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Not one, not two, but three separate sessions inspired today’s blog. It can feel like a strange day at the office when the same topic reoccurs multiple times throughout the day or the same work week. And that is what I encountered yet again. Occasionally at a week’s close, I will spend a few minutes slowly slipping into  wandering thoughts about reoccurring themes from sessions, implications for patient care, and mapping areas to explore in future visits. In doing so, a recollection of a metaphor used during a quick intervention of psychoeducation came rushing back to the forefront. Mental wellness (health) can be best illustrated in the same likeness as physical exercise for the human body. A healthy body is one that is both strong (operationally defined as able to withstand impact without compromising function) and flexible (dexterity to minimize the risk of injury). A healthy mind is one that is both able to withstand impact/ trauma and is also flexible (able to adapt to change). The greater a mind can be flexible, adaptable, and dexterous in adverse conditions (experiences, emotions, etc), the greater the likelihood is that the mind—the person—can cope in stressful or unknown conditions. Change or uncertainty can elicit a host of emotional and somatic sensations for people. A person’s willingness to welcome new or alternative information in these moments of change or uncertainty are often qualities, I observe in session, to gauge a patient’s readiness for specific interventions, how well they may be coping outside of the session room, or their awareness of their own accountability to coping in such experiences. This can be helpful in moments where frustration, defensiveness, or dissatisfaction are vocalized, when things do not go as planned, or when patients are not feeling “better” when they may perceive they should be because they are attending psychotherapy. The ask here on an individual level is how rigid or inflexible are your beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors when you do not know, are doubtful, distrustful, or scared? And if what you are doing is ‘not working,’ what is the threshold of time it may take you to let go of your fixed thoughts, judgments, or behaviors and grant yourself permission to consider possibilities beyond what you ordinarily would consider?  Here is where cognitive flexibility as an intervention can be a great tool to employ when coping with change, uncertainty, or doubt. If you tend to be quite flexible and experimental already, do you trust your own recommendations or appraise others’ suggestions as more reliable than your own? Typically, an overarching goal for patients is never absolute thinking—it must be this way or that; but for each patient to find greyness (middle-ground) between the two options they see. Envision a line graph with two polar choices on opposite ends. These points to not represent the most extreme choices but may represent a concrete way to visually see space between the two you have identified and help create alternatives that may exist closer to one point but not as extreme as the polar choice. Once options are developed, weight the role of ‘risk-taking’ in building your internal resource (coping) when you test alternative beliefs, attitudes, or behaviors than you would normally. Sure, the outcome may not always be favorable however rest your attention on the reason for the exercise—building flexibility in your thinking—so that you are able to adapt to changes known or unknown. With trust in your own intuition and repetition, challenging your own thoughts/ attitudes, cognitive restructuring, reality testing and calculated risk-cognitive flexibility can be developed for anyone—within limits (for persons with preexisting conditions affecting executive functioning). As a disclaimer, blog posts do not act as clinical recommendations outside of the counseling room. For non-patients, blog posts act as supportive self-help. Like and share!

In many cultures, paternalism and patriarchy govern many of the beliefs and attitudes children learn as they matriculate through childhood into adolescence and adulthood. Parents are tasked with rearing their children to be better versions of themselves and the people around them whilst preparing them for unknown conditions that may impact their achievement and success. For young children with developing executive functions, language, and reasoning skills, they rely on modeling from external agents to inform how and who they should become. As such, each of us learn how to behave through institutions of socialization such as home environments, schools, television and media, peers, and other community members within proximity. It is no surprise the impact an individual’s culture can have on the behaviors, attitudes, and characteristics they each adopt. As children age and build their knowledge of who they are, how they are to be, and how rewarding or punitive the environment will be through achievements, relationships, or praise, similarities and differences emerge across gender. From Italy to China, India to Mexico, or Cuba to Colombia, paternalism and patriarchy touch most cultures and organize sets of practices historically assigned by gender—varying within each subculture and even, family. The rise and increased acceptance of feminism and human rights, today, challenges these historical binaries around gender roles, labor, and emotional expression and call to attention the imbalances and frustrations many individuals and families encounter. When children reach adulthood and enter more complex interpersonal and romantic relationships, many adults enter counseling via couples therapy or individual therapy to report strain/ conflict navigating their relationships when "healing" or unlearning unhelpful attitudes, beliefs, or traumas from childhood are a priority and necessary in pursuit of a more egalitarian partnership or lifestyle. A common occurence observed in therapy is the exchange between couples via communication and emotional expression of needs, wants, or expectations. Couples commonly report difficulty being vulnerable with their partners, expressing emotions during conflict, personal accountability and responsibility, behavioral consistency, distrust and doubt, and conflict over parenting and household labor/ chores. What many couples and individuals in therapy are encouraged to consider or practice is exchanging cultural upbringing narratives about care and responsibility with each other. Exchanging individual histories can allow partners to learn some of the cultural values of importance whilst highlighting similarities shared and differences. Likewise, talking about observed conflicts when differences were visible and how they were managed can provide insight into possible expectations, avoidances, or areas to develop over time. How was care for emotions provided between partners during conflict? Or to what extent were emotions masked or displaced? What couples and individuals find in therapy is that their upbringing, socialized norms, and gender informs their relationship style and responsibilities and that these intersections cannot be removed from their experiences in relaionships or partnerships. As a conseqence, emotional labor is the responsibility of each but may not be the historical norm. If an egalitarian relational style is desired, here's how to start. Do not assume your partner shares a similar cultural background because of how they look (ethnically), speak, or from nominal information about where they are from (geographic or family). While there will be shared experiences that bring individuals together, over time or through cohabitation, individual cultural differences within unique families or communities have greater variance and a greater impact on perceived compatibility. By acknowledging differences, you can begin to communicate more honestly about perceived imbalances, expectations, and how to care for and be responsible to one another when expectations cannot be met. As a disclaimer, blog posts do not act as clinical recommendations outside of the counseling room. For non-patients, blog posts act as supportive self-help. Like and share!

