Love Stress and Coping

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What is Love?

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• We learn what love is through our culture
  
• There are some brain chemicals involved too.

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Here is some science based explanation?

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Some psychology based ideas:

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RECOGNIZING YOUR EMOTIONS

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• It can be hard to identify our emotions
• Sometimes anger can mask fear guilt and shame when we don't know how to express our frustration; we might appear to be angry.  
• Ask yourself what led you to feel the emotion, there s usually a string of events that lead to your emotion.
• Guilt and shame: When people in our life lead us to feel bad instead of being supportive we learn to feel guilt and shame, they could just give us ideas for alternative actions instead.
• It can be helpful to evaluate if we have a serious reason to feel the guilt or shame, but if we linger in these emotions we could feel down and will be less likely to seek constructive solution​.  Focus on solutions. 
• Many times the shame is completely unnecessary and oftentimes based of ideas that we adopted about ourselves and that are not true. 
  • Sometimes abusive people try to train us to feel shame, it's brainwash.
  • Sometimes they are projecting insecurities of their own.
• Guilt: does not help, forgive yourself and see how you can make it better

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Ego: a person's sense of self-esteem or self-importance.

The part of the mind that mediates between the conscious and the unconscious and is responsible for reality testing and a sense of personal identity.

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setting healthy boundaries

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​Kati Morton, LMFT, holds a Master's in Clinical Psychology from Pepperdine University and is a certified dialectical and behavioral therapist and grief counselor.

"A healthy life is about keeping things in balance. I believe that personal boundaries are at the core of being happy. This video is about 5 ways to teach others how to treat us properly." --Kati Morton

Step 1: Notice when we reinforce the bad behavior of others

Step 2: Recognizing that we have the right to walk away from others

Step 3: Understanding that we have the right to say NO if something is not in our best interest

Step 4: Recognizing that we have insight on unhealthy relationships and acting upon that knowledge

Step 5: Sticking with it. Reinforcing our beliefs and acting consistently will help us to achieve our goals of being treated the way we want to be.

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​Coping with emotions​

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• Coping strategies help you process what you feel in a healthy or constructive way.
• Examples include:
  • talking to someone who won't judge you,
  • Taking a break by reading or going to an event
  • Doing something nice to yourself to nurture yourself back to a state of equilibrium (be your own baby bird and baby bird caregiver)
  • Do something new to break out of the usual routine, art or music, connect to your hobbies and things that you love.  
• Unhealthy coping (Maladaptive Behavior) the options that you might want to talk to a counselor about, you are only trying to cope and can pick a healthier option instead:
  • Doing drugs of drinking alcohol to forget the situation
  • Overeating
  • Excessive shopping
  • Self-harm
  • Taking excessive risks
  • Excessive exercising
  • Being mean to someone to feel above them
  • Avoiding other people, sometimes by constantly being on the phone, or playing a video game to look busy

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​COMMON DEFENSE MECHANISMS

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• Denial: refusing to recognize an emotion or problem,
  
  • Acting as though nothing is wrong
• Compensation: making up for weakness in one area by excelling in another area
• Rationalization: Making excuses for actions of feelings
• Reaction formation: behaving in a way opposite to the way you feel
• Projection: putting your own faults onto another person
• Regression: returning to immature behaviors to express emotion

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• Emotions can be stressful to understand and also be the result of stress.
• Sometimes emotions are good
• Sometimes we are stressed because we had good emotions before and are loosing the good feelings, maybe you are in love and are suddenly having to reconsider if being in love is a good idea because of something that happens. 
• Having a good list of stress relievers that work for you is a good idea.
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• If you find yourself using defense mechanisms, reflect on how you got there.
  • You probably have a valid reason for feeling how you feel.

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coping

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• Confront the situation
• Release excess energy
• Take a break
• Talk through feelings 

The good coping skills include:
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• Meditation and relaxation techniques.
• Having time to yourself.
• Physical activity or exercise.
• Reading.
• Spending time with friends.
• Finding humor.
• Spending time on your hobbies.
• Spirituality.
• Art: Music, poetry, drawing, painting, knitting, all creating.

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the way you feel could be a sign of emotional abuse

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