Teen Issues: Practical Tips for Families

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As the parent of a teenager, you might feel alone as you struggle to orient yourself to this new reality of raising an adolescent. It might feel like just yesterday that your child was a cute, precocious toddler, and now suddenly you’re being barraged by one expression of independence after another. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can provide the guidance and support you need to navigate this challenging yet rewarding stage of parenting.

Your son or daughter might be struggling with serious teen issues such as depression, anxiety, or bullying, and you want to know how you can support them through this time.

Or maybe you have more than one teenager at home and you feel like you’re in a battle zone. You just want to have dinner together as a family without any drama once in awhile!

No matter what your specific circumstances are, raising a teenager is a uniquely difficult stage of life. But rest assured that this is normal, and it will pass. In the meantime, there are things you can do to facilitate the process of growth for your child and for your family as a whole.

First, let’s spend some time considering:

“What is a teenager?”

It’s important to define our terms before we start talking about practical tips. A teenager is generally considered to be someone between the ages of 13 and 19. However, the stage of adolescence seems to be lengthening in our culture, in both directions.

Young adults in their twenties are often relying on their parents financially for a long period of time, while preteenagers are exposed to “older” behavior through social media and seem to turn into adolescents younger than they should.

In a sense, adolescence has its own culture, and teens interact in a way that’s different from both children and adults. The ambiguity of these years seems to leave kids without clear expectations of how they should behave; sometimes, they’re expected to take on adult responsibilities, while also expected to respect authority and behave like children.

Cognitively, teens are forming their own individual identity at this stage and along with the pressures of their family and culture, they may find the ambiguity of their life stage to be anxiety-producing.

Also, teenagers, themselves, are constantly changing, as secondary sex characteristics appear and growth spurts take place. They may seem obsessed with their appearances, but they’re exploring uncharted territory. This is the root of adolescence; it’s self-discovery of one’s internal, external, and social realities.

Navigating and Addressing Teen Issues

It’s no wonder that the adolescent years are often full of complicated issues that affect teens’ well-being. Parents can be a great source of support and security during this time. Here are some ways you can help your child navigate these years productively:

1. Recognize differences and remember similarities

Our culture today is much different than it was even a decade ago, and it’s certainly changed from when we were teenagers ourselves. Social media and smartphones have completely altered the social landscape, in both positive and negative ways.

Regardless of your views on the relative benefits and drawbacks of social media, it’s important to acknowledge that most adolescents stay connected to their peers 24/7. News and gossip travel quickly. An embarrassing moment that happened on a Friday night might be all over town by the next morning. It’s hard for kids to avoid gossip.

Social media can also tend to be a highlight reel of our finest moments, which makes it difficult for teens who struggle to compare their everyday mundane life with their peers’ achievements. This can complicate insecurities, self-image problems, etc.

Mixed messages abound online. We often hear of how the media portrays women in unrealistic ways, but this is true of men also; they’re portrayed as strong, successful, and well-dressed, with nary a patchy beard to be seen. A man who’s slightly overweight will probably end up being a comedic punchline rather than the hero of the story.

To boys, this sends the message that if they can’t live up to the perfect hero standard, they might as well find their value in being funny. Kindness, respect, and intelligence are thrown to the wayside.

These issues exist for girls too, and often there’s an even smaller margin for error. High school is an unforgiving social crucible where kids manifest their own insecurities as they bully others and tear each other down. And this bullying can follow everyone around on social media. Before the days of the Internet, you could get away from your bully by going home. Now your bully is always with you.

Not everything has changed, though; some aspects of the teen years are still the same. You were a teenager once yourself, and you can remember your body changing and maybe the cruelty of some of your peers. Even though your teenager may think you can’t relate, you can remind them that your emotions were similar, even if your experiences were different.

You probably experienced conflict with your parents during your teen years, maybe feeling misunderstood, which is a common generational disconnect. Calling these struggles to mind will help you empathize with what your teenager is experiencing now.

2. Open communication

Even though smartphones seem to keep us constantly connecting, texting your child isn’t the same as having a face-to-face conversation. We often have a sense that we are closer than we are, simply because we’re digitally connected.

Just because you can track your child’s every move doesn’t mean you really know him or her. You might know their location and activity, but you don’t know what they’re feeling. That can only come through the face-to-face connection.

Often, parents feel like their teenagers won’t communicate with them. You have to set the example for initiating conversation. Don’t expect much in return. If your relationship has become strained over the years, your child might not feel emotionally safe enough to share things with you. It’s important for you to be proactive in regaining their trust.

