Lisa Find Love

Death is difficult to discuss. When it comes to our own demise, we might think we’re tempting fate if we talk of wishes or of writing a will. And when it comes to the death of a loved one, we are hit with a major loss: we feel sad, hurt, angry, unsettled — a panoply of emotions. As a therapist, I know that in dealing with death, there is not a right way or a wrong way to feel or to grieve.

In Choosing to Live: Enduring the Loss of a Loved One, Jerry D. Campbell writes that even though he and his love of forty-seven years spoke often of death and of having their wishes and affairs in order — and even though he thought of her death not as a tragedy but a life well-lived — he still experienced his wife’s death as deeply painful. (Not surprising, perhaps, that death upends us no matter how prepared we may feel.)

In this self-published book, Campbell, a retired United Methodist clergyman and former president of the Claremont School of Theology, introduces a so-called grief calendar. He also uses his experience to help readers maintain a positive attitude during a highly difficult time, and discusses how to keep on going despite that one may fee alone. Taking a deliberate approach to grief, Campbell posits, can help a person get through the attendant emotions. His experience may help some readers, but Campbell also posits several ideas with which I strongly disagree.

After a major loss, it may take months or even years to feel whole again. Campbell writes that he was “muddling” through his life after his wife’s death and knew it was affecting his ability to function and grieve. He felt he needed a tool, he writes, or some kind of structure, that would let him to some degree compartmentalize his personal life from his professional life. He wanted a way to give adequate attention to both, and to better manage his grieving process.

This is when Campbell used his calendar. He scheduled time to reflect on what he was feeling, what was bothering him, and to review emotions he felt he had successfully dealt with. The structure allowed him to have a focus, he writes, and gave him deadlines to help him be aware of his feelings. Importantly, it prevented him from getting stuck or not dealing with his feelings at all.

Honesty with oneself is, after all, not easy after a death. Yet in order to move into recovery, we need to stop trying to cover up our pain and instead be real with ourselves that difficult feelings are stirring about inside. We need to give ourselves permission to feel our loss, and to deal with it. I can get behind that part of what Campbell writes.

The book also introduces a so-called sixth stage of grief called growth, which Campbell defines as dealing intimately and thoughtfully with your own emotions. Readers may have heard of Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of grief: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. For a long time, mental health professionals accepted these as universal stages in the grieving process. Unfortunately, it is not that simple — and clinicians have begun to debate the Kübler-Ross theory. In reality, each of us deals with grief or loss in our own unique way. To try and pigeonhole a person into a category does not allow her to feel the full range of feelings and emotions, some experts argue, and I agree.

Despite the debate over the validity of the five stages of grief, Campbell takes the concept of stages and “schedules” time to do the grief work of each one. He encourages readers to calendar time for these emotional stages, too, though does luckily caution us to allow as much time as needed. That is an important caveat: It does not help to judge our grief experience, and it will take as long as it needs to take for each of us. Pressuring oneself to hurry up and get past the grief will actually disrupt the natural healing rhythm and prolong our pain.

That said, Campbell veers from his own advice when he sets a calendar goal for being back to normal. There is no normal, however! Here, the book does a huge disservice to readers coping with loss.

Another drawback is that Campbell seems especially self-aware, in a way that few people are right after the death of a loved one. Specifically, after Veta died, Campbell had the meta-cognitive ability to know he needed to find balance between his personal and professional lives. He realized that once he got into his work responsibilities, he could get wrapped up and forget to grieve.

While it is wonderful that Campbell had this insight, not many people have that level of self-awareness during extreme grief. Instead, they often stumble through life and work obligations until the issue of loss comes out in other ways, such as insomnia, depression, or risky behaviors.

In addition, Campbell spends a great deal of time talking about theology and god. That makes sense, due to his status as a retired clergyman, but it also automatically alienates a large swath of readers.

Despite these major flaws, Campbell gives us a number of powerful moments as he reflects on the pain of losing a spouse. He found himself disoriented, he writes, in the absence of Veta, as if a piece of himself had died with her. Many readers will be able to relate to that.

Campbell includes poems, too, that Veta wrote, to help the reader get to know her through her own words. One especially heartwarming poem is about the loss of a pet. In it we see Veta’s love for animals — as well as her own ideas on life and death.

This book is certainly not for all readers, and as a mental health professional I object to some of what Campbell puts forth. Still, it does provide an interesting perspective on how one can attempt to give oneself time to grieve, and time to grieve is certainly important.

Choosing to Live: Enduring the Loss of a Loved One
Archway Publishing, September 2014
Paperback, 146 pages
$12.99

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As therapists, we sometimes feel unmotivated to meet with certain clients. We, like all human beings, grow tired of repetitive patterns. We feel dragged down by therapy sessions that seem to be going nowhere or that seem to trigger negative responses in either ourselves or our client.

Of course, it’s not a fun experience for clients who are struggling with daily challenges, mental health conditions, or relationship difficulties. Many of them come to therapy hoping that they will meet a wonderful therapist who understands them, offers useful teaching tools, and inspires them to be creative and open minded.

To be those helpful therapists, we must be able to jumpstart new ideas and to understand the emotions of those we work with. That’s why Courtney Armstrong, a counselor who specializes in grief and trauma, wrote The Therapeutic “Aha!”: 10 Strategies for Getting Your Clients Unstuck.

Armstrong understands that just as a person can become stuck in his or her patterns of thought, therapy itself can become stuck. And so she attempts to awaken us, the practitioner, to better ways of communicating, new techniques we can try, and new ways to challenge clients and help them grow — with a focus on engaging the emotional brain.

In my own sessions with a difficult population of children and adolescents, I have clients who are resistant, oppositional, or simply unmotivated. Although I enjoy using imagery, processing emotions through discussion or art or writing, and discussing goals, I sometimes get stuck and lose focus. Reading Armstrong has already helped me stay engaged. 

While some of her ideas can easily be applied to a particular session, other techniques require a bit more thought and processing. But the dialogues she provides show, vividly, how to use techniques and engage clients in processing their emotions and experiences appropriately. These examples are easy to comprehend, remember, and utilize.

The most significant message from Armstrong to me is that she focuses not so much on using techniques such as CBT or DBT but on working with the emotional experience of the client. For instance, early on she gives an example of a client who is struggling with the reality of her son’s substance addiction and differentiation process. Armstrong encourages the mother to explore her own feelings about her son becoming an adult and how her lack of acceptance of his independence may be contributing to their rocky relationship and the son’s resistance to treatment. She helps the mother draw associations between her own behaviors and her son’s.

One drawback of the book is that readers may lose interest in the chapters focusing on Armstrong’s own so-called RECON approach and memory reconciliation. Still, the majority of the text offers great tools and approaches to getting unstuck. It also includes easy-to-understand updates on neuroscience research, which may help with recharging the emotional brain. For clinicians or therapists who are working with individuals who have traumatic histories or who do not respond well to traditional therapeutic approaches, Armstrong may help move sessions forward.

The Therapeutic “Aha!”: 10 Strategies for Getting Your Clients Unstuck
Hardcover, 224 pages
W. W. Norton & Company, April 2015
$27.95

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How wild it was, to let it be. — Cheryl Strayed

Cheryl Strayed’s national best-seller, Wild, is the true account of a woman who loses everything and risks everything in order to rebuild herself, slowly but surely, after inconceivable loss.

At 22 years old, Strayed lost her mother to cancer.

“My mother’s death brought me to what I think of as my most savage self,” she conveyed in an O Magazine article. “It stripped me of the one thing I needed. My mother was the taproot of my life. And suddenly, I didn’t have that anymore. I had wild love for my mother. I had wild sorrow. And then I went wild. I went wild into my life.”

At 26, Strayed decided to hike the Pacific Crest Trail — alone. Without any previous hiking experience or professional training, she strapped her massive backpack “Monster” onto her back and started the 1,100-mile hike from the Mojave Desert though California, Oregon, and Washington State.

Blistered feet, extreme weather challenges, minimal amounts of food and water, low funds, bears and rattlesnakes were all part of the trek. Strayed’s survival instincts heighten; at points, she’s merely trying to stay alive. She garners fresh perspectives as she continues to walk into the unknown.

She also met other hikers along the journey. These connections, however brief, affected her travels, illuminating unity and love and light.

The hike was a beautiful metaphor. By moving forward, toward her destination, Strayed was confronting her grief — over her mother’s death, over her painful divorce, over a past filled with choices she deeply regretted. She sought self-forgiveness and a sense of clarity; she was hoping to find a way inward to heal and to somehow come out on the other side, with the knowledge and trust that she will be okay.

