Monthly Archives: January 2016

Your Likability Can Be Better By Monday

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Better By MondayAll or nothing thinking seems to be the only acceptable way to conceive of honesty. You’re either honest or you’re not. That is rigid thinking and unfortunately 100% complete honesty is rare. The most deceitful person you’ve known tells the truth sometimes and the most honest friend you have has hedged the truth on occasions.

Maybe we can create a more honest scale for reporting our “honesty average” and start saying things like, “On average, I’m 85% honest and I desire more accurate moments than not.” Isn’t hiding our dishonesty, dishonest? I want us to allow the reality that a person won’t be 100% honest, all the time.

Several years ago I tried to deflect a very important question that my five year son asked me, “Mommy, Is Buzz Lightyear real?” I detoured him towards answering the question himself. When he asked again I redirected him to his preferred perception of his childhood hero. Then after a full day of not lying but not telling him the truth, I gave in to honesty, I told him that Buzz Lightyear was a pretend person, a cartoon. I quickly found out that he wasn’t ready to hear that truth. He was devastated – despair written on his sweet but sad face. I believe now that childhood hope can be born in fantasy.

Dishonesty, although not deemed a desirable choice, happens sometimes for good reasons. But when it is used to trick or trap another person it becomes an unfair (and invisible) weapon. Unfortunately, when lying works it can become a way of life – a way that the people closest to you won’t appreciate.

The irony about lies is that they can be told (or untold) to keep a feeling of acceptability, but if you are only accepted because of a lie, you never feel truly acceptable. Lying which allows you to look different to others doesn’t help you to like looking at yourself. Give yourself more 100% true blue moments. Being honest about who you are, what you like and what you know or don’t know tells people who you are. You can be the hero in your own story even if you are also sometimes the villain – raise your hero percentage for a happier outcome.

One Thing To Do: Stand in front of the mirror this weekend and tell yourself a part of your true story that you keep hidden. If it is difficult to get the words out with yourself make an appointment with someone who can help you feel safe as you share.

Dawna Daigneault

Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Ed.S., LPC.

Zest of Life, LLC. Professional Counseling.

Your Insight Can be Better by Monday

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Better By Monday“Could a greater miracle take place than for us to look through each other’s eyes for an instant?” Henry D. Thoreau may have written this statement to broaden our personal perspective but I am going to make a guess that the miracle he mentioned is to really know difference. Seeing is believing.

What difference would be made if we could see through each other’s eyes?  I hope that instant would be filled with empathy which can make way for simultaneous kindness. That instant feels miraculous whenever it is experienced by both givers and receivers because both are creating space for the reception of difference and self.

I am unable to look at the world from the eyes of someone else but I can listen to how the world looks to someone else without interrupting their gaze. This is the closest to the Thoreau “miracle” as I can get. I get to see life through the eyes of my client while listening to how differently each of them moves through their world – and gets through the pain in their world.

Attending to the perspective of others without mine interfering with their worldview is a skill I learned in my Counseling and Guidance program. I am grateful for this skill every day because it opened my eyes first and my heart followed.  William James wrote, “Each of us literally chooses, by his way of attending to things, what sort of universe he shall inhabit.”

Listen with the intention of allowing others to share freely and safely without impeding progress or directing the pace or style of their story and hearts open. The peaceful presence you both experience may only last an instant but more of those instances between more people will make a big difference.

One Thing To Do: Listen to someone this weekend without internally narrating the right or wrong of the story. Listen to learn about how that person navigates their world.

Dawna Daigneault

Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Ed.S., LPC.

Zest of Life, LLC. Professional Counseling.

 

