanting to spend time with him. But then her doubts and fears about herself and about this new man in her life would take over and she would find a way to end the relationship.

To start breaking this pattern, we worked gradually to disentangle Nina's positive feelings from her doubts and fears.

There is a technique in Somatic Experiencing called "uncoupling" where the Somatic Experiencing therapist helps the client to disentangle two or more emotions that have become over associated in a distorted way.

These over associations (or "over couplings", as they are called in Somatic Experiencing) can be very powerful and this can take time. Often, we don't even realize that these over couplings are a part of our emotional makeup until we start working on these feelings.

Very often, once a client has "uncoupled" a tangle of emotional distortions, they feel a sense of new energy and new possibilities opening up for them. In Somatic Experiencing this is often compared to having a bunch of colorful pipe cleaners that were tangled together and which are disentangled and separated.

After these feelings are uncoupled, clients can often see what belongs to them now and what are the old feelings from "back then" that no longer apply. It can be a very empowering experience.

Nina and I also worked on allowing herself to feel good about her accomplishments without allowing those old feelings that crept up on her ruin her healthy sense of pride and joy. This involved another uncoupling process to separate out healthy feelings of pride, which are normal, from feeling shame and fear about feeling "too good" about herself.

Whenever Nina was able to allow herself to feel good in session, we worked towards helping her to amplify those feelings in her body and allowing herself to bask and luxuriate in them so that she could re-establish a sense of joy, vigor, and healthy pride in herself.

The work was not easy for Nina but, over time, she began to see that she was opening up to new possibilities in her life. She was more open to allowing herself to take more emotional risks by opening up more to people, which would have been unthinkable for her before. She started dating again and when she felt her fear and self doubt beginning to get in the way, she used the resources that she developed in our therapy sessions to overcome them.

Her emotional range of resiliency continued to expand until she could feel a real sense of aliveness and joy that she had not felt in many years. She described it as feeling more like herself. She began to trust her judgment more with regard to choosing healthy relationships. She was more open to meeting and connecting with new people so she was no longer lonely. She also met the man that she eventually married.

Nina successfully completed therapy

By the time Nina successfully completed therapy, she almost looked like a different person. The worry, fear and doubt that had been etched in her face were gone. She had a sense of aliveness and vitality. She also allowed herself to take in the love from her husband that she needed and deserved and she was also able to allow herself to give love freely to him in return.

Getting Help in Therapy
Often, people are stuck in old patterns that keep their lives small and constricted. Their emotions are tamped down. These patterns rob their lives of aliveness and joy, but they don't realize it or, if they do, they don't know how to change it.

If you're aware that you have emotional patterns that are preventing you from living life fully, you owe it to yourself to break free from these patterns by getting help from a licensed psychotherapist who has experience working with these issues.

To overcome these patterns, my professional experience has been that mind-body oriented psychotherapy offers possibilities that regular talk therapy often doesn't offer.

As I mentioned earlier,I work in many different ways and I often combine different techniques, depending upon the needs of the client. Every client is unique and my work is collaborative, so that each treatment plan is a collaboration with the client.

About Me

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

I have helped many clients to overcome old emotional patterns so they can open their lives to new possibilities and a sense of joy and aliveness.

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.