“Uncertain as I was as I pushed forward, I felt right in my pushing, as if the effort itself meant something,” she wrote in Wild. “That perhaps being amidst the undesecrated beauty of the wilderness meant that I too could be undesecrated, regardless of what I’d lost or what had been taken from me, regardless of the regrettable things I’d done to others or myself or the regrettable things that had been done to me. Of all the things I’d been skeptical about, I didn’t feel skeptical about this: the wilderness had a clarity that included me.”

She’d imagine what it would be like to immerse herself in the ‘real world’ again — a world that included burgers and fries, music, coffee, wine and even drugs.

“Of course, heroin could be had there too,” she wrote in one chapter. “But the thing was, I didn’t want it. Maybe I never really had. I’d finally come to understand what it had been: a yearning for a way out, when actually what I had wanted was a way in.”

“The hike very literally forced me to put one foot in front of the other at a time when emotionally I didn’t think I could do that,” Cheryl said in an Interview Magazine article “You have to keep walking, no matter what. If you don’t, it’s a living death. You’re just standing in one place dying. So I love that the hike gave me that metaphor, a map of how to survive life, to keep moving, to go far.”

And what did this hike teach Strayed? “Acceptance,” she told Oprah. “I had to accept the fact of the hour. The fact of the mile. The fact of the summer. The facts of my life. Over and over again, I found that if I could accept those difficult things, everything else sort of gave way. Each step led me to the next step, the next truth that was going to reveal itself. We all suffer. We all have heartbreak. We all have difficult things. They’re part of life. Realizing that was very profound for me.”

Cheryl Strayed writes effortlessly in a voice that’s exquisitely sincere. Wild is a must-read; an unforgettable memoir that exudes inspiration.

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I remember the ice hitting the glass.

After working all day and sitting down in the living room, I would hear the noise of the ice from ice maker entering the glass. The hair on the back of my neck stood straight up. My mind raced to what may or may not happen. Would I have to cancel the evening plans? How were the boys? I wonder if anyone noticed we have been missing at meetings? When was the last time my then-wife did not get into an argument, prompting the boys to ask if everything was all right?

I had known for some time that I needed help dealing with my wife’s drinking. I had been trying to control it and always labeled it under the heading “what was best for the kids.” What I was forgetting in all this was the toll the drinking was having on me personally. I was depressed, feeling alone, and just plain tired of it all.

Life changed dramatically when my wife took a second-shift job. Night brought a quietness and peace I had not felt for some time. I had previously tried to control the use of alcohol by screaming, pleading and trying to ignore the triggers. None of it worked. Once my wife went to evening shift, the drinking took place in the early morning hours, when the rest of us were sleeping. I realized the difference was not allowing the drinking to dominate my waking hours. I needed to take this one step further. After many years of threatening, I finally attended an Al-anon meeting.

Powerless against it. Strength, not weakness. Allowing the controlling aspect of alcohol to dissipate was beginning to slowly enter my mind as I listened at my first Al-anon meeting. Powerless? You mean I did not have the duty to control, enable and cover up any more? I did not have to carry the burden of the disease? I could think about myself?

I could begin to see what alcohol was doing to me. I was dealing with the same urges as the drinker, but didn’t have the release of alcohol to numb my pain. I was in many ways the dry drunk in the family. My reaction to the situation was affecting my 8- and 14-year-old sons more than the actual drinking. I thought I was protecting my boys, but actually I was adding fuel to the fire by creating the environment to drink.

Those at the meeting shared their stories of their first time in attendance. They spoke of being scared; of being too good for this silly program; and that they were not the one with the problem. Each person expressed that control was not an option. The act of controlling was destroying more than the drinking. I was not leading a healthy lifestyle. For once it was all right to think about myself and review my own feelings.

In a codependent relationship, feelings are often painful. You may have cut off the following feelings:

• Anger. Are you having one crisis after another? Do you feel you’re doing all the work in the relationship? Are you angry you’re covering up for your partner?
• Isolation. Do you stay home because you’re not sure whom you can trust? Do you feel you have to hide your feelings because things will never change?
• Guilt. Do you feel no matter how hard you try it’s never good enough? Do you think that if you were a better partner things would be better?
• Fear. Do you fear confronting your partner because they may abandon you? Do you fear physical or sexual abuse? Do you fear the loss of your home and security?
• Embarrassment. Do you avoid bringing people into your home because your partner’s drinking is unpredictable? Do you avoid social gatherings where drinking may occur?
• Despair. Do you feel helpless and trapped at times? Do you feel it will never change so why bother to confront? Do you spend most of your energy worrying about his or her drinking?

The more that was shared, the more it felt I was beginning to break up that wall in my heart. It was all right to take care of myself; it was all right to focus on me for a change.

It is natural to want to protect the people you care about. But in a codependent relationship, how do you begin to take care of yourself?

• Recognize you have a problem.
• Start to focus on your needs.
• Begin to educate yourself on codependency.
• Start setting limits.
• Start trusting and get supports.
• Understand recovery and the process for everyone.

I felt a bit lighter when I left the meeting. I had shared my thoughts with others and I was able to speak freely about control. I was beginning to make a crack in the wall. I was actually telling someone else that we had a pink elephant in the room that in itself was a huge step forward. I was beginning to understand to cover up pain and shame in the family dysfunction. I needed to learn to respond to an outer reality instead of my own inner reality.

Whiskey photo available from Shutterstock

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From when I was 19 until only just recently, my family and I watched my little brother slip further and further into the darkness of his own mind. The helplessness that we endured can only be described as hell. I am not a religious man, far from it, but I think back to moments where I genuinely considered calling an exorcist.

This sounds funny when I say it now, but at the time some of the things he would do and say filled me with horror. At the best of times, he could sit with us and eat; at the worst of times, he was trying to kill us or himself. I once spent three months traveling around California tracking him with the help of two private investigators, checking morgues, hospitals and police stations daily.

This was our life for about 10 years. It’s a funny thing trying to live normally when a cloud of that magnitude looms over your head. Things can be going great in all other areas, but there is always the sobering moment when you remember what you have to go home to.

The strain of an illness of the mind is not just on the person dealing with it, but on everyone involved. It is all-consuming. It is seemingly never-ending, which I think is the hardest part. There doesn’t appear to be any light at the end of the road; just an endless, unfamiliar and dark countryside. Occasionally you get a break in the clouds, but these breaks would always be followed by a vicious fight, or a police call, or more tears.

I think it is important to say at this point that my brother is doing great now. After many years he learned ways of managing his mental health which really made a difference. He became active in sports, took up hobbies and found some medication that worked for him. He is slowly getting back on track.

When I wrote “Come Home,” we were still battling through the darkness together. I wrote it one night when I was alone after a particularly grueling day dealing with police after an accident he was involved in. I remember starting to write it and feeling better, like the music was absorbing some of the day away from me. I suppose that is the true power of music. It is the same reason that I get annoyed with listening to mindless garbage spewed out all the time — because it means nothing. It comes from nowhere, and ultimately goes nowhere.

I know there must be millions of people out there with their own issues, living in their own darkness. It is the great invisible, unspoken darkness; the type that no one else sees or cares to talk about. But you do. It is all you see.

If this song can bring relief to someone out there going through hell, like it did for me, then I am happy. The saying “misery loves company” is true. But misery also loves hope. Knowing that there are others out there going through the same thing as you brings comfort. Knowing that there are others out there who have been through it, and gotten out in one piece, brings something different altogether. It brings the promise of better times.

The video for “Come Home” is available on YouTube.

Young boy photo available from Shutterstock

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In case you’d rather not learn during an awkward bachelorette party game You know you're curious about how your number compares to other people's . But now, you can stop wondering, thanks to a new "sex history calculator" from Slate.com."You, dear reader, are a human being. And as a human being, you are naturally curious, a little bit self-conscious, and maybe even competitive about sex," write Andrew Kahn and Jordan Weissmann while introducing the interactive tool. They go on to explain that, after hearing about research that found many millennials are on track to have fewer sexual partners throughout the course of their lifetime than their parents, they wanted to create something that would help individuals put the data used in the study into context. So they took the data from the General Social Survey and used it to create a calculator. Here's what the tool says about a 28-year-old woman who's slept with six people:RELATED: How Often You Should Aim to Have Sex with Your PartnerAnd here's what it says about a man with the same stats:RELATED: The Ideal Number of Sexual Partners to Have Before Finding The OneOf course, that doesn't mean that any given number is "better" than any other—but it is interesting to see yourself charted against everyone else. To try the tool for yourself, visit Slate.com. 