Honesty goes both ways, so open up and share your own feelings and perspectives on life. This isn’t to say you should turn your child’s role into that of the parent and expect them to help you with your problems or be a counselor. The goal is simply to have open communication so your child can see your humanness and your willingness to admit that you too have weakness, struggles, and feelings.

3. Be consistent

This can be challenging. Consistency is one of the hardest disciplines for us as humans. We are affected by our moods, fatigue, health issues, the weather, work, and more. Some days you might be able to naturally tolerate your child’s behavior better than others.

Let it reassure you that even though teenagers might proclaim their need for freedom, they often really crave structure and boundaries. They also want to be able to depend on their parents. If you promise to attend an event, be there.

The more consistent you are, the stronger your relationship will be, and the more your child will rely on you. This means that when they have a problem, they’ll be more likely to bring it to you rather than to someone less dependable.

If your child wants to go see a concert they’ve been saving up for, but they’ll have to stay out a little past curfew, you might consider bending the rules and letting them do so if you believe they’re responsible enough. Help them remember to check in with you, but be willing to have discussions and be flexible with certain rules. You want to be firm but not unbendable.

4. Get to know their friends

Adolescents are quick to take their problems to their peers. Even though you might want them to bring issues to you first, that may not always happen. That’s why getting to know their friends can give you a little more peace of mind.

You can do this by opening up your home and providing a comfortable place for teens to hang out. Be present, but don’t hover or be intrusive. You might want to provide a snack and greet them, possibly have some small talk, without injecting yourself into every conversation.

If you gain the trust and respect of your child’s friends, they’re more likely to encourage your teenager to take his or her issues to you for help.

It’s inevitable that some friends will be a bad influence. This is another reason why getting to know their friends is helpful; you’ll be able to identify which ones are troublesome. Be careful starting conversations about friends who are poor influences; make sure you’ve created an environment of open communication and emotional safety, so your child will be more likely to listen to you when you have something less positive to share.

5. Cultivate support

This is possibly the most important tip of all, and a summary of all the ones that have come before. You might feel like you’re ill-equipped to deal with raising an adolescent, especially if your child is acting out in any way or struggling with depression or anxiety.

The most important facet of parenting a teenager is to cultivate support for them and you. Surrounding them with a supportive network including you and their friends will help them get through this challenging stage of life.

There are times when professional support is warranted as well. Many times, teenagers feel validated when discussing issues with a non-parental adult; this helps them feel like they’re being treated with respect, and they might respond better to advice that isn’t coming from a parent. Both individual and family counseling can be beneficial if you’re going through a particularly tough time.

Family counseling provides a setting to have difficult conversations with a neutral, educated moderator. Many teenagers find counseling to be a constructive way to work through issues that have caused arguments and tension at home.

Raising a teenager may be one of the most difficult things you’ll ever do, but learning some helpful ways to frame your approach can help you set yourself up for success. If you’re working to provide emotional support and a consistent structure, you’re already helping your child. Don’t hesitate to reach out Newport Beach Christian Counseling for more help if you need to. This can be a big step towards growth for you, your child, and your family.

Photos:
“Her own girl”, Courtesy of Ian Dooley, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Attitude”, Courtesy of Augusto Lotti, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “The Defiant One”, Courtesy of Matheus Ferrero, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Personality”, Courtesy of Eric Nopanen, Unsplash.com, CC0 License 

Commonly Missed Anxiety Symptoms in Women

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Anxiety impacts people of all genders and ages but usually manifests differently in people of different ages and genders. Anxiety occurs twice as often in women as in men and are they found to experience Generalized Anxiety, Panic Disorder, Phobias, PTSD and Social Anxiety. Symptoms of anxiety in midlife differ than symptoms of anxiety during childhood. Today we will explore what anxiety looks like for women ages 30 to 50.

Women approaching midlife traditionally experience a higher propensity toward anxiety disorders.

Usually, these anxiety disorders fall within generalized anxiety, PTSD, and panic attacks. Hormonal changes that happen during motherhood, pre-menopause, and menopause are all reasons for these anxiety disorders. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers compassionate support and effective strategies to address these challenges and promote emotional well-being.

Women in their thirties to fifties are normally facing the peak of life’s highest demands as they try to meet expectations imposed on women from society. Women embrace the idea that they can “have everything,” including chasing career growth, raising children, managing the home, and maintaining active social lives.

Women measure their lives to other mothers and businesswomen around them and strive to keep up appearances. During these years, suppressed memories of former sexual assault or abuse can often crop up and lead to latent anxiety or PTSD symptoms.

