How can going to couples therapy influence the other relationships in your life?

Are you still on the fence about going to couples therapy with your partner? Perhaps you are concerned about what you may have to miss or sacrifice in order to commit consistent time to counseling. You could have to skip coffee dates or girls nights with your friends, miss out on getting drinks with your coworkers at the end of the day, or not be able to make it to your nephew’s Christmas play. It might seem like you’re letting a lot of people down in order to focus on your relationship with just one person.

But you have to remember that your relationship with your partner is the primary and paramount relationship in your life. When you two are having a rough time, other aspects of your life are likely to struggle as well. Likewise, when you two are on the same page and doing well, the other relationships in your life will be more successful as well.

Your Children

If you have children, they are the first people impacted by the health of your relationship with your partner. They see you at your best and your worst. They are more intuitive than you may give them credit for, and they are learning from you how relationships are supposed to work as they grow up.

Perhaps differences in parenting styles and preferences have contributed to the issues between you and your partner. This will likely be a topic of discussion during your couples therapy sessions, and you may even be assigned parenting “homework” assignments by your therapist. Through therapy, you can learn how to communicate better with each other and with your children. They will undoubtedly be some of the first to notice any changes in your relationship as a couple and as a family.

Your Extended Family

Since your family members are basically built-in friends with a vested interest in your life, you may have talked (or complained) to them about your partner for years now. You may think that they can understand better than anyone else and they will take your side, which can make for some complicated dynamics at family gatherings. Hopefully, they will be your biggest supporters as you begin couples counseling, but consider that it may be best for your relationship with your partner that you not share too many details about your counseling with your family members.

The goal of couples therapy is to provide you and your partner with the skills and tools to communicate with each other better, share common values, and live a harmonious life together. When you two start to be more on the same page, your family members will take notice and see the impact that therapy has had on you. They may decide to follow your lead and pursue healthier relationships with their partners through counseling as well.

Your Coworkers and Boss

Undoubtedly, your home life stresses have made a way into your work life. This could be manifested in missed deadlines, admonition from your supervisor, extreme emotional outbursts, or discussing your relationship problems with your coworkers. In any of these instances, the result is decreased productivity, which will lead to problems with your company at some point. These home and work stresses begin to compound and take a toll on your body, perhaps resulting in having to take more sick or personal leave days as well.

When your relationship with your partner begins to pick up and get back on track, you will not be bringing as many home stresses into the work environment. This will help your productivity and focus, resulting in more positive conversations with your boss and coworkers. Since you spend almost the same amount of time every day at work and home, your relationships in both places tend to feed off of each other, and a rising tide lifts all boats.

Your Mutual and Individual Friends

If you haven’t been out with your other couple friends in a while because of your strained relationship with your partner, your friends have likely noticed. If you and your partner aren’t having fun together, it is hard to go places together and enjoy yourselves. Perhaps the women and men have been getting together separately or you just haven’t seen anyone lately. Even if you haven’t talked to your friends about your relationship with your partner, they probably wonder if something is going on.

Your friends will be supportive of you and your partner working on your relationship through couples therapy, and they will be grateful to be able to spend more time with you once you and your partner have started healing. When you aren’t having to worry so much about your relationship with your partner and how they are feeling towards you, you have more energy to commit to your other relationships, and being in community is very healthy.

At Novus Mindful Life Institute, we believe that everyone deserves to live a healthy and fulfilling life. We are dedicated to helping one person, one couple, one family at a time heal through counseling. We are located in Long Beach, CA, but we also have a wealth of online resources, and we host The Addicted Mind podcast with many guests that are well-known in the industry.

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Therapy for Sexual Betrayal Long Beach

First, Take a deep breath. Sexual betrayal is overwhelming. You can feel as if you are going crazy. I want to let you know you are not crazy. Sexual betrayal can cause a deep emotional wound, similar to post-traumatic stress disorder or PTSD. You are not crazy, and therapy for sexual betrayal can help.

You may have recently discovered that your partner has been unfaithful. You may have found text messages or porn on your partner's phone. You may have discovered inappropriate text messages or realized that your partner is compulsive using porn or visiting prostitutes. Your whole body is in shock.