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Thirty days to intimacy or your money back Pinterest is loaded with different health and fitness challenges. Whether your goal is to be more hydrated or have a tighter butt, there are schedules out there urging you to drink more water or do more squats. So why not add a sex challenge to your Google calendar? It is health-related, after all.Say you’ve been feeling a little tired, stressed, disconnected, or otherwise unsexy. Or maybe you just miss the constant, passionate sex of those first few months of your romantic relationship. Setting a sex challenge—in which you and your partner commit to sex every day for a week, a month, or a year—may help you get back on track, at least according to some experts.RELATED: Can You Create Sexual Chemistry If It’s Not There?“It might be a way to spring life back into your relationship, into your connection,” says Neil Rosenthal, a marriage and family therapist and author of the book Love, Sex, and Staying Warm: Keeping the Flame Alive. “You can be relatively moderate and try it for a week or 10 days, then see how you both feel.”If the idea of penciling in sex seems anything but sexy, Rosenthal says to remember that it’s about the big picture: "What’s important is that you're both agreeing to do something that makes you feel close and connected,” he says. “You're agreeing to make sex more of a priority, as opposed to all the other priorities in life.”RELATED: Does Having More Sex Actually Make You Happier?Granted, some experts believe that the forced nature of the concept does a disservice to couples. “Calling it a challenge is bothersome in and of itself,” says Nancy Irwin, Psy.D. “It becomes something you have to do, like there is a goalpost involved. Sex should be a fun, cooperative thing. You shouldn't be pushing it.” It's also worth noting that a recent study found that couples who were forced to double the amount of sex they were having actually experienced a slight decrease in happiness.So what if you want to reap the positive benefits of something like a challenge and avoid the potential negatives ? Like any other issue in a romantic relationship, the best policy is to address it openly and honestly.RELATED: Doing This One Thing Right After Sex Can Improve Your Relationship“Straightforward is better than subtle,” says Rosenthal. “Ask, ‘Would you be willing to try an experiment where we agree to have sex every day? Why don’t we try it for a week? Would it bother you?’” Irwin agrees: “You can’t make the other person feel guilty because that isn’t the best way to inspire someone. It’s more like, ‘I find you hot, I find you sexy, I just want to have more sex with you.’” Tough to argue with that.And remember that a sex challenge is not going to fix deeper issues. “This is not for every couple and every circumstance,” says Rosenthal. “If you’re feeling disconnected because of infidelity or disrespect or lack of attention and energy, then more sex won’t make you feel suddenly warm and fuzzy.” So don’t take a sex challenge as a relationship cure-all, but as a fun way to reconnect. It’s just sex, after all.

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"It was like Armageddon in our house after our son was born." I’m going to be completely honest: I didn’t think my marriage was going to survive after I had a baby.Friends and family had warned me that my husband, Chris, and I might hit a rough patch after our son arrived, but I laughed it off.  After all, between dating and marriage, we’d been together for nine years by the time we had a baby. We were veterans at this relationship thing—we’d be fine.We weren’t.RELATED: 6 Marriage Milestones That Will Make or Break a CoupleThe second our son arrived, Chris and I immediately stopped working as a team. It was like a wedge had suddenly been driven between us, and we couldn’t figure out how to get rid of it.We battled over everything. It seemed like everything that I thought was right, Chris felt was wrong—and vice-versa. He couldn’t understand why I was so worried all of the time, and I couldn’t understand why he wasn’t worried more. Together, we were volatile.I worried that Chris would trip and accidentally drop our infant when he held him while walking down the street instead of using a baby carrier or stroller like I did, and I almost killed him when he texted me a photo of our newborn snuggled up next to our 90-pound, totally unpredictable dog.He didn’t understand why I would get upset when he wanted to stay out late with his friends; I didn’t understand why he thought that was okay.RELATED: 10 Moms Give Sanity-Saving Advice to First-Time ParentsNow that we’ve come out on the other side, I’ve learned that our situation wasn’t rare. But at the time, I was freaked out. Instead of the solid unit I thought we would be, we were hanging by a thread. While some friends told me they became even closer with their partners immediately after having a baby, the majority said their relationships took a serious hit and only recovered after a few months—or even years.Case in point:“I feel like we fell apart for a good year. Those first six months, we screamed more than we ever have. I don't even remember the details, but I do remember standing in the bathroom, screaming, sobbing, and thinking, ‘OMG, you are the most inept a-hole I've ever met.’ I felt really scared when we'd fight because I didn't know we were capable of having that much anger toward each other. I also remember thinking that the qualities I love in a husband—carefree, silly, laid back—are not the qualities I needed in a father/partner, and it really hit me over the head that I might have two kids to take care of. I resented that a lot. Eventually, I felt like we'd gone from me hating him and him just feeling disconnected to us becoming more kind to each other. We were a good team and were super nice about it all, but we felt really different to me. I think when the baby turned a year, things began to shift for the better. It wasn't perfect, but we did an overnight and left the baby with my parents. That was nice, and I remember feeling like, ‘Oh yeah, this is who we are!’ We'd lost ourselves, and our relationship was part of that, during that year.” —Karen“It was like Armageddon in our house after our son was born. My husband has a high-pressure job and was working all the time, so he wasn’t much help at all. He slept in our spare bedroom for the first four months so that he could actually get some sleep while I took care of the baby at night. I also suffered from post-partum depression, and I think he didn’t know how to deal with me. I just felt alone and sad. It was really, really hard.” —Sarah “Our roles changed after we had a baby, and we both had to figure out what we were comfortable with so that things were still fair. It was a hard adjustment. I stopped working after we had our second baby, and that really switched things up for us. Suddenly, more chores and responsibility fell on me. It wasn’t an easy adjustment.” —AudreyRELATED: How My Marriage Changed When My Husband Became a Stay-at-Home Dad“After we had a baby, I was doing everything for our newborn and most of the stuff around the house, too. I was going insane and would cry for most of the day. I’m not a silent sufferer, though—I made it known that I was unhappy. I started to shift tasks to my husband, but then I became a nagging wife. It took a while, but we took some big steps in the right direction and are now working toward a common goal.” —KellyIt took Chris and me nearly two years to get back to normal. Yup, two years. Now, we’re better than normal—we’re great. The truth is, our relationship had never really been tested before we had a baby. But we survived—and ultimately, it brought us closer together.--Korin Miller is a writer, SEO nerd, wife, and mom to a little 2-year-old dude named Miles. Korin has worked for The Washington Post, New York Daily News, and Cosmopolitan, where she learned more than anyone ever should about sex. She has an unhealthy addiction to gifs.

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When our children err, we have a responsibility to respond in a way that meets developmental need. Yet when my daughters freak out, I freak out. The more I act at the whim of my own anxiety, the less aware and responsive I am of and to my children’s needs.

As a therapist, I love to say that to the extent that I fail to go toe-to-toe with my own emotional reflexes, they will go toe-to-toe with the ones I love. Unfortunately, that statement is more descriptive than prescriptive, and I all too often play out the sequence.

Our children have basic needs such as hunger and safety, and we must meet them. Their needs are like our own, coded with deoxyribonucleic complexity and teeming with self-interest. If we are to do extraordinarily well in meeting our children’s needs, we must first see their needs through a wide-angle lens that highlights critical processing faculties.

Researcher Karen Purvis once said that “if the brain is hungry, it’s going to do some not so smart stuff.” She coaches parents in child development, especially those whose children have endured trauma and those whose brains are hypersensitive to sensory stimulation.

Dr. Purvis works with Dr. Cross and others at TCU’s Institute of Child Development to better understand such issues and equip parents everywhere to best care for their children. While the majority of parents do not face post-traumatic stress behavior or severe sensory processing challenges, to parent well is understand or at least leverage something of the complex chemistry involved in sensory and emotional processing.

Sense and Sensibility

Kids need predictability and appropriate levels of control. According to Dr. Purvis, “you cannot create a safe space unless you understand sensory processing.” Some of our kids pick up on aspects of sensory experience that others miss. While we must gain a greater understanding and responsiveness to the needs of those who struggle with unique sensory processing issues, we must also come to respect the sheer power of sense in all our lives.

Touch probably is more powerful than you give it credit for. One study demonstrated that if a waitress touches your hand for one second, your tip goes up an average of 35 percent. We are wired for touch, but trust is our electrical grounding. There are proprioceptive receptors under the skin. (The word “proprioception” comes from a combination of Latin words meaning “a sense of one’s own body.”) Deep pressure massage on areas less sensitive to touch have been demonstrated to be more than just calming. They can even heal brain damage from trauma. Infant massage every two hours for three to six months has been shown to have power to heal in-utero drug exposure and change the trajectory of a child’s life. Human touch is potent stuff.