What follows is a breakdown of the symptoms of Generalized Anxiety, Panic Disorder, and PTSD.  You may not realize that some of the symptoms that are outlined below accompany these diagnoses.

Symptoms of Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Generalized Anxiety Disorder manifests itself as excessive anxiety and intense worry about a whole host of things. This worry comes quickly and can be a real challenge to control.

This anxiety is associated with not less than three of the following physical or cognitive symptoms, including fatigue, restlessness, muscle tension, irritability, difficulty concentrating, and sleep disturbances. If you have experienced three or more of these symptoms on a regular basis for 6+ months, you most likely are living with Generalized Anxiety Disorder.

Commonly Missed Anxiety Symptoms in Women:

Difficulty Concentrating

Many women struggle to simply focus on what’s happening around them. They begin a task and then shortly after may realize, “Woah. My mind has totally been wandering.” This lack of focus can become a detriment to productivity.

Sometimes it’s worrying thoughts that are distracting the person with Generalized Anxiety Disorder, but other times that person is unable to focus long enough to complete the task at hand. Either of these can still point to you experiencing anxiety.

Difficulty Sleeping

Tossing and turning is a symptom of anxiety in women ages 30 to 50. Mothers are used to losing solid, uninterrupted sleep when the baby comes, but there could be other signs to look out for. If your day is full of anxiety then your sleep might be interrupted by nightmares or other internal thoughts.

You get in bed to catch some shut-eye and the thoughts that plague you make it nearly impossible to fall asleep. You might eventually be able to drop off to sleep, but sleep is still elusive. If this is part of your nightly routine, you might be suffering from anxiety.

Symptoms of Panic Disorder

A panic attack happens suddenly and escalates to its peak within minutes. It’s diagnosed when four of the below symptoms are met and often can be overlooked because the symptoms are similar to heart disorders, breathing issues and other health problems.

Recurring panic attacks include four or more of the following symptoms. Pounding heart or accelerated heart rate, palpitations, trembling or shaking, sweating, feelings of choking, feeling short of breath or like you are smothering, discomfort or pain in the chest, feeling dizzy, nausea or abdominal distress, unsteadiness, light-headedness, or faintness, paresthesia (numbness or tingling sensations), chills or heat sensations, fear of losing control or “going crazy,” derealization (feelings of unreality) or depersonalization (being detached from oneself), fear of dying.

At least one panic attack is followed by one month of persistent worry of having more panic attacks. Also, there’s a presence of persistent behavioral changes that occur to avoid an attack, including avoiding similar situations that caused the attack in the first place.

Commonly Missed Symptoms:

Accurately Identifying Physical Symptoms as Anxiety

A panic attack itself is extremely noticeable. The physical signs can be frightening for someone who has never suffered through an anxiety attack. However, interpreting the symptoms accurately is harder to do.

Perhaps you have been experiencing tightness of the chest for days and wonder if your heart is healthy. This is one of the ways symptoms aren’t viewed accurately because anxiety may not have been on your radar as the problem.

The Fear of Recurring Panic Attacks

Once you’ve gone through a panic attack, a fear can grip you about when the next anxiety attack will occur. The worry about physically experiencing another panic attack is all-consuming, yet a normal part of the anxiety experience of a panic disorder.

Symptoms of Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder

PTSD symptoms occur after being exposed to death, injury, or violence. This can happen by directly witnessing the trauma, or by learning the details of a trauma indirectly.

PTSD also happens when you’re experiencing the traumatic event in certain ways that include nightmares, flashbacks, intrusive thoughts or exposure to something that triggers traumatic reminders. Completely avoiding thoughts, feelings, or reminders of the traumatic experience can also be a symptom of PTSD. Usually, symptoms must have lasted for one month, but not all symptoms have to exist to be diagnosed with PTSD.

Commonly Missed Symptoms:

Self-Blame

Women often internalize traumatic events and feel responsible for what happened. In an attempt to minimize the pain, they just self-blame. Women are known to shoulder burdens and this behavior puts them at higher risk for experiencing PTSD when they are exposed to a traumatic event.

Christian Counselors Are Ready to Help

Don’t let the pressure of being perfect prevent you from seeking help. If you are women between the ages of 30 and 50 and find yourself relating to what’s been shared in this post, help is out there. Taking the step of finding a counselor can be daunting, but it can lead to incredible freedom in your life. Counseling can help in ways you might not even realize.

Remember, you are not alone. Anxiety is common and treatable. Newport Beach Christian Counseling provides professional, established counselors who will come alongside you during this season of life and equip you with the tools to take on your anxiety.

