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Leaving Loneliness: A Workbook - Building Relationships with Yourself and Others PDF

246 Pages·2014·1.39 MB·English
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Publisher’s Note This publication is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information in regard to the subject matter covered. It is sold with the understanding that the author and the publisher are not engaged in rendering psychological or other professional services. If expert assistance or counseling is needed, the services of a competent professional should be sought. Copyright © 2014 by Stronger Relationships LLC 16350 Ventura Boulevard, Suite D-501 Encino, CA 91436 [email protected] All Rights Reserved. Cover design by CreateSpace Cover image by CreateSpace Edited by CreateSpace Text design by CreateSpace Distributed in the United States by CreateSpace ISBN 10: 0615860893 ISBN 13: 978-0615860893 Stronger Relationships is online at: www.strongerrelationships.org. Dedicated to skillfully provided love, which helps us to nourish ourselves and others. ACKNOWLEDGMENTS I thank my best friend Carol Kiriakos for editorial assistance and for being the love of my life. I also appreciate Jean and Danielle, friends since early childhood who have influenced this book by affecting the person I have become. Additional influences upon me resulting in this book are numerous, including my father ’s persistence, my mother ’s artistry, the skillfulness of my mindfulness instructors in teaching me about having a progressively more direct and naked experience of living, Bob and Rita Resnick, PhD (two of the most potent psychologists I have ever met), David Wallin, PhD, and Dan Hughes, PhD, who have both written inspiring books on practical applications of attachment theory, and my experiences with those in loneliness, which have shown me that humans can endure pain with dignity and (often) patience and also that working through the sources of loneliness is a learnable skill. I thank Ruth Cañas, LCSW as well, for her many contributions to my professional growth. TABLE OF CONTENTS Introduction: Important Information and How to Use This Book Notes Chapte r 1: Ide ntifying the Obstacle s in Your Attachme nt Style Starting with Your Strengths Writing the (Attachment) Story of Your Life Thus Far Identifying Your Challenges with Attachment (Note: This key activity determines if you should complete Chapter 2, Chapter 3, or both.) Attachment Styles of Your Family Members Notes Chapte r 2: Additional Activitie s to Spe cifically Addre ss Attachme nt Anxie ty Finding Your Satisfaction Why Do I Feel Desperation and Cling to Others? What If I Don’t Really Need as Much From Them as I Think? What If I’m More Scared of What I Can Do Than of What I Can’t Do? Healing Your Deeper Emotional Injuries The Person/s Who Was/Were Really There for Me Experiencing Versus Addicting But I Feel Hopeless and Lost Without His/Her Love Why Do I Get So Upset When I Feel Ignored or Misunderstood? I Get Really Mad When Others Don’t See Things the Way I Do Why Do I Linger So Long at the End of a Conversation? Why Can’t I Seem to Make a Decision? Simple, Useful Meditation When Habitually Overly Busy Gratitude Identifying My Attachment Fears What Makes Me Strong? Giving What I Have of Value to the World My Rotation Between Idealizing Others and Being Disappointed Repairing a Recent Interaction That Damaged a Relationship Why Do I Ask for Help When I Already Know What to Do? Getting Love from Myself and Others by Being Strong and Healthy Instead of by Being Sick or Emotionally Injured When I Truly Do Need Others’ Help: Asking in a Way That Respects Myself and Does Not Burn Them Out Sometimes I Just Want to Hurt People: Why Is That? In Pain with Loneliness? Calm the Emotion and Make a Plan to Rescue Yourself Chapte r 3: Additional Activitie s to Spe cifically Addre ss Attachme nt Avoidance Understanding Your Goal at a Gut Level Happiness and Sadness: Accepting All Emotions as Part of Life I Am Already Enough, Even Before Improving More I Am Smart, So Why Am I Not Happier? Getting to Know the Right Hemisphere of Your Brain Finding Your Satisfactions and Pleasures Getting Comfortable with Change When Asking for Help Does Not Mean I Am Weak Naming My Social Fears Healing My Deeper Emotional Injuries How Do I Let My Guard Down? What Part/s of My Physical Health and Needs Have I Been Neglecting the Most? Speedy Surface Interactions and Slower, Deeper Communication Shame Pride Why Do I Work to the P oint of Insanity to Be Competent/Perfect? Lightness and Levity I Am Not Here Simply to Be a Hero. My P urpose in Life Is Not to Emotionally Rescue Others or to Be Somebody Else’s “Tool” A Very Different Way of Relating to Others Continue to Help Others, but with the Right Intention Repairing Angry Interactions I Am Me and You Are You Social Coping Social Prioritizing: Deepening Select Relationships Instead of Having Light Relationships with Dozens Getting Curious About Yourself You May Be Terrible at Surrender: Why You Need to Learn How Practicing Receiving from Others