The vestibular sense is involved in physical movement and balance as well as emotional regulation. Vestibular stimulation helps us determine direction, speed of movement, and pull of gravity. Vestibular proprioception refers specifically to pressure on the body, and this unique form of sensory input is distinct from the tactile sense. For instance, a weighted blanket releases gamma-aminobutyric acid (GABA) in the brain, which has a powerful role in the regulation of nervous system excitability as well as muscle tone. Idiopathic toe-walking is a method some children use to increase input when and where it’s needed to achieve sensory regulation. Patricia Wilbarger created a now-widely-used protocol designed to reduce sensory and tactile defensiveness in children extremely sensitive to touch.

Of course we have other senses. Our sense of sight can waver as we move into bright light or darkness. Using soft eyes — glancing, rather than piercing contact — alongside a non-threatening tone activates the release of dopamine, which is calming. Our sense of smell is the only one with a direct line to the amygdalae, the nuclear bomb: perfume, tuna fish, aftershave, and all manner of pungency run a risk of lighting the short fuse. Our senses are faculties in an intricate ecology of not only sensation but perception, emotion, and much more.

Fight, Flight, or Freeze

The amygdalae are two almond-shaped nuclei buried deep and medially within the brain’s temporal lobes. The amygdalae’s job is to keep us safe, and to a greater or lesser degree, they remain attuned to what might be dangerous and what may go wrong. In fact, the vagus nerve, a cranial nerve interfacing with the parasympathetic regulation of the heart and digestion, creates trace memory in the amygdalae for a couple of hours, with effect. This hints at, for instance, the process behind associations between food poisoning sickness and lasting food aversions. Just think of the domino effect when kids experience parents as volatile tyrants. Stress activates a reaction in the amygdalae and triggers what has come to be known as a “fight, flight, or freeze” reaction which involves wirings and firings involving stimulation and conditioning.

Every demand, whine, and protest is a plea for empowerment, not necessarily entitlement, and we have got to retrain our stubborn impulse to cynically disregard behaviors to the degree of their irritation. I confess I find myself too often reacting to my daughters in a way that is no less demanding, whining, and protesting than their offense was offensive. In many cases, my behaviors are actually far more automated, or reflexive, than theirs, and that may be the most telling truth in the mix. These are the moments when we find ourselves between an amygdala and a hard place (kudos to Dr. Cross for that turn of phrase).

Promoting Self-Regulation

The best place for sensory and emotional regulation practice to occur is through safe and encouraging interactions. When sensory processing challenges create a significant barrier, therapeutic play and other targeted occupational therapy interventions will help expand capacity for regulation.

We must learn to cultivate a neurophysiological rainforest in our children’s brain when stimulation is low and practice calm, constructive engagement when it’s high. Drs. Purvis and Cross have taught us that pathways to the amygdalae are eight-lane highways, while more mature (better regulated) processes meander through the brain like Amazonian footpaths. Cortisol, the infamous stress hormone, comes down when you engage both of the brain’s hemispheres in playful and adventuresome engagement; subsequently, the brain achieves an increase in brain-derived neurotrophic factor (BDNF), a chief protein required for scaffolding the expansion of concentration, learning, memory, and higher thinking. And, when we slow down our overreactions and provide a nurturing sensory environment, it’s good for not only their brains but ours.

Playfulness is the active practice of regulation. It takes 400 mechanical repetitions to get new synapses — those communicative junctures between neurons necessary to close the circuit for any brain-based activity — to infuse a bit of joy, and the brain learns after only a few tries. Laughter has been shown to transmit calming connections across broad neurological terrain and promote learning. Play and silliness send the message that you mean no harm. You change the tone of the room whenever you find creative ways to have fun together.

Dr. Purvis claims that children’s tantrums and aggression can be stopped by providing choices. Use scripts like “Try it again, Cowboy,” “Are you asking or telling?” or “Try it again with respect.” When you give your child choices, you share power, which doesn’t take away your authority but proves it is yours to share.

Be wary of giving children medication. Many psychotropic medications change the insulin receptors in the brain and jack up blood sugars, in many cases resulting in diabetes and affecting a child’s capacity for mood and behavioral regulation. Nourishing snacks help balance body systems. Children will be much more volatile and prone to emotional reactions if they are dehydrated.

Helpful brain chemicals can be released in a number of ways. Regular exercise releases endorphins, leading to feelings of euphoria. It also regulates appetite and assists in immune response. Exercise, sunlight, and a diet high in vitamin B6 each have the potential of increasing the flow of serotonin, thereby enhancing sensory and emotional regulation. The secretion of oxytocin is stimulated through touch and promotes bonding.

And what about basic nonverbal communication signals? If you come close, and someone stands up or backs away, you don’t have permission to engage. Watch reflexor muscles that give signs of fight, flight, or freeze.

These are just a few examples of the complex weaving of neurochemicals pulsing throughout our bodies’ systems. They are part of an ecology we are just beginning to understand. Nurturing behaviors have power to change chemistry in profound ways. How are you going to enrich your child’s development today?

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Welcome to the age of Periscope nuptials. It’s tough to ignore how much social media has changed weddings. A couple might coin their wedding hashtag within minutes of the proposal, and you can change your Facebook status to “married” right there at the ceremony. There’s room for innovation with the introduction of each new social medium, and this wedding season you can watch a couple exchange vows live on Periscope.Kyle Harris, 24, and Bryanna Mazzella, 23, are getting married May 30 at 3 p.m. EST in Long Island, New York, and they’re live-streaming the event on the brand-new Twitter-owned app. Since Periscope is a mere two months old, the couple is fairly sure this is a first.RELATED: 7 Super Fun Wedding Guest Dresses You Can Buy at the Mall“We have a lot of people who won’t be able to make it,” says Harris. “And it’s not logical to invite every person we know, but why can’t we let everyone come, via the Internet?” The couple has always been really excited by and attached to social media. In fact, they even met via Twitter.“I was just looking through my followers and stumbled upon her profile,” says Harris. “I saw she had a YouTube channel and tweeted out the link, saying, ‘Check out this girl’s music!’ She tweeted back, and one thing led to another.” It’s a love story that could have only happened in the 21st century, and so it seems perfectly appropriate to keep the tech theme going throughout the wedding itself.Tylor Thuirer of Thurier MediaThe reaction from family and friends? “It’s been overwhelmingly positive,” says Mazzella. “We have a couple of family members who are elderly and can’t make the trip or some that are our age who can’t afford it or take time off work. Now they get to see it anyway!”RELATED: How to Attend a Wedding Without Going into DebtOf course, putting your relationship and wedding all out there on the Internet means opening yourself up to trolls. “A lot of people are skeptical,” says Mazzella. “They think it’s an intrusion, or they ask, ‘Why do you want your special day broadcast to everyone?’ But we don’t see it that way at all.”Tylor Thuirer of Thurier MediaTheir celebration is just hours away, and anyone with a wifi connection is invited to tune in . So what can strangers expect from this ceremony? “Lots of surprises,” says Mazzella. “I don’t want to talk too much about them in case I spoil them. There are some things that Kyle doesn’t know about and some things he’s been working on with my parents.”RELATED: These 14 Women Had Secret Weddings—And No RegretsAnd the social-media magic doesn’t end with the live stream. The couple will have a photo booth at their reception, but it’s not your run-of-the-mill props-and-backdrop sitch. “The booth is worldwide,” says Mazzella. Their wedding hashtag will provide a stream of photos to the booth, where they will be printed out live. “Our friends watching from Costa Rica can take a photo, and it will print at the reception,” she says. “I think that’s an insanely amazing way to connect.”

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One of my favorite stories about one of my young clients is this: His fourth-grade teacher assigned the students to do a social studies report on the Transcontinental Railroad as part of their study of Western expansion. His mother took him to the library to get the appropriate books. When they got home, she set him up on the kitchen table with the relevant volume of the encyclopedia, the library books, and the art supplies he would need to do a report. Then she went about the business of making dinner. A half an hour later, she went back to check on his progress. He was writing a report about the Great Wall of China! What?

It made perfect sense to him. While reading about the railroad, he discovered that much of it was built by Chinese laborers. That took him to the entries on China in the family’s trusty World Book Encyclopedia. He then discovered another long, winding route for transportation — the Great Wall. It did make a kind of sense to his mother. But she also knew his teacher would not be impressed. He wasn’t doing the assignment! He argued that he shouldn’t have to since the Great Wall was so much more interesting. Sigh. Why was her son so difficult? Why couldn’t he see that this kind of behavior was resulting in lackluster grades in school? Why didn’t he care?