Facing sexual betrayal can be overwhelming. You can feel numb or paralyzed, not knowing what steps to take next. Here is a summary of what many victims of sexual betrayal report.

It shattered the idea of my life in an instant. I saw the texts and pictures on the phone. I just put the phone down. I wanted to pretend I didn't see it. I know most people would rage, but I didn't. I didn't say anything for a few days and then I finally I confronted my partner. My partner cried. He said he was sorry and thought he might have a sex addiction problem and needed sex addiction treatment.  My life, as I knew it, gone in a flash. He is not the person I married. I spent my life building a life with them. I wanted to scream, but I just got up and left the house. I did not know what to do. For the next few days, I just did what I needed to do to survive. I was numb.

Our close relationships are what help us feel safe in the world. We depend on the people close to us to create a feeling of belonging and comfort. Individuals that are close to us help us know our place in the world and create a general sense of safety and belonging. Our sexual relationships are often supposed to be the safest place in our lives. Sometimes this is an unspoken truth that we assume is present.  https://novusmindfullife.com/

We often experience a traumatic reaction when the idea of our life is turned upside down. Sexual betrayal causes us to have intense emotional responses. With these powerful betrayal trauma triggers, we often experience PTSD like symptoms.

Here is a list of some of them.

Generally feeling unsafe.

Intense fear or anxiety

Reliving the events over and over

Confusion

Retracing your past

Nightmares

Flashbacks

Obsessionally thinking

Anxiety -  Anxiety therapists long beach

Avoiding anything that reminds of the betrayal

For many who have been impacted by the sexual betrayal trauma, they can feel ing their life has shattered. Often a person will retrace the history of their relationship trying to figure it all out. Hoping to find some answer that can bring it all back together, but often come up empty-handed. It can create a feeling of hopelessness and despair. Our experience is trauma, and it is essential to know that trauma left untreated can lead to other issues like anxiety and depression.

I encourage you to reach out, and therapy for sexual betrayal can help. Our therapists are trained in understanding the impact sexual betrayal trauma has had on your life.

Betrayal Trauma Recovery

The very first thing you can do is to slow down and breath. Just do your best to relax your nervous system and remind yourself that there are help and support. We know more about the impact of sexual betrayal then ever before, and there are help and healing.

Some first steps you can take if you have been traumatized by betrayal.

Educate yourself.

Here are some resources you can check out that may be helpful

Facing Heartbreak

After the Affair

Intimate Treason

Mending a Shattered Heart

Talk with trusted friends or family

Close support can be critical, but it is essential to think about who the person is going to be. Are they safe and can they be understanding and supportive in the ways that you need? Will you be okay that they know about this in the future if you choose to stay in this relationship.

Find outside support or peer support.

12-step groups

Cosa

Online groups

Bloom

Get professional help

Contact Novus. We provide therapy for sexual betrayal in Long Beach California. Many of our therapists are also certified sex addiction therapists. (CSAT)

Here are our address and phone number.

If you are located outside the LA and Orange County area trying finding a therapist on the IITAP website.

International Insitute for trauma and addiction professionals

iitap.com

But no matter what you do, please reach out for help.

Coping with Panic Attacks

Fear can be a good thing when faced with dangerous or harmful stimuli. It helps us stay alert and be wary of potential threats to our physical and mental well being. But when fear transcends the level of a helpful emotion to something debilitating and paralyzing, it causes more harm than good. It robs us of our ability to make sensible choices and go ahead with it. Such a condition is called panic.

What are panic attacks?

Some people experience an unexpected surge of anxiety, fear and even terror without any apparent reason. During this intense and unpleasant period that may last for a few minutes to a few hours, they are unable to function rationally and are overwhelmed by an impending sense of doom. These episodes are called panic attacks or anxiety attacks. They can be both embarrassing and distressing for the person experiencing them. A person who gets recurrent bouts of panic attacks is said to suffer from a panic disorder.

Symptoms of a panic attack

Panic attacks are sudden and the symptoms peak within the span of a few minutes. They can be recognized by:

• Palpitations of the heart and chest pain similar to a heart attack
• Excessive sweating
• Trembling
• Breathing difficulty
• Dizziness
• Nausea and butterflies in the stomach
• A sense of disconnect from reality  
• Intense and irrational fear of some disaster that is about to strike, and
• A feeling of going crazy

What causes a panic attack?