Photos:
“Portrait,” courtesy of Remy Loz, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Alone,” courtesy of Ann Demianenko, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Nervous,” courtesy of Eddie Kopp, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Trapped,” courtesy of Paul Gilmore, unsplash.com, Public Domain License

Are Christians Allowed to have Sexual Fantasies?

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🎧 Listen to this article

 

References “A Celebration of Sex” by Dr. Douglas E. Rosenau

Getting married doesn’t mean you’ll never notice another attractive person. It’s normal to recognize that someone is good-looking, and as long as you respond with integrity, this isn’t something to feel guilty about. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers practical advice on maintaining integrity and strengthening your marital bond.

God created us to be imaginative, but because of our sin natures we often use the gift of imagination for evil purposes, such as sexually depraved thoughts. By contrast, it’s vital for Christians to cultivate a healthy sexual thought life. If you’re married, this doesn’t mean repressing sexual thoughts; it means channeling them appropriately.

If sex within marriage is good, then thinking about it must be good too, as long as our thoughts love and honor our spouse (for example, avoiding fantasies of degrading or harmful behavior).

But each one is tempted when he is drawn away by his own desires and enticed. Then, when desire has conceived, it gives birth to sin; and sin, when it is full-grown, brings forth death. – James 1:13-14

Sexual sin first gains a foothold in one’s thought life. Here are some tips for avoiding it.

How to Avoid Sexual Temptation and Relationship Problems

Don’t Linger

“Keep your gaze moving rather than lingering.” (79)

Again, it’s normal to simply recognize that someone is attractive, but it’s sin to allow that thought to turn into something more. This means you need to avoid “checking out” anyone other than your spouse.

Casually noticing someone’s appearance is different than looking them up and down with a lingering gaze. Rosenau suggests the “one-second” glance as a helpful rule.

Avoid Ungodly Media Sources

Sexual messages permeate our culture, but this doesn’t mean you’re doomed; after all, alcohol commercials are almost as pervasive, yet you certainly wouldn’t do a shot every time you saw one. Avoid any form of media that encourages adultery, hook-ups, casual sex, etc.

The entertainment industry glamorizes illicit sex, yet often ignores the resulting fallout of heartache, sexually transmitted diseases, unintended pregnancy, broken families, and more.

 

Avoid Adulterous Sexual Fantasies

Keep your thoughts far away from going down this road. Adhere strictly to this rule, especially where it concerns people who are accessible to you. Sin begins in the heart. The more often you cultivate sinful fantasies, the less resistance to temptation you will have when the opportunity presents itself. Cut this sin off at the root where it counts, in your thought life.

Focus on the Positive

We all have physical flaws; don’t focus on your partner’s while fantasizing about perfection. “Continued fantasies about women with big breasts, or men with muscular shoulders, are stupid if your partner is small. The same can be said about not taking the energy to allow your mate to be erotically attractive to you and fantasizing that you are making love to someone else.” (79)

It’s futile and selfish to focus on your partner’s imperfect characteristics; instead, pay attention to the qualities you most admire about them, both inside and out.

Refresh your Relationship

Anything can get worn out over time, even your thought life regarding your sexual relationship. Creative lovemaking starts in the mind; consider new experiences you and your spouse could explore together. You can start with these ideas from Rosenau:

  1. Describe a sexual fantasy out loud, or write it down, including how both you and your partner would participate, where and when it would take place, and why it appeals to you.
  2. Ask your spouse to do the same, and share them with each other.
  3. Elaborate on your spouse’s ideas by adding some of your own. Keep it lighthearted.
  4. If you’re uncomfortable with any aspect of your spouse’s fantasy, share why in an honest, loving way.
  5. Create a list of mutually appreciated ideas, and plan when you’ll implement one or more of them.

Christian Counseling: How it Can Help Your Sex Life

Processing sexual difficulties in your relationship can take a lot of time and patience. Conversations may be challenging, awkward, or lead to arguments or misunderstandings because this is such a sensitive subject.

Professional Christian counseling can help you verbalize your thoughts and feelings and address any conflict the two of you have. Our counselors at Newport Beach Christian Counseling combine both a clinical and Biblical approach that seeks to apply God’s principles to the sexual relationship in marriage.