This was before the diagnosis of Aspergers (now high-functioning autism) became generally known. The boy’s parents knew he was smart. He could read by age 3 and had a vocabulary that confounded many adults. They were pained by his apparent inability to play with age-mates. They had no idea that they were dealing with a twice-exceptional child who, despite his intelligence, faced many challenges.

Does any of this sound familiar? Is your child a genius? Or is his highly developed interest in archaeology the obsessive behavior of an autistic child? Or is he both really, really smart and on the autism spectrum? As with the young man in the story, it’s often not easy to tease the two apart. Although unusual, there are kids who are twice-exceptional, burdened and blessed with both qualities.

Diagnosis is complicated. Seventy-five percent of people with autism score at 70 or below on intelligence tests and are therefore determined to be intellectually disabled. The other 25 percent presumably have average to superior intelligence. I say “presumably” because giftedness can mask the symptoms of autism, and autism can mask giftedness. Further, gifted kids sometimes exhibit behaviors (like an obsession with facts, intense preoccupation with an area of interest, lack of interest in peers, etc.) that are characteristic of autism. Kids with autism can develop such expertise in their particular intense interest that adults initially miss the fact that they aren’t equally smart about navigating the social world.

Accurate evaluation is very important. Teasing out whether a child is gifted and talented, autistic, or both is crucial if we are to provide him with the correct supports and services. Concerned parents need to insist that children be assessed by professionals who are aware of the unique presentation and needs of both diagnoses.

Life doesn’t prepare most parents for a twice-exceptional child. If you are among those who have such a special child, here are a few tips for helping your child succeed in school and in life:

• Expand her interests. Being able to talk at least a little about many things is an important social skill. Like kids with only autism, twice-exceptional children often have a special interest in a particular subject. I’ve met kids who know everything there is to know about dinosaurs or the solar system or ant colonies or plumbing. You name it. Rather than force a broadening of interests, follow the child’s lead. Let her be the expert and encourage her to teach you about it. Then branch out from the special interest to include other areas. For example: If the interest is dinosaurs, it’s not too big a leap to talk about what happened to them and what we can learn from it as we confront global warming. The object is to expand her range of interests so she can talk with others about things that are of general interest.
• Peer relationships. Sadly, the twice-exceptional child is particularly vulnerable to bullying. The social deficits of autism make them “odd” to others. They don’t look people in the eye. They miss social cues. They are obsessed with whatever they are obsessed about and aren’t interested in hearing what someone else might want to talk about. Your child needs special, focused training in how to get along with others in his age group. He also needs the relief that comes with being with people like him. Look for other kids who have similar interests or who find your child a little odd but interesting and support those relationships.
• Sports. Not only does the child who is twice-exceptional have difficulty managing the social requirements of team sports, but she may be physically uncoordinated and awkward. If that’s the case, participating in team sports only sets your child up for more teasing and the loss of self-esteem that comes with being unable to meet the team’s expectations. The answer is in individual sports. If interested, these kids can succeed in activities like hiking, camping and biking. Some do well in activities that are both individual and competitive (like the swim team or archery). The patient coaching and practice needed for mastery are worth it. Doing any activity well increases both self esteem and social options.
• Pretending. Don’t be alarmed if your child isn’t interested in pretending. Many gifted children with autism aren’t interested in fiction or imaginary play. Their thought process tends to be more concrete and literal. Introduce imaginary play but don’t push it. Your twice-exceptional child will be creative in other ways — like discovering a new and advanced approach to a science question.
• Transitions. Processing speed is sometimes slower than one might expect in a gifted child. Although we live in a world where multi-tasking seems to come easily to average kids, the twice-exceptional child may find this particularly difficult. Once engaged with an idea or activity, these kids have difficulty shifting their focus to another one. Although all children respond well to being given a warning when they have to leave one thing to go to another, the twice-exceptional child needs it even more.
• Speaking and writing. Many of these children have large verbal vocabularies. At times they present their ideas in an almost professorial tone. But these same kids often have difficulty expressing themselves in writing. It’s as if their minds can’t slow down enough to write out their thoughts in an orderly way. Sentences don’t get finished, for example. Words may get left out. In addition, the fine motor skills that are required for beautiful handwriting seem to be beyond them. Unfortunately, there are teachers who mistake sloppy writing for sloppy thinking. Tablets and laptops come to the rescue. The “cut and paste” function is made for these kids. What they produce can be read without an interpreter. Advocate for your child so that she can use electronics rather than manual handwriting for note taking and assignments.

Without help, twice-exceptional children are often misunderstood and isolated. It is up to adult helpers and parents to translate the world to such children and such children to the world. They have special gifts and special needs. With careful coaching and support, they can learn the skills to become connected to others and to be contributing members of their communities. Most important, they can be happy with who they are.

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Balancing two loves can be tough. A lot of relationships look like this: First comes moving in together, then comes adopting a pet. Maybe you've argued over whose day it is to walk the dog or maybe you realized what a great dad your dude will be one day thanks to his pet-parenting skills. Taking care of an animal is a good way to gauge how well you work as a team and to find out what makes your partner tick. It might even be something that helps you decide if you want to take the next serious step in your relationship. Here, nine women divulge what happened when they and their partners added a furry friend into the mix.Jenn S."After about two years of dating and one of living together, my boyfriend and I decided to get our cat Janis as a way to relieve any tension in our tiny, practically studio-sized New York City apartment. It turned out Janis was just what we needed. She is the perfect distraction when one of us is occupied or just needs some alone time—and it's great having another cuddle buddy in the house! Just a year after getting her, we welcomed her little brother, Jimi, into our tiny apartment so she wouldn't be lonely while we were at work. Now we're one big happy family." —Jenn S.RELATED: 9 Beauty Lessons I Learned from My CatBrianna S."When my boyfriend and I got Bailey, we immediately fell in love with her. It may sound strange to non-pet owners, but she is legitimately like our child. The first time she got sick, my boyfriend rushed right home from work, made her a special meal with chicken and rice to help calm her stomach, and cancelled his plans so that he could stay home and keep an eye on her. It really spoke volumes about how my boyfriend would be as a father and how he would step up to share the responsibility of real children someday. He is the most caring pet owner, fiercely defends her if anyone makes a negative comment about her, and loves her more than anything—besides me. Raising a pet together really took our relationship to the next level. It helped both of us to see the other in a parenting role and facilitated discussions about how we would raise our kids someday." —Brianna S.Tonya R."I rescued an abandoned dog on New Year’s Eve. He's been a point of contention in my house because he's so attached to my boyfriend. We've fought because the dog wants to take my place. The dog wants to take my place in bed, and he snaps at my hand if I try to move him. He also pees on my clothes. He loves me, but he also wants to replace me—classic doggy Oedipal complex." —Tonya R. Flor A."I got Elliot, a peach-faced lovebird, when I was living in California back in October 2011. I brought him to New York with me the next year when I moved back here. Ben, my then-boyfriend and now-fiancé, picked us up at the airport and was the first person that Elliot saw in New York City. Elliot is four years old and loves Ben. When I am at work and Ben is home, he will spend time with the bird, feed him bagels, pizza, or whatever carbs he can find him. Ben really cares for the bird. I’m lucky—not loving Elliot as much as me was not an option. Elliot has such a personality for such a small bird, and sometimes you do need patience with him. Even when he has a fit, Ben will still kiss him or give him food. I'm lucky that I have a man that understands my love for my pet. He knows I will never abandon my baby bird and that I’ll take care of Elliot no matter what."—Flor A. Sandra Roldan"All my terms of endearment, pet names, baby voices, and cute-speak are directed at my cat, not my boyfriend. Plus, I prefer to sleep in my own bed with my cat than sleep in my boyfriend's bed with no cat." —Sandra Roldan, WomensHealthMag.com senior web producerRELATED: The Scary Way Your Cat Could Be Changing Your PersonalityElizabeth A."The boyfriend tried to declare a ‘no cats in the bedroom’ rule in our new apartment, which I couldn't get on-board with. Needless to say, the cats won!" —Elizabeth A.Kathy D."My boyfriend and I have been living together for a while now, and we thought the next logical step would be—no, not a baby—but something like it. We got a husky in January. We had spoken previously about how much of a commitment it would be, so we got him while I was on break from school, and fortunately, my boyfriend was able to work from home. We've been super hands-on, and it’s brought us closer. We go for long walks now and are more active because of him. It's gotten to the point where we alter our plans for him. If we're out, we make sure to be home for his feeding time and potty time or we just take him with us. We also find ourselves going on a bunch of puppy dates, which is fun and tires our dog out." —Kathy D. Christina Heiser"Around the time that I moved out of my parents' house three years ago and into my own apartment, my mom got an adorable orange tabby cat. On the weekends,  I force my boyfriend to hang out at my parents' place so that we can both play with her. He was never an animal person, but Zoe changed his mind. We’ve lived together for a year and are planning to get a kitten of our own when we move into a new apartment. Even though we don’t have one of our own yet, spending time with my family’s cat and planning to adopt one of our own has brought us closer. We’ll e-mail each other photos of kittens that are up for adoption at local shelters, and we’ve talked about what we want to name him or her like it's a baby—my top pick for a boy is Zeus. We just can’t agree on the breed—I love orange tabbies, but he wants a gray one." —Christina Heiser, WomensHealthMag.com senior associate editorRELATED: Science Says There Really Is a Difference Between Dog People and Cat PeopleAngela W."Getting a puppy changes a lot. Greg and I had been dating for more than two years, and three months after we moved in together, we rescued our dog Milhouse, a lab mix and 50 pound full-grown boy. I know you should never compare your dog to a baby, but really, it's good prep! This past March, we met up with his neighborhood dog friend Link—we let the two of them off their leashes together, and as myself and Link's owner went to get the dogs, they started to get very devious, walking out onto a frozen pond. After 10 minutes of yelling at both dogs to come back in, we finally got them both on a leash and I took Milhouse back into the apartment. He then had a much-needed bath, and Greg kept him from jumping out of the tub while I scrubbed him down. Greg and I have become better at working together, discussing problems with each other, and adjusting our schedules. We work really well as a team, and that makes me feel good about our relationship." —Angela W. 