Learning to Cry to Prevent Becoming Truly Weak What Actually Makes Me Strong? Your Voice Tone Why Do I Pretend to Myself That Things Are Not Dangerous to Me, When in Fact They Injure and Exhaust Me? Why Do I Stiffen Up So Quickly and Intensely in Arguments? On Long-Distance Relationships, Porn, Social Networking Replacing Live Contact, and Other Forms of P seudo-Contact Less Analyzing, More Experiencing Finding Better Solutions: First Sit and Listen to Yourself, and Only Then Move into Action From Compulsive, Unsatisfying Busyness to Purposeful Activity Beyond Constant Problem Solving Responding with Logic When Logic Is Appropriate, Responding with Emotion When Emotion Is Appropriate Allowing the Occasional Healthy Emotional Explosion Notes Chapte r 4: Cultivating Earne d Se cure Attachme nt To Se lf Understanding This Chapter ’s Purpose Forgiving Yourself for P ast Mistakes Forgiving Others for Injuring or Failing You Developing Your Complete, Detailed, Balanced Attachment Narrative: A P owerful Tool Approaching Insecurities in a Secure Manner Meditation to Make Your External Support Internal Meditation for Self-Soothing When Upset Another Option to Use When Upset: Coping Thoughts One More Option to Use When Upset: Art Meditation of Self-Love in Action Addressing Those More Embarrassing Needs of Your Body Sleeping Well: Getting Enough Satisfaction from the Day Sleeping Well: Releasing the Day’s Intensity Secure Attachment Exercising Right Now: What Do You Actually Want to Be Doing? Music Finding Your Inner Artist Finding Your Inner Handyman/Woman Becoming Aware of Your Deepest Desires Seeking Satisfaction Instead of Solely Searching for Comfort Allowing Yourself to Build and Have a Satisfying Life: Overcoming the Barrier of Self-Criticism Which Senses Are Most Satisfying to Stimulate? Locating Beauty Chapte r 5: Applying the Foundation of Attachme nt to Se lf to Your Re lationships with Othe rs Secure Attachment Driving What Are Your Social Assumptions? Shaking Off Obstacles to Being Yourself in Conversation If You Get Anxious in a Conversation: Reconnecting to Yourself Don’t Drop My Conversation Partners, or I Lose Them Bringing in People Who Balance You Meeting People: Posture of Openness Meeting People: Emotional Openness Meeting People: Replacing Self-Consciousness with Curiosity Advanced Topic: Mind Mapping Instead of P rojecting Finding My Mentors True Vulnerability Secure Attachment Sex An Ongoing Checklist about Your Relationship with Yourself Becoming Free No Compromise Decisions I’m Alive: Living Before I Die Openness to Experience Notes Conclusion INTRODUCTION: Important Information and How to Use This Book Loneliness is quite painful, especially when it lasts a long time and seems so hard to change. Have you ever been among people, even those whom you like, and still felt alone, inadequate, and separate, or just unable to connect with them in a consistent way? Loneliness is something everybody experiences, but chronic feelings of loneliness are not typical to the human condition and do not need to remain typical for you. If you do experience chronic feelings of loneliness, you may need to work on something psychologists refer to as your attachment style. By doing so, you are likely to find it easier to be kind to and truly aware of yourself, and in turn relate in a more satisfying way to others. Imagine having relationships that are strong, satisfying, and stable. This is possible once you (and then others) see who you are, but it will require some patience and work. My goal is to help you develop a clear framework, by learning about attachment styles (in just two more pages, you will already read the bullet- pointed sections defining these attachment styles). With that clarity, you can approach the work on your loneliness with precision. Part of the pain can be that it is hard to understand why loneliness continues to be your experience over time. Lacking that understanding can leave you feeling hopeless to change it. Why do others seem to be able to have fulfilling relationships when you are not? What is it they have that you yourself can develop? It is not attractiveness, money, or power, since many people with all three are quite lonely. Developing answers to these questions builds hope, and gives you the power to begin building toward that kind of satisfaction with your relationships. This workbook presents a step-by-step approach to build success in relationships. Initially, you will work to improve existing problems you may have with your attachment style. Next you will build your awareness of and responsiveness to yourself, a precursor to having healthy, strong relationships with others. You’ll then be prepared to work on building satisfying relationships with others later in the book. Though some suggestions are included, superficial tips to meet people are not the focus here. If it were that simple, you would already be surrounded by loving relationships. Rather, this workbook focuses on activities that help you create the deeper, lasting internal changes needed to build ongoing satisfaction with your relationships. Let’s