How does Body Image affect us physically, emotionally and psychologically? How can we move beyond its negative influences?

How we feel about our body or about our body parts affects how we feel about ourselves. What do you like or dislike about your body? How do you feel about your hair, your face, your eyes, your nose, your lips, your shoulders, your breasts, your hips, your butt, your thighs, your legs or your feet? Did I leave anything out that you especially like or dislike about your body?

When one feels too fat or too thin or too ugly or too dumb they may also judge themselves to be inferior, unworthy, etc. These emotions are best dealt with when allowed to be released. When expression of these feelings is blocked, the feelings don’t just disappear. These blocked emotions influence what we attempt to hide about ourselves, how we want to appear, the kind of clothes we wear, our posture, how we sit, stand, move across a room, speak, shrink into our shoulders, expand our chest or tuck in our belly.

Repetition of unconscious emotional attitudes (e.g. feeling small or wanting to appear powerful) contribute to developing and maintaining unconscious habit patterns in the physical body.

Over time, we can become aware of some of these body patterns, as a tightening in our neck or back or pelvis or find ourselves collapsing our spine, slouching, grinding our teeth or jutting out our shoulders or our chin in a funny way. All of these can be understood as unconscious consequences of negative Body Image.

Often times a person’s body image is unrealistic. For instance, at an extreme, the anorexic who weighs 90 pounds thinks and feels that she’s too fat. Or, less unusual, a female or male may think they are ugly because they don’t look like Angelina Jolie or Brad Pitt while they are viewed as “attractive enough” by most people they meet.

Body image can be Conscious and Unconscious.

When body image is conscious we can identify what we like or dislike about our body. However, we might remain unconsciously identified with negative ideas, attitudes or feelings about ourselves based on that negative body image.

For example, the smallest sibling in a family might, as an adult, unconsciously feel small among groups of people. This could cause her/him to unconsciously want to stand out to be noticed in public; but, when alone, tend to slouch their back while feeling unloved, unchosen or depressed without someone to perform for, all the time remaining unconscious that this is exactly how it felt to be the smallest sibling in their family origin.

Or, an only child might, as an adult, speak loudly with an arrogant demanding tone of superiority or self-importance, expecting to be heard, listened to, chosen as the center of attention while remaining unwilling to acknowledge, even to themselves, that they have a fault, because that’s what it was like for them in their family of origin.

Regretfully, all of us are challenged to identify the impact of our unconscious negative body images since all of us carry unconscious influences from early childhood emotional experiences. We can either attempt to identify and correct these unconscious negative body patterns or, when left unaddressed, they will continue to develop into more rigid body patterns over time, like unflossed teeth can lead to more serious dental problems.

So what can we do about our negative body image? What can we do to free ourselves of some of these old physical/emotional/psychological habit patterns?

Some people are spending tens of thousands of dollars today, for nip and tuck cosmetic surgery to change their body with the hope of changing their body image to feel better about themselves.

Dan Bienenfeld’s Hellerwork is another way. By releasing stored emotion from the past and restoring the body to its more balanced, aligned orientation, old physical patterns can be replaced with new healthy ones which, in turn, can also free the individual from negative thoughts and feelings they have been carrying since childhood.

Psychotherapy that focuses on identifying and releasing stored memories is another way.

Please send your questions and comments to www.steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com

Dr. Steve Wolf Founder Wolf Training Institute www.tamingyouranger.com

Our classes are a combination of online instruction and one-on-one phone coaching. During this 6 week program, you will be guided through exercises designed to discover your unique anger triggers and how to safely discharge and release the emotions. You will learn to use the 4 Tools for your best life.

We offer a two-fold guarantee. First, our program is accepted by the courts and authorities. Second, we guarantee a change in your behavior. Everyone who completes the course will experience a change in their behavior, or we will refund your money. This two-fold guarantee makes our program stand apart from all the others.

The same can be said about our species.

Like tadpoles turning to frogs, kids transform into teens and teens transform into adults, just like we did.  We all recognize some obvious adolescent physical changes and social changes (e.g. more interest in the opposite sex and groups, less focus on home and parents).  Because the child turned teen’s ability to think also evolves, she/he is also better able to deal with intellectual complexity and develops a more secure sense of what is “Real” vs. how things are viewed from the perspective of Child’s Mind.

In our society, to acknowledge and support his early teen transition, we can call on the support of family and community.  Christians celebrate Communions and Jews celebrate Bar and Bat Mitzvahs to acknowledge their child’s maturation into adolescence.  Transitions from adolescence to adulthood are less obvious and less likely to be acknowledged.

Traditionally, the individual was initiated into adulthood by the tribe.

