The importance of having positive friendships in your life cannot be overstated. Healthy friendships can help you feel happier and more self-confident, reduce your stress levels, and prevent you from feeling lonely or isolated. When times are good, friends can help you celebrate. And when times are bad, they can help pick you up and provide a kind shoulder to lean on.

Unfortunately, for many adults, it can be tough to make new friends and even more difficult to ensure that those friendships enhance their lives. With that in mind, here are some tips for how to build healthy relationships with friends:

• Be an active listener. Communication is key to a positive friendship, but many of us aren’t great at listening, which can leave our friends feeling ignored and unvalued. When talking with friends, make an effort to face them, focus on what they’re saying, and ask follow-up questions. You should also avoid interrupting them and zoning out as you plan what to say next.
• Offer advice without judgment. At some point throughout the course of your relationship, your friend will likely come to you for help with a problem. While you should be honest about how you feel, you should also try to empathize with them and respect that that might have a different opinion.
• Make time for each other. In today’s busy world, it can often be difficult to schedule time with friends, but getting together is crucial. If you live near each other, pencil in a weekly dinner or even a monthly coffee date. Or, if you live far apart, plan a time to talk on the phone or, better yet, videochat.

Start Building Healthy Relationships With Friends

If you struggle to maintain positive friendships, you’ve come to the right place. We have extensive experience helping patients nurture healthy relationships with friends, and we’d love to do the same for you. Contact us today to schedule a therapy session.

Have you recently gone through a divorce, a broken engagement, or a breakup? The loss of a romantic relationship can be especially difficult because we spend so much time with our significant others, so a separation can impact many aspects of our lives and leave us feeling like our world has been turned upside down. Not only do we have to cope with missing them, but we also have to deal with the hassles of splitting up any shared property and possibly finding a new home. Plus, we must accept that the dreams we had of a future with that person are no longer a possibility.

Fortunately, there are steps you can take to process your grief and move on from your relationship. For instance, you may want to try:

• Spending time with family and friends
• Talking to a therapist
• Making time for self-care each day
• Incorporating exercise into your daily routine
• Starting a new hobby

As difficult as it may seem, try to look at your breakup as an opportunity to rediscover yourself and the things that make you who you are. For example, if you’ve always loved baking but you didn’t get to bake as often as you wanted during your relationship, try purchasing a new cookbook or signing up for a local cake decorating class.

Do You Need Help Healing From Loss?

If you’re having a hard time coping with the loss of a marriage, engagement, or dating relationship, one of the best ways to process your grief is to speak to a therapist. Contact me today and I can tell you more about my practice, answer any questions you might have, and schedule a therapy session.

No matter how independent you may be, it’s still important to build healthy relationships with your immediate and extended family members, friends, and coworkers. Research suggests that when we foster connections with those around us, it can:

• Improve our self-esteem
• Make us more cooperative, empathetic, and trusting
• Strengthen our immune systems
• Extend our lives
• Reduce our risk of developing anxiety and depression

How to Build Healthy Relationships

Different types of relationships require different approaches. For instance, you should likely treat your coworkers differently than your immediate family members. With that said, taking the following steps may help you to nurture positive relationships with many people in your life:

• Use healthy communication skills, such as talking through issues (rather than letting them fester) and actively listening to the other person.
• Find ways to express that you appreciate the other person’s efforts.
• Follow through on your promises.
• Be sensitive to the other person’s emotions and treat them with compassion, especially when they’re going through a difficult time.
• Remain open-minded and avoid jumping to conclusions.
• Set aside time to spend with the other person that’s free of distractions.
• When a problem arises, take responsibility for your role in it and sincerely apologize (and forgive the other person for whatever they may have done to contribute to the issue).

Start Improving Your Relationships

As noted above, it’s important to have healthy relationships in your life, so if you need help fostering connections, contact us today. We’ll gladly tell you more about our practice, answer your questions, and schedule a therapy session.

Bipolar disorder is a condition that affects an individual’s mood. While manageable, the condition not only affects how a person thinks and feels, but also how they behave and act in romantic relationships. For instance, individuals with bipolar disorder experience severe high and low moods, which are typically called manic and depressive episodes. While in these emotional states, their behavior can scare and confuse their partner.

The good news is, with the right treatment plan, many individuals with bipolar disorder can have healthy and satisfying relationships.

Manic vs Depressive Episodes

In order to understand how bipolar disorder can affect relationships, we need to look at how the two main episodes affect a person’s personality and behavior.

When someone is in a manic state, they are often very irritable. This may cause them to disagree with their partner, and sometimes cause them to look for fights that aren’t really there.

Manic episodes also cause sufferers to partake in risky behaviors, such as binge drinking or gambling sprees. These risky behaviors can cause a lot of tension in the relationship.

Depressive episodes tend to cause the person to become very depressed and less communicative. They may be very weepy and feel hopeless. During these episodes the individual may pull away from their partner. They may also seem so lost and sad their partner feels overwhelmed and unable to help them.