identify who is most likely to gain from this workbook. You are likely to benefit from this workbook if you are having repetitive problems forming or maintaining satisfying relationships, not if you are lonely due to a specific and temporary life circumstance such as adjusting to a recent move or divorce. If you are committed to making your own changes, not demanding that others change to make you happy, you are very likely to benefit from this book, because you are ready to work on yourself. If you do need the support of therapy because you are deeply in pain, this book cannot take the place of therapy, though this book may be extremely helpful used in combination with that therapy. That is, this book is intended for those having mild to moderate challenges with loneliness, not for those who are feeling helpless or hopeless. Also, you will get the most benefit if you move slowly while doing the exercises in the book, truly experiencing them, instead of skimming the book. Working through this book is not to be solely an intellectual exercise, but rather an experience putting you in greater communication with yourself. That deeper method of approaching the book is likely to help you with your loneliness, whereas skimming the book intellectually is unlikely to produce life changes. There is one other caveat about completing this book, important enough for a separate paragraph. You may feel warm and content after completing some parts of this book, particularly regarding some exercises in Chapters 4 and 5. However, this is not a feel-good workbook per se. This workbook is about helping you to spot and address issues that keep you lonely, and that is not mild material. Completing some portions of this workbook may evoke feelings of sadness, and you may feel defensive at other points, both of which may actually signify that this book is helping you get in touch with the problems which currently trap you. If so, remember your motivation for working through this book, or if desired, you may decide to stop or to seek therapy to support yourself in completing the exercises. I add this caveat so that you can begin informed and prepared. If you begin with the expectation of seeing problems within yourself and your relationship history, but maintain some joy in having something you can do to address those problems, you have a great mindset with which to approach this work. This book is a synthesis of modern theory and research on human relationships, integrated with ancient Eastern philosophy. I will cite my sources at times, not only to give credit, but also because I want you to know that the strength of this book is not based on merely my personal theory about how to build your success in relationships. On the contrary, without the work of those cited, this book could not exist. The activities in this book flow from cutting-edge integrations of several theories and related research, but those theories and the related research themselves are already established. First I will introduce the important theories you need to understand to build your success, and then I’ll add the integration. What is attachment style? Attachment style refers to a characteristic pattern that we repeat in approaching our social interactions. It is a broad concept with many implications, but to nail down some specifics, it includes how easy or challenging it is for us to trust that others will be there when we truly need them, how well we are able to share our experiences with others to engage their interest, how willing we are to both accept and offer others emotional help to feel better, how able we are to soothe ourselves instead of unleashing excessive emotion on others, how confident we are of the good intentions of others close to us, how skillful we are at identifying those who would hurt us and closing off to them without closing off to everybody else, and how much we are able to bond with others based on truly getting to know each other instead of solely based on being of service or receiving help, among other things. We will not be discussing a lot of psychological terms in this book, but the few we will focus on are crucial to your development of a clear framework within which to understand and work on your loneliness. Let us then describe what ‘Secure Attachment’ is, what you will be working towards, and also the attachment problems of ‘Attachment Avoidance’ and ‘Attachment Anxiety’ that you will be working to remedy on your path toward attachment security. Characteristics of Se cure Attachme nt in adulthood (all may not be present, but

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Occasional loneliness is a part of our shared human experience. However, if you repeatedly experience deep pangs of loneliness, now may be the time to address your loneliness at its roots. Kirkus Reviews calls Leaving Loneliness, "A curative, uplifting workbook" (abbreviated review below). Featured
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Most books are stored in the elastic cloud where traffic is expensive. For this reason, we have a limit on daily download.