After the basketball game twenty-six year old attorney Tyler joined his colleagues for a drink at the bar. He was immediately drawn to an attractive woman. Their eyes met, but before he knew it she was flirting with one of his team mates while he was left out in the cold, alone, confused and extremely anxious. Was he just too slow in making his moves? Did the other guys have some special signaling cues that he wasn’t aware of?
Do you get upset when your loved one wants to spend time with a friend or a relative? Does it feel like you are being discarded or abandoned? Are you also angry and ashamed of your feelings since you “know” that there is nothing disloyal or sinister in their motives? You don’t know whether to give into the feelings and have it out with your loved one or tell yourself to suck it up, grow up and step up! You find that if you ignore your feelings, then you take the risk of nursing the pain indefinitely and that isn’t appealing. If you show your hurt and anger then you risk feeling ashamed of your childish behavior and that doesn’t you feel good in the relationship.
Does the stress of fighting with your loved one linger for hours if not days? Does the discomfort of the conflict turn into uncertainty about the status of the relationship? Then you must be aware that all that stress and anxiety clogs up the communication channels preventing transparency about how the relationship is faring from moment to moment. It’s an awful place when neither of you know what the other is thinking or feeling and so you jump to the worst case scenario, adding even more stress to an already charged situation. You are left holding your breath with anxiety about how things will turn out and what the long term damage will be to the nature of your connection. Why wait helplessly to find out how long the crack in the relationship will last or who if anyone should make the move to repair it? There is a much easier way to reestablish the connection you had before the conflict that can make you feel calmer, closer and more secure in the blink of an eye as Bridget and Patrick’s experience shows.
The buildup to the date was always fraught with hope and visions of ‘clicking’ immediately, but Paula always came home disappointed. The dates either fizzled out or followed a predictable path of one-night stands. What angered Paula the most was that the plain girls seemed to get repeat dates that often led to engagements and marriage. She was furious that all her work to attract guys worked for just one date. What did the other girls have that she didn’t? They didn’t seem to have anything special or anything that she would want to emulate. Yet they had the intimate touches, companionship, and gentle humor that made Paula so envious!
Do you get frustrated when your friends and loved ones just don't accept what you are trying to share? Are you so fired up to connect with loved ones in a place of mutual agreement that you try to back up your facts with evidence from gurus, books and famous people? Then your anxiety about being in the same place of shared understanding in order to feel connected gets in the way of your credibility. Learn how your anxiety to connect masks the facts and gets you more stressed, anxious and frustrated. Your loved ones are least likely to listen and accept what you are trying to convey when your anxiety about connecting takes center stage. They aren't going to trust that you have something meaningful to offer as you seem more invested in convincing them than believing in your own truth.
Jody was a loner, loved to read and listen to music. She woke up most mornings burdened with the weight of the day ahead. She felt tired and worn out even before she began the day, anticipating what people might think of her. She was concerned with who was looking over her shoulder, waiting to accuse her of doing something wrong. She expected to encounter situations that she wouldn't be able to handle. Memories of inadvertently upsetting people in the past invaded her mind. Uncomfortable past experiences infected the present, as Jody was whipped up into a froth of palpitating anxiety.
Simple jobs that took fifteen minutes now seemed to take over two hours and slowed down the entire creative process. Colleagues withdrew as she became increasingly irritable and impatient. Meredith tried to compensate by putting in longer hours but that made matters worse. Her work load increased as mistakes piled up. She had to face the fact that her erratic sleep pattern was having a disastrous effect on her performance.
Do you get up your courage to break it off with your girlfriend or boyfriend and then chicken out? Do you regret not being able to go through with what you know you need to do and get angry with yourself? Are you anxious and afraid of hurting your partner's feelings and being the bad guy? Are you praying that your boyfriend or girlfriend will get the message and break up with you instead? Then you are experiencing an overabundance of guilt that leads to stress, insomnia, and lack of concentration on your job. The harder you try to be gentle, give hints, be nice or wait for the perfect moment the worse it gets and your frustration will make you do or say things that make you look like an uncaring monster. So watch this video and get a really good practical tip on making the breakup less personal
Do you want to get close to someone you like and feel attracted to, but hold back because you feel the need to protect yourself from hurt? Are you so torn between these two needs that you hesitate to make decisions and move on with the relationship? When you hesitate your partner may interpret it as a sign that you aren’t that interested and feel hopeless about the relationship. Your loved one is only able to see the part of you that holds back, while the part of you that craves connection is hidden. The entire relationship becomes strained making your fear about hurt even more likely to occur.
Dreading meeting up with loved ones while looking forward to it at the same time causes stress and ruins the occasion. The dread comes from the anxiety that you have to come face to face with an old part of you that you walked away from and that now threatens to take over again. You are back in an old war zone getting ready for battle scars instead of being ready to receive welcomes and loving embraces from family members. Learn 4 ways you can reunite with your old self in ways that empower you so that you can enjoy family reunions in peace and with pride.
