Thanks for your thoughts on the site and for your comments.

Sometimes professional help is vital, but often what we need are common sense solutions. If we think of our psychological and emotional life as a balance of power, we can then ask ourselves what aspects are vying for power in our lives. Is there a balance of power where emotions such as anger are appropriately expressed, or do certain emotions and tendencies have too much power? If we think of it like this, we can then take actions to rebalance our life.

Sometimes, when we are trying to curb an emotion such as anger it is easier and more effective to strengthen it’s opposite. If we try to weaken the emotion that is excessive, our psyche can interpret that as a conflict, and conflicts rarely produce the best results. So when we get a reprieve from anger or whatever emotion it is that is excessive, we can spend that time working to strengthen it’s opposite to achieve balance.

This is just common sense, but it can be an effective way of behaviour modification and it can help us develop an understanding of our unwanted behaviour; we get to see those characteristics from an opposite perspective.

Best,
John

However I will still be your follower & use your techniques to improve.

My daughter left Stanford in mid-semester. (She had the roommate from Hell, a close friend jumped off a tall building, & my mother died, whom she loved.) I send her to a psychiatrist for help. She said,”Mom you need it more than I.”

I talked to the psychiatrist for 3 months; he said nothing. I quit. I asked him to tell me SOMETHING. He said “Get a job.” And this which has been most helpful: “Don’t expect anything from anybody.” A lot of anger was caused by what I thought OTHER people SHOULD do.

My anger, I think, is caused by my feeling stupid. I know I’m not really. I have a college degree from a difficult woman’s liberal college. I’m married to an absolute brilliant man who is extremely kind. I’m crying writing this.

For starters, you need to take a metaphorical breath and slow down long enough to identify what the real problem is. There may seem to be so many problems that it is difficult to get a handle on something to begin fixing things.

My best advice is to seek the services of a good relationship counselor if you can. Next, I would suggest that you identify the elements of your problems together.

Your joblessness is one. Being jobless can lead to a feeling of dis-empowerment and low self-worth. These feelings can trigger unresolved issues from earlier in life. So create an action plan to resolve that — and take the actions. I spoke on this subject in Jobless Reader Fears Losing Home.

You have alluded to Childhood issues and the resulting anger, so you really need to work on coping skills to help you deal with this. You may not resolve these issues the way you might like to, but you can learn to cope better. Your meditation training is a great way to begin. Physical exercise is another. When the body is healthy and exercising, some very good chemicals flood the system that cause us to be more emotionally balanced. Never underestimate the miracle of running

Trying to “fix” your relationship by spending hundreds of hours writing love letters is not going to count as much as spending that time to learn to love yourself more.

If you can take consistent action that shows that you love yourself, such as meditating, running or exercising, and talking to a therapist, you will indeed begin loving yourself properly. You will then have no difficulties loving another or choosing the right partner. All of this of course applies to you both (except the job problem; that’s yours)

Hope that helps, and good luck to you,

John

Hello,
We are having a lot of anger issues, especially on Eric’s part (although there have been very brief periods in the past when its been completely reversed). In addition to several life issues (e.g. my being out of work, etc., which are big issues for Dawn), a large part of the anger on my part stems from my wanting desparately to meand the emotional portion of our relationship (not just meand, but grow!), which is essentially non-existant…as we’ve probably been closer to caring room-mates recently. I’ve spent hundreds of hours writing un-read leters, etc, etc, and its just gone, with no apparent reciprocal interest. Many psychologists say that the most important factor when choosing a mate is to pick one who is willing to work on the childhool/parentally-derived issues which will otherwise ruin what was (in our case) 1-1/2 of the best years/relationship of each of our lives, but seems to have been over-run by unresolved childhood issues & thus progressively going to hell via anger on my part, avoidance of herse, and mutual resentment. I’m aware that I made many early/ongoing mistakes that helped put/keep us here.

Did I also choose the wrong mate – such that we’ll stay caught playing out our infantile issues (think: Harville Hendrix) forever? I know I need to work on my own anger issues (any advice on how?…I’ve just started meditating again, but that may be my only positive habit at present), but even though I believed we were soul mates – hell, I still do -, I would also more than welcome any advice on where to go from here.

P.S. Since my girlfriend wont read them, I have quite a number of heartfelt, humble, kind, and sincere love letters and notes whom I’ll re-address to anyone out there who needs a pick-me-up. Maybe that would make us both feel better.

Thanks for listening.