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“The last three years have been incredibly rewarding for all of us.” We never planned for Dylan to be a stay-at-home dad.During our early years as “mom” and “dad,” I worked part-time, splitting my days working as a social worker and researcher and taking care of our two boys, Ashland, now 7, and Wiles, now 9. Still, my job required much more than the 20 hours per week you’d expect of a part-time job, making tasks like driving the kids to doctors' appointments and packing lunches a strain.Meanwhile, Dylan worked as a creative director at a company in New York City, a two-hour commute from our home in Beacon, New York. He spent four hours every day on the train—and that was after the long days he already put in at the office. Traveling so much for work was constant.There was a lot of fighting—both internally and between the two of us. We were tired, overworked, and unhappy.Then, three years ago, when our sons were 6 and 4, Dylan was laid off from work. Luckily, at the same time, my company was expanding, and I was able to segue into a new leadership role with more responsibilities and hours. So we decided Dylan would stay home with the boys and I would work full-time.RELATED: Why Quitting My Job Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My RelationshipWe had a lot of mixed feelings about the change. On the one hand, change is always hard. I was sad to give up more time with the boys, and even with my bigger paycheck, we knew we would still be taking in less money each month than we had been with both of us working outside of the house. On the other hand, it gave Dylan a pretty awesome opportunity to spend more time and deepen his relationship with the boys. Neither of us grew up with a full-time father in our lives, so we really valued the fact that Dylan would have this time with our children. Plus, what woman wouldn’t be excited to have her hubby do all of the housework for a change?But at first, the pendulum swung a bit too far. Instead of the new setup relieving strain, our roles simply reversed. We still existed like ships passing—I just left for work before anyone was awake and came home after everyone was in bed. I'm extremely passionate about my work, so it’s been empowering for me to dedicate herself to it and advance my career—but the boys missed me.Dylan and I have much different parenting styles—as is true with virtually any couple.We realized that things had to change—again. So we would have more time together as a family, I adjusted my schedule so that I could work from home a couple days per week, which really helped out. Dylan started taking on a freelance work here and there to help out with the bills. He now does most of the household and child stuff during the week, and I pitch in on the home front during the weekends. It’s made us really work together as a team, rather than simply dividing and conquering.RELATED: What It's Like to Make More Than Your HusbandTo be honest, I've been a lot happier not having to manage work with worrying about soccer uniforms. It’s relieved a lot of my stress, and in turn, that’s made both of us happier. Happy wife, happy life, right? Plus, Dylan has really gotten into the stay-at-home thing. He takes ownership in everything he does and is incredibly systematic about organizing and running the household.For better or for worse, our lives are about to make another big change. Dylan is in the process of trying to find a full-time job. We wish we could get by on one paycheck alone, but, unfortunately, that’s just not our reality. We’ve recently had to move the boys to a new school because of our too-tight budget. Even though, to Dylan, staying home with the boys has been more rewarding than any office job, it’s clear that we need two incomes.RELATED: Just How Much Should You Sacrifice to Make Your Relationship Work?Ideally, Dylan’s new job will give him some flexibility so he can still stay at home with the boys. Or if the paycheck is big enough, maybe I will be able to pull back a bit from work. Parenthood is always a juggling game. You do what you need to do.Luckily, the last three years that Dylan has stayed at home with the boys have been incredibly rewarding for all of us. He has become closer to our boys, and in many ways, we have become closer and stronger as a couple. We’re not sure what the future holds, and Dylan’s already upset about the idea of not being around for the kids as much. Whatever job he ends up taking, he says that being a stay-at-home dad was the best job he could have ever asked for.

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“The last three years have been incredibly rewarding for all of us.” We never planned for Dylan to be a stay-at-home dad.During our early years as “mom” and “dad,” I worked part-time, splitting my days working as a social worker and researcher and taking care of our two boys, Ashland, now 7, and Wiles, now 9. Still, my job required much more than the 20 hours per week you’d expect of a part-time job, making tasks like driving the kids to doctors' appointments and packing lunches a strain.Meanwhile, Dylan worked as a creative director at a company in New York City, a two-hour commute from our home in Beacon, New York. He spent four hours every day on the train—and that was after the long days he already put in at the office. Traveling so much for work was constant.There was a lot of fighting—both internally and between the two of us. We were tired, overworked, and unhappy.Then, three years ago, when our sons were 6 and 4, Dylan was laid off from work. Luckily, at the same time, my company was expanding, and I was able to segue into a new leadership role with more responsibilities and hours. So we decided Dylan would stay home with the boys and I would work full-time.RELATED: Why Quitting My Job Was the Best Thing That Ever Happened to My RelationshipWe had a lot of mixed feelings about the change. On the one hand, change is always hard. I was sad to give up more time with the boys, and even with my bigger paycheck, we knew we would still be taking in less money each month than we had been with both of us working outside of the house. On the other hand, it gave Dylan a pretty awesome opportunity to spend more time and deepen his relationship with the boys. Neither of us grew up with a full-time father in our lives, so we really valued the fact that Dylan would have this time with our children. Plus, what woman wouldn’t be excited to have her hubby do all of the housework for a change?But at first, the pendulum swung a bit too far. Instead of the new setup relieving strain, our roles simply reversed. We still existed like ships passing—I just left for work before anyone was awake and came home after everyone was in bed. I'm extremely passionate about my work, so it’s been empowering for me to dedicate herself to it and advance my career—but the boys missed me.Dylan and I have much different parenting styles—as is true with virtually any couple.We realized that things had to change—again. So we would have more time together as a family, I adjusted my schedule so that I could work from home a couple days per week, which really helped out. Dylan started taking on a freelance work here and there to help out with the bills. He now does most of the household and child stuff during the week, and I pitch in on the home front during the weekends. It’s made us really work together as a team, rather than simply dividing and conquering.RELATED: What It's Like to Make More Than Your HusbandTo be honest, I've been a lot happier not having to manage work with worrying about soccer uniforms. It’s relieved a lot of my stress, and in turn, that’s made both of us happier. Happy wife, happy life, right? Plus, Dylan has really gotten into the stay-at-home thing. He takes ownership in everything he does and is incredibly systematic about organizing and running the household.For better or for worse, our lives are about to make another big change. Dylan is in the process of trying to find a full-time job. We wish we could get by on one paycheck alone, but, unfortunately, that’s just not our reality. We’ve recently had to move the boys to a new school because of our too-tight budget. Even though, to Dylan, staying home with the boys has been more rewarding than any office job, it’s clear that we need two incomes.RELATED: Just How Much Should You Sacrifice to Make Your Relationship Work?Ideally, Dylan’s new job will give him some flexibility so he can still stay at home with the boys. Or if the paycheck is big enough, maybe I will be able to pull back a bit from work. Parenthood is always a juggling game. You do what you need to do.Luckily, the last three years that Dylan has stayed at home with the boys have been incredibly rewarding for all of us. He has become closer to our boys, and in many ways, we have become closer and stronger as a couple. We’re not sure what the future holds, and Dylan’s already upset about the idea of not being around for the kids as much. Whatever job he ends up taking, he says that being a stay-at-home dad was the best job he could have ever asked for.