Tips for Healthy Relationships

There is no relationship on the planet that doesn’t require a lot of work and effort. A relationship with a bipolar individual is no different. The good news is, there are numerous ways to build a loving and strong relationship in this situation:

• Learn about the condition – The more you know about bipolar disorder, the more you can understand what your partner is experiencing.
• Know their triggers – Triggers can disrupt your loved one’s mood, sending them into either a manic or depressive episode. Asking about potential triggers will help you support your loved one.
• Creating a support plan – A comprehensive plan will help you support your partner. Your plan can include things like useful contacts, activities to avoid, necessary adjustments to daily routine, etc.

Takeaway

If you’ve been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, or if you are on the verge or diving into a relationship with someone who has, know that the condition does not mean you will be saddled with problems. But a healthy relationship will depend on effectively managing symptoms.

If you’d like to work with a licensed mental health therapist who specializes in working with individuals with bipolar disorder, please give my office a call. I’d be happy to discuss treatment plans and how I may be able to help you experience a profound and loving connection with others.

SOURCES:

https://www.medicalnewstoday.com/articles/324380

https://www.hopkinsmedicine.org/health/conditions-and-diseases/mood-disorders/bipolar-relationships-what-to-expect

https://www.bipolarlife.org.au/how-can-bipolar-disorder-affect-relationships/

There is a very old saying that says, “Don’t cut off your nose to spite your face.” This is a warning to people to not act out in anger or resentment because you only end up harming yourself. Over time, these feelings of resentment can build until the individual develops feelings of depression or anxiety.

While forgiving others who have hurt us isn’t always easy, in the end, it greatly benefits our mental health and overall well-being. To be clear, forgiving others does NOT mean you agree with or condor their poor behavior. And it doesn’t mean you are announcing that your feelings don’t matter. Forgiveness simply means letting go of the negative feelings that are holding you down and causing you prolonged distress.

Again, forgiving someone who has hurt you isn’t easy, but it will lead you to a sense of peace and joy. Here are some steps you can take to forgive others:

Process Your Pain

Have you really faced your pain and processed it? You’ll need to do this before you can let those feelings go. Give yourself permission to feel your feelings deeply and fully. Cry, yell, hit your pillow, do whatever it takes.

Forgive Yourself

It takes two to tango, as they say. While we can easily point to others and blame them for the breakup or ugly incident, the truth is, we were there also. We played some role. Even if it was to retaliate in the moment and to show our own ugliness. It’s time to forgive your own humanity and any wrongdoing to yourself or others.

Try to Understand

True forgiveness is impossible without a sense of understanding. You can try to forgive, claim you have forgiven, only to have those negative nagging feelings crop up again and again. When we try to understand why someone has acted the way they have, it can wipe out the negative feelings instantly, almost as if by magic. 

A critical parent acts the way they act because they, too, were the victim of a critical parent. An overbearing boss is dealing with a personal tragedy at home. Our cheating spouse is self-sabotaging his or her life because they have incredibly low self-esteem and do not feel they deserve happiness. Life is complicated and human beings are even more so. Try and understand why someone has hurt you. You will be amazed at what this magical A-ha moment can do for you.

And if you’d like to speak to someone and get some guidance and much-needed perspective, please reach out to me.

 

SOURCES:

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/complicated-love/202006/the-healing-power-forgiveness

https://www.health.harvard.edu/mind-and-mood/the-power-of-forgiveness

https://www.verywellmind.com/the-benefits-of-forgiveness-3144954

We all believe we know what narcissism looks like. After all, aren’t a majority of politicians and Hollywood A-listers narcissists, projecting their massive egos onto the world? 

While that may be true, narcissists come in all shapes and sizes. They walk among us, some of them obvious, and some of them covert. 

So how can you tell if you’re dealing with an actual narcissist or just someone who is a bit full of themself? Here are a handful of traits the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-V) lists as characteristics that someone is a narcissist:

A Grandiose Sense of Self-Importance

Narcissists see themselves as incredibly essential to the success and happiness of other people. In their eyes, they believe they are capable of exceptionally high levels of achievement, whether they are or aren’t in reality.

They are Special or Unique

Narcissists believe they are so special and unique that few people can really understand them. Many will only want to spend time around high-status people.

A Need for Admiration

We all can admit it feels good to be appreciated and admired. But narcissists have an absolute need for admiration and a lot of it. 

A Sense of Entitlement

Narcissists truly believe they are the exception to the rule. If there is a line of people waiting to be seated, a narcissist will cut that line because why should they of all people be forced to wait? If you’ve spent any amount of time around an actual narcissist, their entitlement can be shocking as it seems to know no bounds.

A Lack of Empathy

Narcissist simply cannot imagine how others feel. They are wired differently from non-narcissistic people. When you can’t empathize or feel what someone else is, it makes it incredibly easy to abuse those around you.

These are just some of the main traits of a narcissist. Needless to say, spending any amount of time in their presence can be a very toxic and taxing experience.

 

SOURCES:

https://www.mindbodygreen.com/articles/14-signs-of-narcissism

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/blog/lifetime-connections/202110/the-13-traits-narcissist

https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/conditions/narcissistic-personality-disorder