For centuries. the Greeks’ Eleusinian mysteries initiated their boys into men with the aid of psychedelics from 1100 to 1600 BC.  ( https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Eleusinian_Mysteries )

African tribes initiate their teens at the onset of puberty to prepare them by clarifying sexual roles and to “ensure the shaping of productive, community-oriented responsible adults.”  ( http://manuampim.com/AfricanInitiationRites.htm)

Our society lacks rites or rituals to systematically guide and direct our teens through this important teen to adult stage, leaving them to fend for themselves to navigate the challenging “white water” of adult transition.

Teens want to feel “ADULT”.  They are driven to seek external recognition for competence, accomplishment and independence to support an internal sense of their new emerging self.

Drugs, promiscuous sexual activity, bullying and addiction to video games and electronic stimulation can all be understood from this developmental point of view which recognizes the teen’s unconscious attempt to discover an internal connection to what makes them feel good about themselves.  While they are also likely to experience self-doubt, fear, isolation, and a lack of self-worth, they don’t understand that these emotional experiences are a normal part of the territory as teens transition into adulthood. Once a teen feels the permission and freedom to talk about their feelings, they can feel supported to make their transition without needing to resort to dysfunctional behaviors.

As Counselors, we have an opportunity to educate our clients and their families about these transitions and coach them to develop new ways to assist their teens to make this inevitable, challenging developmental shift in a healthy fashion.

Got any questions or comments?  Write me at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com or call in Mondays, between 4:30 and 5:30 Pacific Time at shrinkdifferentradio.com.

Known fact (if you believe in Science): Stress is unhealthy, to say the least.

For instance, let’s look at the recent emergence of LGBT acceptance in our society: On the one hand, LGBT political activists have worked diligently over the past 25 years or more to create changes in our society. It required a vision, a plan, and consistent dedicated effort by many folks to first change attitudes and then to change the law.  Now, while LGBT activists have succeeded, tens of millions of folks who do not share their same liberal attitudes toward LGBT issues are, nonetheless having to learn to adapt to these changes.

Traditional, conventional heterosexual attitudes which do not embrace these liberalized LGBT tenets have been in the collective psyche for hundreds or thousands of years. Therefore, folks who are now being asked to accept practices like same sex marriage, shared gender bathrooms and the use of new pronouns to replace “his” and “hers” may require some time to deal with attitudes and feelings related to these cultural changes. They may feel helpless, fearful and angry because they, their children and others they love are being exposed to and forced to accept LGBT behaviors as the New Normal, whereas they have always believed these behaviors to be unacceptable and/or abnormal.

So, on the other hand, while our laws have changed, millions of we Americans are having difficulty transitioning into acceptance of this recent, emergence of LGBT values and behaviors into our culture at large.  Many remain committed to setting back the clock by attempting to reverse laws to return to more conservative, restrictive times.

Those who remain upset about our new LGBT state of affairs therefore experience additional stress in their already stressful lives, which can lead to increased emotional pressure, agitation, anger expression, or addictive behaviors.

Even if the present outcome of expanded freedoms for LGBT individuals proves to be only temporary, those who are stressed over accepting today’s more liberal cultural values would benefit from learning to reduce their stress when confronted with our nation’s present day circumstances as they are.

While I personally have no problem with our gender related cultural changes, I do have a problem with labeling those who may have a problem adapting to these changes as being “homophobic”, as if they were suffering from a diagnosable disease. I would like to see more empathy and understanding from those who won the cultural gender battle toward those who lost the cultural gender battle, while they make their adjustment.

The same holds true for those who feel they’ve won the cultural political battle after winning the presidency, the house, the senate and, shortly, tipping the scales of the Supreme Court.  As we seek common ground, our culture is vacillating from one position to another in these turbulent times. To recognize the “other” with differing opinions and values as “one of us” rather than as “the enemy” will assist us to achieve balance and equanimity in our society.

TAKE AWAY: – practice patience with those who hold differing points of view. Acknowledge your differences and let them know you understand and recognize the difficulty they are having accepting present circumstances.  You might also let them know that you are also having difficulty accepting other aspects of recent cultural change regarding issues they may be in favor of.

I welcome your questions and comments at steve@TamingYouAnger.com

Check out our weekly podcast at shrinkdifferentradio.com and explore our individual and training/certification programs at TamingYourAnger.com

That’s what it’s like for those who need to make an emergency visit to the dentist to treat painful cavities or gum disease caused from not brushing or flossing their teeth. It is their pain that drives them to seek out dental care to fix their problem and learn to avoid creating problems in the future.  It is their pain that brings them to realize they can learn to take better care of themselves.

Similarly, many people avoid “going on a diet” until they feel they are too fat or they are told to do so by their medical doctor while others choose to maintain a healthy diet to avoid getting fat or to avoid creating serious medical conditions in the first place.