We all have found ourselves within platonic or intimate relationships in which bonds are strengthened, new experiences are encountered, and jovial moments are shared. There are also moments within relationships in which fret, let down, and uncertainty occur. Whether you’re changing roles and pitching for a promotion or pursuing entrepreneurship and happen to be the first in your network to do so; there are many moments when the people around us levy the weight of complex emotions as we determine how best to navigate and embolden us with the confidence to do so even when we do not know how. Vulnerability happens in these subtle and real moments when others are allowed to witness us in uncertainty, doubtfulness, or frustration. In these moments of ‘not knowing,’ others are afforded opportunities to reassure trust in their support of your dreams and reassure you that courage comes in the face of fear and risk-taking. But how do each of us strike a balance between letting others see our true self and oversharing disclosures in an attempt to manufacture safety, closeness, connection, or companionship? In long term relationships, this can become incredibly necessary to revisit periodically, as you might assume or judge, that safety and closeness has already been cemented. For many reasons, safety and closeness can change over time as partners experience life together and separately—each shaping their experiences, worldview, and beliefs as they change to accommodate emerging needs, wants, wishes, worries, and desires. Five strong considerations to stay vigilant of as your relationship grows with time are as follows. (1) Practice introspection as an instrument to building mindfulness of your intent versus your impulse. What motivations prompt oversharing in an attempt to demonstrate vulnerability in relationships in which the other ‘already knows’ you? Often oversharing may be driven by worry, desire for attention, or attempts to salvage components of a relationship in which trust has been deeply fractured. Introspection can be a great way to identify your own needs of which you communicate—instead of oversharing—with your partner. This is a way to redirect oversharing toward vulnerable communication. (2) Providing context is a unique way to allow your partner to gain insight into the intricacies of your thought process and how you arrive at solving problems, coping with discomfort, or simply understand the complexities that make deciding what to do difficult or seemingly impossible. Oversharing may not consider the role of context as timing is of greater priority. Vulnerability is paced individually, not set by the listener. It is considerate of boundaries and needs for individual safety as you build context with time. (3) Weigh the emotional impact of oversharing versus vulnerability. How do you feel after disclosures that feel premature or “too much, too soon": overwhelmed, anxious, numb? How do you feel after disclosures that do not feel rushed, considerate of your right to choose how quickly you open up, and have established emotional safety to disclose without fear of criticism, rejection, or judgment? As relationships mature, are feelings of safety that once existed still present and what happens when communication about the change occurs? (4) Identify your readiness to be vulnerable with your partner. Oversharing side steps the listeners readiness and is often not mutually appraised accurately. The counseling room, for many, is the first place they are offered the opportunity to be honest without self-judgment about the implications of being honest, transparent, or uncensored. If people-pleasing or deprioritizing your own needs and elevating others’ needs is a crutch for you, it can be frustrating and nerve-racking to consider honesty if it may not be favored by your partner. Therefore, spending time identifying your readiness to be vulnerable will help aid the exchange you plan or need to have. And lastly, (5) revisit often during non-escalative moments as each of you are travelling towards a shared or separate destination and at different rates of speed. No individual’s acceleration is faster than the other, but is appropriate to each person. And therefore should not be compared. As a disclaimer, blog posts do not act as clinical recommendations outside of the counseling room. For non-patients, blog posts act as supportive self-help. Like and share!