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I was in a public restroom last summer and came across something I had never seen before: a toe opener. This particular one was attached to the bottom of the main door and allowed me to open it with my foot instead of my hand. My first thought was, “What a great idea.” My second thought was, “People with contamination OCD aren’t the only ones who don’t want to touch doorknobs. They are loaded with germs.”

I think many of us without obsessive-compulsive disorder can understand, to some degree, the contamination issues of those with the disorder. Just look around. There are signs in restrooms insisting we wash our hands so we don’t spread disease, and instructions as to the best way to do this. There are hand sanitizer dispensers in supermarkets and other public places. Moms now bring shopping cart covers for their babies and toddlers to sit on to avoid germs. The examples go on and on. We can relate.

But there is another type of contamination OCD. While not uncommon, it is less talked about, perhaps because it is less “acceptable” and harder for those of us without OCD to comprehend. Emotional contamination involves fearing that certain people or places are contaminated in some way, and therefore must be avoided at all cost. The individual with OCD might have had a negative experience with the person in question, might feel there is something undesirable about the person that might “rub off” on them, or might not even have a specific reason for their fears.

In this television show about OCD that aired on ABC News “20/20″ in 2014, there is a segment in which a girl with OCD could not be near any of her immediate family members. She was living temporarily with her grandparent. I believe this is an example of emotional contamination. How heartbreaking it must be for all involved when the “contaminated person” is someone you love. And being that OCD attacks the very things you hold most dear, this is often the case.

One aspect of this type of OCD that stands out to me is how quickly this magical thinking can snowball. Of course, this can be true for other subtypes of OCD, but it just seems so pronounced with emotional contamination: Fear, and subsequent avoidance, of a person might then extend to avoidance of any place that person might have been, any people who that person might have associated with, or any item that person might have touched. Even the mention of the “contaminated” person’s name could be enough to trigger obsessions. Before we know it, the OCD sufferer’s world has become so small that he or she might now be housebound, unable to breathe the same air as the “contaminated person.”

The good news is that emotional contamination, like all other forms of OCD, is treatable. Exposure and response prevention (ERP) therapy, by all accounts, works well for those who deal with these types of obsessions and there is much hope for recovery. So if you suffer from emotional contamination or care for someone who does, please take that crucial first step to find a competent therapist, and get the right help as soon as possible.

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I regularly teach a college course on “Family Relationships”, which, as you’d probably guess, is disproportionately (and stereotypically) more popular among women than men (most of whom, incidentally, are neither engaged nor in a relationship with their likely future spouse). When we get to the topic of the transition to marriage, I like to ask my students, “How many of you have a Pinterest board dedicated solely to your future wedding?” The number of hands that go up, sometimes sheepishly, is surprisingly large (obviously, this is a non-scientific personal observation from the front of the classroom in Texas). What I think this informal poll illustrates is the enormous amount of pressure women experience when it comes to planning that ‘special day.’ And why not? Getting married is a big deal. But all that pressure and buildup can come with a cost.

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Polygraph and body-language experts reveal the six signs his story's not legit. You’ve got a feeling your significant other is up to no good. But even if your intuition is right, changes are he’s not going to answer your prompts with, “Yes, dear, I am cheating on you.” So short of hooking him up to a lie-detector test or sticking him with truth serum, how can you know if he’s lying to you? Polygraph examiner and former FBI agent Jack Trimarco and body-language pro Lillian Glass, Ph.D., author of The Body Language of Liars, share the six “tells” he’s lying through his teeth. Lie-detector tests are all about measuring changes from the norm, be that in terms of heart rate, breathing, or blood pressure. Likewise, when you’re investigating your guy’s possible misdeeds, any changes from his normal behavior point to dishonesty, says Trimarco. For example, if you ask where he was Friday night and he suddenly starts scratching his nose, clearing his throat, and breathing heavily, something’s amiss, says Glass.RELATED: 10 Weird Facts About Cheating Guys know that looking down is a telltale sign of lying. So when they lie, they typically make a point to look you in the eye, says Trimarco. Problem/good thing is, they typically overcompensate and go too far the other way. If he creepily stares you down when he tells you, “No, I haven’t slept with anyone else,” he might as well be staring at his shoes, says Glass. You: “Are you cheating on me?” Him: “Am I cheating on you?... of course not!” Answering your question with a question buys him time to think of something believable to respond with, says Trimarco. He might be doing it consciously or unconsciously, but either way, what he says next is probably going to be a lie.RELATED: 11 Lies EVERYONE Has Told In Bed “When people are guilty, they tend to turn the accusations around to whoever made it,” says Trimarco. He might say you’re putting past relationship baggage on him, that you’re paranoid, or that you're probably cheating on him. “When he feels caught, he will want to take the heat off of himself and put you on the defense,” says Glass. “The truth is constant, clear, and easy to remember. Lies, however, tend to change,” says Trimarco. If you start to notice changes in his story, or if, when you ask him what he did at his friend’s bachelor party, his answer is different than it was before, something’s up.RELATED: If They Cheated Once, Will They Cheat Again? “Innocent people don’t swear on the grave of their mother,” says Trimarco. “If he does, that’s a huge red flag.” The truth is strong enough to stand on its own, so if he’s trying to prove his case with things that have nothing to do with the subject at hand , he likely knows his defense is paper-thin.

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Guys with strollers are all the rage these days. Ever noticed how a Jon C. Reilly-esque dude can suddenly seem John Krasinski-level attractive when you see him with a 2-year-old on his shoulders? You're not alone: Having a kid seriously boosts the amount of attention single men get, according to new stats from the dating site Zoosk.com.The people at Zoosk pulled data from 2.4 million conversations between 600,000 users who said they were divorced or never married over the course of two weeks. They found that guys with kiddos actually got 22 percent more first messages than guys without them. That's awesome news for all those single dads looking for love.RELATED: 9 Guys Wax Poetic About The Women They Loved Who "Got Away”   Best part of my morning #daddydaughterday #singledadlife #morningcuddletiime #daddyslittlegirlA photo posted by Dominic Lombardo on May 19, 2015 at 6:56am PDTRELATED: Why Sex with Single Dads is the Best Kind of Sex On top of that, the people at Zoosk found that guys with kids were involved in eight percent more deep conversations than dudes without little ones, which might make you wonder why you haven't been dating more DILFs. Hey, don't knock it 'til you try it.

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For the first 15 years of my life, I was a relatively happy person. But about the time my parents got divorced, I became angry and cynical. Now I realize that I was externalizing my inner feelings of unworthiness and self-hatred. I was 15, which is a time when many people start to exhibit these traits.

My cynicism pervaded all areas of my life.

I really started playing the blame game. If I wasn’t complaining, I was blaming, and if I wasn’t blaming, I was shaming myself. This attitude served me just fine for years. I was reaching my goals, had plenty of friends and had successful romantic relationships.

Then I hit my first speed bump in college, and it destroyed me. My grades started slipping and I began isolating myself. I finally realized I was battling depression. The amount of time I spent talking about my depression, whether out loud or to myself, was virtually non-stop.

I would say in my mind, “I’m so depressed. Why am I this depressed?” There was no end, and it was exhausting. I finally got out of that depression, more by luck than changing myself, but the negative self-talk persisted. Whenever I got a melancholic feeling, I went straight back to that incessant self-talk.

My personal journey has led me to studying Buddhist principles and the writings of self-help scholars. I learned that a feeling is not something to reinforce or hide from but instead face and look for the root. The feeling will often transmute if you don’t give it too much power.

I was unknowingly perpetuating the feeling with negative self-talk.

Eckhart Tolle explains, “Unhappiness is an ego-created mental emotional disease that has reached epidemic proportions. It is the inner equivalent of the environmental pollution of our planet.” He continues, “So the single most vital step on your journey toward enlightenment is this: learn to disidentify from your mind. Every time you create a gap in the stream of mind, the light of your consciousness grows stronger. One day you may catch yourself smiling at the voice in your head, as you would smile at the antics of a child. This means that you no longer take what’s in your mind all that seriously, as your sense of self does not depend on it.”

Knowing this gave me the power and strength to choose happiness and positivity.

It reminded me that when I am feeling “depressed,” it’s an egocentric need. My ego is actually enjoying this pity party.