When it comes to dealing with psychological and emotional issues, regretfully, most of us act like that proverbial camel.  We continue to carry the same old emotional baggage until it feels like its breaking our emotional backs.

We humans do our best to tolerate uncomfortable behavior psychological and emotional patterns in ourselves and within our relationships until we can’t stand it anymore, until we feel suffocated, “at the end of our rope”, or “at our wits end”.  For the most part people who seek out either individual, couples or addiction counseling do so only because they have reached the point that they are no longer willing to tolerate things as they are.

Only then do we feel ready to do what it takes to change these psychological/emotional patterns by attempting to educate ourselves and/or by seeking guidance from a professional.

Part of the reason for this is attributable to the fact that most of us learned what we know about psychology and about relationships from what we experienced in our family of origin, what we observed in other families and what we were exposed to in the popular media.   Very few of us were ever taught about emotions or psychology in high school or in college and even fewer of us were taught about what to expect in relationships.

Several years ago I taught a class in Emotional Intelligence at USC dental school to a dozen students in their dental program, one of the finest in the country where only the brightest and most qualified are admitted. Only four of them had ever taken a psychology class in college and only two of them and taken more than one.

This was startling information for me although maybe it should not have been. The only students who take anything beyond introductory psychology are those who are “planning to go into the field”, even among this elite group of students.

Yet most, if not all, of our major life decisions are based on our emotions while most folks don’t even have a clear definition of what an emotion is or how it is similar to or different from a feeling.

So. I’m going to give you a two question pop quiz.  Answer these questions out loud: What is an Emotion?  What is a Feeling?

Many people define “Emotion” as a feeling and then they define “Feeling” as an emotion. In other words, they don’t really define either one, but seem to recognize that they are similar to each other.

I define “Emotion” as an impulse produced by the emotional brain (the limbic system) as heartbeats are impulses produced by our more primitive reptilian brain.  “Feelings” describe emotions as adjectives describe nouns.

I have found that the understanding of this distinction between emotion and feeling provides a building block for the development of Emotional Intelligence (EQ).  Unlike IQ which is said to remain constant throughout our life, we can develop our EQ.  We can become emotionally smarter.

Absorbing these definitions of “emotions” and “feelings” can support people to become emotionally smarter.  The good news is, developing EQ is like learning the benefits of brushing and flossing our teeth. It can help us to avoid creating greater pain in the future.

Are you satisfied with your level of Emotional Intelligence?

For further information, go to WWW.tamingyouranger.com

Please send your questions and comments to me, steve@Tamingyouranger.com and check out my Weekly podcast at Shrinkdifferentradio.com.

 “The best predictor of future behavior is past performance.”

  “Fool me once shame on you. Fool me twice shame on me.”

What is trust?

I define Trust as a measure of confidence in the consistency of an individual’s or an organization’s behavior.

Trust can also be defined as, “an emotion, based on one’s confidence that a person or organization is telling the truth”.  This definition of trust implies ethical integrity and a commitment to honesty about past events, present thoughts and feelings, and future intentions.

One’s degree of trust for another person or organization will depend upon which definition of trust is relied upon. For instance, let’s say you discovered for sure that someone lied to you about something.  E.g. That he or she denied being at a particular place at a particular time and you had a photograph indicating that he or she was in fact there. If this was the first time you caught them in a lie you might decide to make light of it. If it was the second time you caught them in a lie you might become wary about believing them. If it was the third time you caught them in a lie you might want to end the relationship, (although many times we don’t feel that we can). At this time, you might say, “I don’t know when they are being truthful and when they are not, so I don’t trust them at all.”

On the other hand someone else might say, “Of course I can trust this person. Since the best predictor of future behavior is past performance, and since he/she has repeatedly lied in the past, I can trust that he/she is likely to lie again. Therefore, I know that I will be taking a risk if I choose to believe they are telling me the truth in the future.  So, if I decide to “give them another chance”, any disappointment I may experience is rightfully my own responsibility because I can’t rightfully blame them if I decide to ignore what I already knew to be true about them.”

This may sound simple but, like most psychological issues, “it’s easier said than done”.

For instance, I know of one couple who fought frequently because she was always prompt and he was always late.  When she continues to show up on time and he continues to be late she continues to be pissed and he continues to feel criticized.  Because he resents the criticism, he distances emotionally and physically, and she feels neglected and unloved.

He clarified for himself how and why he creates the criticism by being late and she clarified for herself how she contributes to the distance by being critical.   Once each accepted responsibility for contributing to their own and each other’s negative pattern of disappointment, they figured out how to satisfy their own needs while supporting more intimacy between them as a couple.  She decided to bring reading material to read while she waited, and he would remind himself that he is setting them both up for frustration when he risks being late.