As discussions on vulnerability, ‘emotional intelligence,’ soft life, and modernity continue to inundate social media and podcasts—for better or worse—there are a plethora of reasons why vulnerability (and self-awareness) and subsequent peer evaluations of “emotional intelligence” do not consistently present in interpersonal and romantic relationships as often as many of us would like to see. Many, if not all, are valid and not without justification; however we may not have access to these justifications and explanations. They are not rights owed to us nor entitlements by having relationships, although they do compromise the quality of the type of relationship you seek and the relative weight of connection others feel from you. One thing practicing as a psychotherapist normalizes year after year, is there are always narrative histories from people, like you and I, that inform why vulnerability is not shown or inconsistently practiced in relationships. Many of which undoubtedly may already be familiar to you such as culture, trauma, cognitive limitations, or personality. Nevertheless, I thought a blog might be a great way to share more discreet explanations why a partner may not or no longer be practicing vulnerability with you. As always, these considerations should prompt introspection and discussion rather than judgment or analysis of a partner to achieve an unknown expectation you may have for them. Here are 3 discreet reasons, perhaps, your partner is not being vulnerable with you. (1) Typically the most common observation in therapy is fractured trust. ‘You don’t say.’ Trust is at the foundation of vulnerability and a fractured sense of trust in your partner’s willingness and ability to hold your disclosure with the utmost care, as they’d wish for their own deepest, private thoughts, is typically a glaring warning sign. While it may not sound like much to do, start by inviting them to share with you when or where the fracturing occurred and what language or words undermined the trust built. This is not your opportunity to correct nor clarify what you intended to communicate; your only objective is to ‘actively’ listen, acknowledge the impact it had, accept as their experience of you in these acute moments, and lean into introspection about how you can convey your feelings, attitudes, or beliefs without reenacting the information revealed that led to the initial fracture of trust in your relationship. To note, this may not apply to persons with histories of clinically diagnosed Narcissistic Personality Disorder (NPD), Antisocial Personality Disorder (APD), nor abusive partners. (2) Needing the most patience in session, truly, is cognitive dissonance about self. This is perhaps the most nuanced of the three as a discreet reason your partner may not be demonstrating vulnerability with you and it may have very little to do with you. This is solely an internal disruption in vulnerability in which the way they see themselves is not what others experience them as. Likewise, often these kinds of people have beliefs and attitudes about vulnerability that directly compete with secondary beliefs, attitudes, and usually actions they may carry out or subscribe to—and they are grossly unaware. This might be a great opportunity to encourage them to speak to a professional as the emotional weight to “helping” them do it should be their task to initiate and follow up on rather than a request from you and a responsibility for you to do for them. And lastly, (3) vulnerability is not a right owed to know but a privilege your partner allows you to access. As stated earlier, there may be a host of explanations and multiple at the same time explaining why your partner is no longer vulnerable with you; however, vulnerability is not a demand but an exchange of emotional safety between partners. And safety cannot be measured nor timed by the witness of the disclosure. As a disclaimer, blog posts do not act as clinical recommendations outside of the counseling room. For non-patients, blog posts act as supportive self-help. Like and share!

Vulnerability has quickly become a hot topic in every day life and on social media. More and more young people are affirming that vulnerability is paramount and central to demonstrating the type of emotional intelligence many seek from intimate partners nowadays. While emotional intelligence in colloquial spaces may have subjective definitions depending on whom is defining the behavior, one thing is certain in that wherever you fall on the spectrum, it is going to be a requirement for long term partnerships and relationships to consistently demonstrate vulnerability. While the survivalist resources of generation x and baby boomers are no longer as life threatening as they once were, vulnerability as a global community practice is quite still in its infancy amongst many populations— particularly communities of color in the US. While some research I’ve read exists and relays alternative means of vulnerability practices in the late 1800s and 20th century amongst freedmen and freedwomen, its application as discussed present- day lays a lineage of its value and its usage in relationships. From a time in which communities relied heavily on one another for resilience, independence has become both a vehicle and a chattel. With so many people beginning to seek counseling and psychotherapy to work on themselves for the future relationships they wish to have, vulnerability has been a key factor in almost all of the patients I’ve treated over the past 4-5 years specifically. But how can independence be balanced with vulnerability in relationships? To start, unlearn the part of you that wishes to pick between the two. You do not have to. It is not one or the other; yet they both are instruments that help you check in with your true self as you navigate the world around you. Independence grows autonomy and your right to choice. And vulnerability is a way in which you build connection and intimacy with others. Start by (1) ignoring the pressure to choose between the two. (2) Get to know yourself separate from your inner ‘people pleaser’. What are your interests, pleasures, values, or fears? (3) Ask/ confront your worries of loss if the things you find meaningful, pleasurable, or have dreamed of wanting/ having is compromised or threatened. (4) Lean into slowly communicating these ideas, thoughts, or interests as you build/ deepen your relationship. Disclosure does not need to be quick and/ or rushed. Oversharing is not vulnerability through communication. Ensure is it appropriate to time, context, and your feeling about the quality of closeness you have achieved. And when in doubt, ask. (5) Invite your partner to experience what it might feel like to have your dreams, interests, or pleasures stripped away not by your choosing. This is an opportunity to build empathy and trust through active listening. (6) Embrace interdependence rather than independence. (7) Negotiate the importance for each person to maintain their own separate identity from the relationship. This may include hobbies, interests, etc. (8) Encourage one another to spend time apart doing the things that foster a deepening closeness to oneself as stated in number 2. (9) Continue to communicate and invite your partner in to what is experienced when you connect with yourself doing the things that reinvigorate, recharge, or make you feel good about who you are. And lastly (10), utilize self-awareness by employing ‘self-checking ins’ with yourself (independently) as you evaluate how efficient balancing is going in your relationship and revisit in communication with your partner as you continue intentionality and consistently practicing vulnerability. And remember to adjust/ adapt as life flexes and pulls. As a disclaimer, blog posts do not act as clinical recommendations outside of the counseling room. For non-patients, blog posts act as supportive self-help. Like and share!