Your boundaries can be better by Monday

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Better By MondayDo you patrol your fences or wear your armor?
Personal boundaries are often invisible but protect our emotional and spiritual space like a sturdy fence around a yard. Some boundaries can create needed distance, like a fence, but a different kind is more like a suit of armor, worn tightly to protect our greatest vulnerabilities. The personal boundary of the armor variety has to be stronger to allow us to get close to others, but the very strength of it can sometimes shield us from others as well as protect us from them. Safety can come at a cost when it comes to interpersonal relationships.
Which type of boundary is better? The fence boundary is great for meeting new people in a new place. Random social interactions or being on a team at work are situations where good fences make for positive and productive relationships. The distance these provide can make learning and observing easier while letting people choose how and when to show up to others. You may prefer a wide plot of land between you and a stranger while at a party but with a clear and reliable fence up you can choose to open the gate to someone who shares some of your interests. (And they can do the same for you, assuming they too have a reliable fence of their own.) You also control who stays outside the gate and why.
Generally, this fence is built with a combination of queues you offer (or withhold from) others. How readily you join in a conversation, smiles or affirming and animated gestures when someone else is talking, requests for more information can all be signals you send or receive that create a sense of space that is preferred and maintained – a safe space. However, this type of boundary can be exhausting to patrol – especially if the fence covers a wide diameter around your personal space, with lots of conditions and unending requirements. In this case, for example, a person goes to a party and sits alone, not wanting ANY engagement from or with others.  This fence is so wide and distant no one can get in.
The positive thing about armor is that it is worn close and can let others have more access to you, get closer, but while you are still protected and feeling safe and secure. You may not be ready for complete transparency but you can reveal and receive more when you have your in-close boundary on, your armor, and this can help you remain engaged with the world, not fenced in by it. Personal boundary of the armor variety also gives you a sense of safety when trust hasn’t been established between you and someone new. It also is made of words, gestures, and actions…all of which protect you from sharing more of your story with someone before you feel secure. And it helps them to learn about and know you at your pace, not theirs, respectfully but firmly.
One Thing To Do: Make a short list of words (phrases) that can create your version of a healthy boundary for you and that would be helpful for others as well:
 “I’m not sure I feel like talking about that right now.”
“Thanks for the interest but maybe some other time.”
“No thanks – not right now.”
“I’d love to talk about that but not really right now.”
“That would be good to discuss but when I feel abler to, later on perhaps.”
Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Ed.S., LPC.

The You Factor in Psychotherapy

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A blog post on making the most of your psychotherapy.

OPS's avatarOchester Psychological Services

iStock_000014865626_SmallDid you know that you are the most important factor in your therapy?  It may seem surprising given the amount of time we spend searching for the right provider and the right therapy approach.  However, research shows that around 55% of therapy outcome is related to extra-therapeutic factors such as client readiness for change, willingness, commitment, hope and expectations of effectiveness, and resources such as social support.

The client-therapist relationship is the second largest factor associated with treatment outcome (about 30%) and this includes things like the therapeutic alliance and therapist characteristics such as verbal skills, empathy, and warmth. Interestingly, the therapy approach only accounts for about 15% of the variance in outcomes.

This can be viewed as good news on a couple of levels. It means that a wide variety of therapy approaches can be beneficial to most people and we don’t have to be overly concerned if a particular approach…

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Your Self-Worth Can Be Better by Monday

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Better By MondayWhen does self-worth begin?

Some may argue that because babies can hear their parents while in the womb that self-worth may begin before birth. I think that worth begins the first year of life as a relational message from caregivers to care receivers. Leslie Becker-Phelps, Ph. D. wrote in her book, Insecure in Love, that “…children develop a way of bonding that seeps into their very being. This way of bonding becomes a working model that sets their expectations for how others will respond to them, as well as for how they feel about themselves.”

Babies are made to be care receivers in the first year of life.  They are often doted on by one or more family members through well intentioned bouncing, hugging, feeding, burping, changing and more.

Please consider that the first year of life is often the worst behavior year for most of us.  When you were a baby  (when you weren’t being sweet) you cried, vomited, peed, pooped, refused to sleep, woke everyone up, and slobbered on everything. If you were attended to and comforted regardless of how demanding your cries were – you were being told over and over – you are worth it. That was solid validation.

Despite the “bad behavior” issues (which no one will let you get away with as you mature) you were given as much comfort as your caregiver(s) knew how to give.  This first year set a precedent for trust (Psycho-Social Stages by Erik Erikson) and for self- worth. You didn’t have to pay for care and there were no requirements for to you follow to achieve care receiving status. No conditions for love were in place.

The conditions you may experience now couldn’t be placed on you then. You got to be true to yourself, in a primal sense, and you were still worth getting to know.

One Thing To Do: Remember your worth this weekend. You can’t remember your first year of life but you can remember what is feels like to be cared for – take that thought and fill up on it for two days.  Repeat to yourself, “I am worth taking care of.”

Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Eds, LPC

Dawna Daigneault, Ed.S, LPC.

Zest of Life, LLC.