The same holds true when it comes to deciding who to trust in the public domain. For me, once I have clearly established to myself that someone lies, I listen to everything he or she might say knowing it could easily be a lie. Therefore, I continue to seek out those whom I trust to be speaking the truth while I watch with amazement those many folks who continue to be surprised when they continue to listen to known liars who continue to lie.

I welcome your comments and questions at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com

We believe healthy anger expression and emotional intelligence should be taught by pediatricians, by human resources, by people invested in the internal developement of their relationship.

We believe that learning to express anger in healthy, non-aggressive ways and to develop emotional intelligence should be taught by parents to their children, by pediatricians to new parents, by therapists, coaches, educators, to students in their classes, by human resources staff to all employees, as well as in treatment facilities.

We believe that healthy anger expression and emotional intelligence should be taught by pediatricians to new parents, by therapists, coaches, educators to students in their classes, by human resource staff to all employees, as well as in treatment facilities.

Descriptions of these states of being frequently suggest they lie outside of normal, “ordinary” adult experience or “sense of Self”. It is exactly, our “sense of Self”, which goes through the process of change, like when, as adolescents, we experienced a shift in our “sense of self” once we experienced ourselves as having become “Adult”. While it is true that there are states of awareness outside of “normal adult experience”, the unfolding of our individual life is the pathway for our potential to experience these more advanced states of awareness along the way, in the same way that the potential to experience falling in love and sexual eroticism is available to all of us, although me may not know that potential existed until after we actually experience the ecstasy of eroticism or of falling in love.

Kathleen Singh in “The Grace of Living” (http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Grace-in-Living/Kathleen-Dowling-Singh/9781614292852) shows us that we all have had moments of awakening to a more expanded sense of awareness, beginning in early childhood. Can you recall an experience which may have been confusing at the time because they it was so different from ordinary awareness, so expansive, or loving or connected that you remember it even until today? According to Dr. Singh these are early moments of recognition of the Self which we can strive to achieve as a permanent stage for identity later on in life.

For example, the foundation of the 12 Step Programs rests on acceptance of Higher Power as the source of inner directedness. When people choose to live their lives by seeking to listen to and align with the voice and guidance of that Higher Power they are going beyond the ego as they attempt to maintain sobriety. They are operating at a more advanced stage of adult development as they experience the value of receiving the guidance of that higher power.

I believe that we are all on the path of psychological and spiritual development, whether we know it or not, as an infant is on the way to becoming an adult whether she/he knows it or not. But, as not every acorn becomes and oak tree and not every tadpole becomes a frog, not every adult matures into these more advanced stages of Self-awareness.

I welcome your questions and comments at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com or call in live on Mondays, 4:30 to 5:30 PM Pacific time, so we can discuss it on the air.

Many Blessings

Doc Wolf

Descriptions of these states of being frequently suggest they lie outside of normal, “ordinary” adult experience or “sense of Self”. It is exactly, our “sense of Self”, which goes through the process of change, like when, as adolescents, we experienced a shift in our “sense of self” once we experienced ourselves as having become “Adult”. While it is true that there are states of awareness outside of “normal adult experience”, the unfolding of our individual life is the pathway for our potential to experience these more advanced states of awareness along the way, in the same way that the potential to experience falling in love and sexual eroticism is available to all of us, although me may not know that potential existed until after we actually experience the ecstasy of eroticism or of falling in love.

Kathleen Singh in “The Grace of Living” (http://www.simonandschuster.com/books/The-Grace-in-Living/Kathleen-Dowling-Singh/9781614292852) shows us that we all have had moments of awakening to a more expanded sense of awareness, beginning in early childhood. Can you recall an experience which may have been confusing at the time because they it was so different from ordinary awareness, so expansive, or loving or connected that you remember it even until today? According to Dr. Singh these are early moments of recognition of the Self which we can strive to achieve as a permanent stage for identity later on in life.

For example, the foundation of the 12 Step Programs rests on acceptance of Higher Power as the source of inner directedness. When people choose to live their lives by seeking to listen to and align with the voice and guidance of that Higher Power they are going beyond the ego as they attempt to maintain sobriety. They are operating at a more advanced stage of adult development as they experience the value of receiving the guidance of that higher power.

I believe that we are all on the path of psychological and spiritual development, whether we know it or not, as an infant is on the way to becoming an adult whether she/he knows it or not. But, as not every acorn becomes and oak tree and not every tadpole becomes a frog, not every adult matures into these more advanced stages of Self-awareness.

I welcome your questions and comments at steve@shrinkdifferentradio.com or call in live on Mondays, 4:30 to 5:30 PM Pacific time, so we can discuss it on the air.

Many Blessings

Doc Wolf