The brain responds to threats by the release of adrenaline or epinephrine, the “fight or flight” hormone of the body. When adrenaline is pumped into the bloodstream, heart rate increases, pupils dilate, blood flow to the muscles increase and blood sugar levels rise. All this is done to prepare the body for a quick response – to flee from the situation or to fight it. The symptoms exhibited during panic attacks are just a reflection of these very same processes.

There are a number of stimuli that can trigger panic attacks. In some cases, it may be underlying health reasons such as heart disease, thyroid disorders, inflammation of the inner ear and low blood sugar. Post-traumatic stress disorder, death and personal losses, substance abuse and direct exposure to situations or material that trigger a phobia in people can also lead to panic attacks. In fact, some of these phobia-related panic attacks are self-regenerating – a fear of the stimulus creating an anxiety attack itself becomes a reason for setting off the panic response.

Managing panic attacks

Understanding the reasons that trigger this response itself is empowering. Through this knowledge, people can analyze their response clinically and learn to control and ultimately overcome it. Certain lifestyle changes such as avoiding caffeine, recreational drugs and smoking, following a regular exercise regimen incorporating aerobics and meditating have been found to help reduce the frequency and intensity of panic attacks.

During a panic attack, try to consciously understand what you are going through. Close your eyes and practice deep breathing and muscle relaxation techniques. Being aware of the surroundings and positive self-talk to reassure yourself that the panic attack is just a temporary phase from which you will recover within a few minutes will be of help. Another way to recover quickly from an Anxiety therapists long beach surge is to imagine that you were transported to a picturesque and relaxing destination. By picturing everything in the mind’s eye, attention can be drawn from the fear quotient and the mind can be calmed down.

When panic attacks are too severe to be controlled by these methods alone, doctors may prescribe depression therapists long beach and medications such as benzodiazepines and antidepressants. They are generally enough to guarantee a full recovery and are gradually withdrawn once the patients start showing tangible improvements.

Is your partner manipulative?

Built on a foundation of love and respect, good personal relationships give meaning to our lives. The deep emotional bond that we share with our partner makes even the mundane of chores look beautiful. Sharing our joys, sorrows, cares and responsibilities, the memories that we forge together are often priceless. But what happens when the balance of that perfect relationship slowly seems to be tipping to one side?

Emotional manipulation creeps into a relationship when one partner uses devious and often unscrupulous methods to change the other’s behavior or preferences to promote their self-interest. Manipulators know their victim’s weaknesses and also how to use it to their benefit. But they are sufficiently adept at hiding their true intentions which makes it difficult to identify them.

How to recognize a manipulative partner?

Living with a manipulative partner is extremely stressful and can severely affect a person’s mental and physical health. There is nothing as heartbreaking as the gnawing suspicion that your partner may be exploitative; except perhaps the confirmation of the same. However, identifying the malady is crucial to its cure and so, here are the signs that a manipulative partner exhibits.

• They do not take responsibility – By avoiding conversations, lying, acting dumb or playing the martyr, they avoid taking up responsibilities. If at all they do, they make sure that you notice it and then subtly demand for a return. They start with asking for a small help and it almost always becomes a ‘camel in the tent’ situation.  
• They make you feel guilty – Whenever you need anything for yourself, make a choice or raise a genuine complaint, they play the victim and make you feel bad for saying it in the first place. They effectively make you believe that everything that went wrong is your fault, all the time.
• They lie – They flatter and lie to dump their share of work on you. They twist your words and lie to win their point in an argument and to shift the blame to you. To make you doubt your own judgment and sanity, they may even employ ‘gaslighting’ methods by feeding you on lies and half-truths.
• They diminish your self-confidence – By being subtly critical or through mild berating comments, they make you feel small and inadequate. It seems as if nothing that you do is good or big enough. But if confronted they will argue that they were only being ‘supportive’ and make you feel bad for having doubted their intentions.
• They use passive-aggressive techniques – They use flattery, emotional blackmail, nagging or veiled threats to get what they want. When that doesn’t work, they communicate their displeasure indirectly by talking behind your back or by giving you a ‘punishment’ such as silent treatment, avoiding or withholding something of importance.
• They rob your identity – It is somehow always their plans and choices that get the priority while yours get pushed to the backseat. They slowly and systematically try to isolate you from your close ones.