I didn’t learn to disidentify from my mind overnight. In fact, it’s still a work in progress. However, most of the time I can either figure out why I feel a certain way or the feeling passes. I’ve taken the power away from the voice in my head (my ego) and given it back to my authentic self.

There are still times when I fall into that learned pattern and I hear incessantly, “I’m depressed. Why am I so depressed. What’s wrong with me?” However, now I’m able to see it for what it is. I’m able to use it for awareness and presence. This mindful process has allowed me to finally have peace. From the voice of my generation Biggie Smalls, “I went from negative to positive and its all good, baby.”

More at YourTango:

I Refuse To Let My Wife’s Depression Ruin Our Marriage

How To Deal With Depression After Divorce

10 Warning Signs Your Relationship Is Making You Depressed

 

Article originally posted at YourTango

The post How I’ve Tackled My Depression (And You Can, Too) appeared first on eHarmony Advice.

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Your divorce is final and you are ready, perhaps reluctantly, to get back into dating again. The reluctance sounds something like “I’m scared there is no one out there who is right for me!” After all, you’ve heard it time and again from some of your hopelessly single friends who seem deep down miserable. Hearing this so frequently, you find yourself asking “Is it really true? Are there no good men/women out there for me?”

Part of that answer is going to rely on you. After going through a divorce, you want to make sure that you are changing within yourself what set the marriage up not to work. Although it is easy to blame our spouse, especially when his mistakes are glaring, the truth is you allowed or tolerated aspects to your partner that were not working for you, long before the glaring issues reared their ugly heads.

Let’s look at the inner shift you need to make in order to create the possibility for Mr. Right to show up sooner rather than later.

One of the most common characteristics I find in today’s woman is described best in a former client Sandy. Sandy’s married life looked perfect on the outside: she had a beautiful daughter, loving husband, and blossoming career. The problem was that inside her marriage, there were some major cracks, one of which was due to her husband having been underemployed for nearly 8 years. He had big ideas, but a sense of low self-esteem stopped him from acting on them. Her husband didn’t like to discuss what was going on within him or her, which meant any time she tried to talk to him he would accuse her of being too pessimistic. For years, Sandy felt isolated and alone, being the main breadwinner, as well as the primary caregiver of her child and home. She did her best to shield her husband’s fragile self-worth from her extended family and friends by coming up with excuses as to why they couldn’t get together or go out.

Sandy could “do it all” but sadly, she paid the price. She could have easily walked away as the martyr, but the truth is, women like Sandy who feel they need to “do it all” often have internal, unconscious shame driving them to be everything to everyone.

Unbeknownst to Sandy, she had an unconscious belief that told her in order to be loved by another, she had to have herself all together; otherwise, she wouldn’t be “good enough” and could end up alone.

This “not good enough” theme can drive women to not only take on much more than they should, but also tolerate far more than is good for them or their relationship.

Fortunately, Sandy was able to turn this around. Here’s how she began.

Step 1: Be vulnerable with yourself and recognize how you feel. Sandy knew how to put on a good show that looked like everything was great in her life, however, when she found herself close to bankruptcy and filled with shame, she knew she had to address her feelings.

Step 2: Learn an empowered understanding of how you feel. Sandy felt angry at her husband for not showing up for the past eight years. She was furious that their finances had tanked and he wouldn’t help her. While Sandy had real reasons to be upset with her now ex-husband, learning the empowered understanding of her feelings made her realize that she was really upset with herself. Her anger was guiding her to realize all the ways she had dismissed her needs to make her partner happy.

Step 3: Change you, not others.  With a newly empowered realization of her anger, Sandy knew that in order to have a future healthy relationship, she had to stop pretending she had it all together and start asking for help. This can be scary to someone who unconsciously believes they aren’t lovable if they show flaws.

At first, asking for her needs to be met felt like admitting she was vulnerable. Soon, Sandy learned that allowing her needs to be met actually felt like claiming her self-worth because she was demonstrating to herself and others that her needs mattered just as much as anyone else’s.

It was extremely difficult for Sandy to dive inward and claim her responsibility for her part in the failed marriage, but in the end she was thrilled she did. Not long after gaining this new awareness did Sandy enter the dating world and soon after find a healthy relationship that demonstrates mutual love, respect, and giving toward one another, allowing each person to be their best.

Avoid repeating the same mistakes in your relationships by first diving inward. Take an emotional empowerment journey and you will likely learn a whole lot more about yourself, which will in turn help you find someone who shares your values.

 

Michelle Bersell, M.A., M.Ed., is an author, psychotherapist, and mother of three who teaches and speaks about emotional empowerment. Her forthcoming book, The 5-Minute Misery Cure, is due out in 2016. Download Michelle’s Misery Cure Kit and find her on Facebook and Twitter.

 

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Oh, the beard-burn struggle There's something about facial hair that can push a man from "eh, he's cute" territory into the "someone call 911 because there's a fire in my pants" arena. The only, well, hairy aspect arises when a he goes down on you. As you'll see from the following quotes, sometimes facial hair can introduce you to a whole new world of pleasure—or pain."My current boyfriend shaves every day for work, but on his off days he lets it grow. While giving me head, the stubbles prickle my clitoris and increase sensation, which makes me release a little bit quicker. It was so foreign the first time that I screamed, but now can't have it any other way." —Danielle J."My boyfriend has gone through phases of beard or no beard, although I'm thinking the beard will stick around for a long time now. I honestly don't know if I can tell a difference. Maybe a little, but just kind of what you'd expect. There's a little more scratching and tickling, but if he's doing it right, the beard doesn't matter." —Beth D.RELATED: 9 Reasons Guys Love Giving You Oral  A photo posted by Richard Hertz on Nov 30, 2014 at 5:26pm PST "My boyfriend right now has something in between scruff and a beard at all times. I've noticed when he lets it grow a little longer that I feel it a little more down there, and it can be a little scratchy. Most times, he trims before we hang out, though. However, he has pretty awesome technique where, when I'm about to come, he starts doing this tongue flicking thing that feels more like a vibrator than anything. At that point, the beard is far enough away I don't feel it all, besides the occasional tickle." —Sarah L."I have dated men with different types of facial hair—mustache, beard, scruff—and I would say the person and their skill level determined more of my experience than the existence of facial hair did. However, facial hair enhanced it by providing an added sensation to the overall experience. It built up anticipation and foreplay, but I wouldn't say it made it easier to orgasm because that is more dependent for me on actual stimulation and pressure than the feeling of stubble rubbing against me. Too heavy of a beard can negatively affect the experience because it hurts down there! I would also say I am characteristically way more attracted to men with facial hair than not, and physical attraction has always made a big difference for me in feeling comfortable with a partner sexually and allowing me to relax and enjoy the experience of going down on me more. So I guess there's a psychological and a physical component to why bearded men do it better for me. I talked to my boyfriend about this, and he thinks bearded men do it better because there must be a 'high correlation between facial hair, athletic ability, and cunnilingus skills.' Ha!" —Kaitlyn T.RELATED: Oral Sex on Your Period: Men and Women Weigh In  A photo posted by Calypso on Feb 24, 2015 at 10:47am PST "My boyfriend has always has somewhat of a beard, but the first time ever was when he had a pretty full beard. Not like Rick Ross or James Harden level, but a solid beard that can be grabbed onto and stroked, for lack of a better word. In terms of how that affects sexual experiences, I say it enhances it! It tickles, to be honest, but there's something so sexy about a guy who isn't afraid to just own it down there and who loves incorporating a beard into it. He was very proud of his beard—and his skills—and incorporated his beard into dirty talking, which I swear is such a turn on. He even buries himself, face and beard, in my entire lap. It's less of beard-on-clitoris and more of just all over everything. He's into rubbing his beard all over me in general. Beards just add another texture for your thighs to rub on to and for you to bury yourself in." —Viv C.RELATED: Can You Get an STD From Your Guy's Facial Hair?"I honestly don't notice any difference in the moment when a guy has facial hair, but I think that it makes his face retain a certain odor, if you know what I mean. I feel a bit embarrassed and worried that someone might smell it." —Jules C."My boyfriend is a hairy dude. When he has a full beard, it doesn't affect him going down on me. But if he shaves one morning, the next few days can get painful if we're not careful. His hair is so sharp as it grows in that, one time, I had to put my hands on either sides of his face as he went at it because it felt like sandpaper wearing away at my skin. Another time, I was a little too inebriated to notice, I guess, and the next morning I had a rash. Later that day, when we were walking around, I kept ducking out of sight on the street so I could subtly apply lotion. It was not fun." —Kimberly W.

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