What to do when you have a manipulative partner?

The first step is to know that it is not your fault and that nobody has the right to manipulate or bully you. Next, try talking to your partner. Consolidate your thoughts and plan on how to present the matter in a calm, objective and non-confrontational manner. Listening and responding to your partner’s side is important. A meaningful discussion can mend relationships, clear misunderstandings and prevent the same mistakes from getting repeated. You can always seek the help of a counselor, if required. However, if your partner is only trying to manipulate you again or is displaying aggression, it might be time to think of an exit plan.

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Are You Suffering From Social Anxiety? Know These 5 Ways to Curb Them

Going out, socializing and making new friends or mingling with your old friends can be indeed great fun. However, for some of us, these tasks are not as simple as you might feel they are for you. In case, you too suffer from a condition referred to as social anxiety, situations such as the ones mentioned here can be much more than mere butterflies in your stomach or mild nervousness. They can be a significant source of your fear, self-doubt, hesitation, anxiety, and distress. In case, you feel that you are the only one who is struggling with such emotions, be assured that many people go through a similar turmoil. It is entirely reasonable to suffer from social anxiety. Do not consider yourself as a weak or abnormal person. Anxiety is the number one reported mental health issue and anxiety therapy could help. Many people just don’t talk about it, so we get the idea that everyone else is so confident and self-assured. That is not the case. Remember many people will struggle with anxiety at some point in their lives. So you are not alone, and you also deserve fulfillment and happiness in life.

When anxiety and stress are making you stay away from social situations and avoid pleasant experiences, you should know how to manage it and come out mastering your emotions. Here are 5 top tips to bring down social anxiety. Try them out since they can help you to regain control, experience more happiness and feel more relaxed.

Start challenging your fear

You need to invite yourself to come out of that comfort zone and face fear boldly. While it may be quite a scary thing to do so initially, you will feel more rewarding rather than surrendering and succumb to it while staying away from social situations. Don’t wait for your nervousness to be gone. Walk into it slowly. Being hesitant and nervous is still okay, and know that anxiety takes time to dissipate. However, if you start avoiding people, places, and friends, you can never win this challenge. Begin the process with something simple, which you know you may handle better and then gradually work on more robust challenges.

Rethink and challenge your thought process

Many people just think about themselves. That does not mean they are egoistic or snobs. In fact, just think about the insecurities faced by them. You will be surprised to know that several people who appear outwardly confident and self-assured may also be fighting hesitation and self-doubts like you. Thus, even when you feel anxious what others might be thinking about you in a gathering or a party, many of them may also be going through a similar dilemma. It makes sense to change the way your thought process runs. You need to challenge your thinking about why you feel anxious about a particular social situation. You can then evaluate and assess your concerns honestly, but remember when you do this be kind to yourself. Look at it from a place of curiosity.

Channelize your focus and attention on other people

Your thought process could be controlled by anxiety so make sure that you redirect your thoughts elsewhere. For instance, you can make new relationships and try to engage people who are around you. Ask open-ended questions to these people and pay attention to what they say. Make them feel at ease by nodding when they speak, encourage them and keep smiling. Unintentionally, you could get to know a few interesting, kind and genuine people this way.

Have a check on your breathing

Your breath is a great way to calm your body and nervous system. You start breathing very fast every time anxiety comes over you. It may even reach the level of hyperventilation at times. So mindfully slowing your breath can have the opposite effect.  Since you were most likely already anxious and stressed to start with, you could make an effort to calm your body earlier in the day using meditation and mindfulness exercises. Meditation helps you avoid other symptoms like muscle weakness, sweating, heart palpitations and lightheadedness.

Opt for professional help for social anxiety

In case you have tried going through the path of self-help but did not get good results, do not worry as there are other choices. Today, modern medicine provides some useful and excellent options with marginal or no side effects. In fact, modern medicine and natural remedies can be both used together so that your life is improved. Anxiety Therapy such as cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) has been shown in research to have a reliable positive outcome. A research study publishes in the Journal of Anxiety therapist long beach show that participants maintain positive results up to three years after anxiety therapy.