Photos
“Together at Sunset,” Courtesy of Ryan Holloway, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Romance,” courtesy of Nguyen Hoangnam, Flickr Creative Commons, 2.0 License; “Empty bed,” courtesy of HS Lee, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Indie Cuddles,” Courtesy of Toa Heftiba, Unsplash.com; CC0 License

5 Common Symptoms of Fear of Abandonment

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Connection is a hardwired human need. Fear of abandonment usually stems from the loss of a parent through death, divorce, general absence, or even adoption. If children are limited in their ability to form secure, safe attachments, then these wounds can influence adult behavior and healthy relationships. Newport Beach Christian Counseling provides support and tools to address these deep-seated issues and foster healing.

If a child has endured consistent loss, all of those feelings and memories can be reignited in adulthood when triggered.

If your biological father abandoned you as an infant, that fear and pain might prevent you from having functioning and thriving relationships.

On a broader level, intense fears of losing a connection with a loved one can fuel abandonment concerns. Usually, these fears originate from moments when someone let you down or failed to take care of you. Abandonment can be real or perceived, emotional or physical. Some examples of childhood abandonment include:

  • Children who felt deserted due to divorce, death, foster care, or daycare
  • Children who felt forsaken because of verbal, physical, emotional or sexual abuse
  • Children whose basic needs were not met by their parents.

There are many other forms of abandonment that may be less obvious but by no means less significant.

  • Parents who were emotionally unavailable
  • Siblings who constantly teased their brother or sister
  • Children who felt routinely ignored and were left to solve problems without guidance
  • Adolescents who were criticized and made to feel that making mistakes was prohibited
  • Other abandonment wounds occur from peer rejection, chronic illness, relationships ending or prolonged singleness

Common Fear of Abandonment Symptoms

Fear of abandonment is involuntary. Because of life events that were out of your control, this fear has been instilled inside of you. Here are five symptoms that are associated with a fear of abandonment.

1. Chronic insecurities

Abandonment can cause a severe fear of rejection, damage self-esteem, and bring about a host of other insecurities. The insecurities crop up and, in an attempt to hold onto someone out of fear, you end up pushing him away.

Your thoughts might immediately go to, “I’m unlovable. Nobody will ever love me.” The need for constant reassurance from other people causes stress in relationships. It’s important to be able to affirm yourself without needing someone else to affirm you.

You hold deep feelings of unworthiness. The insecurities intensify as the fear that abandonment will occur again plagues your mind.

2. Re-enacting Trauma

Habits are hard to break. Because of low self-esteem and past experiences, people with a fear of abandonment often find themselves being drawn to the same patterns in adulthood. Many people place themselves in relationships that end with being discarded or abused.

When someone re-enacts trauma it’s a subconscious effort to resolve past trauma. This could manifest by being attracted to the “wrong” person who is noncommittal and hurtful. You begin to project your insecurities on those around you.

As you cling to those around you, they feel suffocated from accusations that are thrown at them like, “You will leave me. You don’t love me anymore. You don’t need me.”

3. Growing Distrust

People with pain from abandonment were usually deserted by someone they trusted. As a result, these people learned to create boundaries and only rely on themselves for protection. They build an emotional barricade that keeps others from getting too close.

This growing distrust coupled with heightened sensitivity can create conflicting behaviors. On the outside, the person acts tough, but on the inside, the criticism, feelings of being misunderstood and other negative comments will cause emotional destruction.

4. Mood Swings

A breakup or fracture in a relationship is hard to handle on a normal day, but for someone with a deep-seated fear of abandonment, a wave of depression and anxiety can crash over you. In an effort to self-protect, you might try to numb your pain or detach completely from it. The feelings of emptiness and loneliness chip away at your heart.

You are constantly paranoid that the ones you love will leave you at any moment, and you over-analyze what others think of you and say about you. You struggle with feeling defensive and misunderstood. A surge of jealousy toward others can consume you.

5. Self-Sabotaging Relationships

Shame and condemnation bombard you daily. An onslaught of thoughts around worthlessness fills your mind. Those who can relate to a fear of abandonment normally find themselves wanting to cling to people, yet wanting to avoid intimacy at the same time.

To someone with a fear of abandonment, the thought of intimacy can mean being controlled and surrendering independence. To risk fully exposing their heart puts them in a vulnerable space. They reject first before they can be rejected by someone else.

Christian Counseling Helps Overcome Fear of Abandonment

Living with a fear of abandonment can make you feel unwanted and not good enough. If you believe you might be struggling with some of the symptoms outlined in this article, a Christian counselor at Newport Beach Christian Counseling can help redirect you to confidence boosting, uplifting thought patterns.

You don’t have to stay stuck. Refuse to allow this fear to become an obstacle between you and healthy relationships. Counseling is a safe place to navigate your story and find the strength to move forward in life.

Photos:
“Self-hate”, Courtesy of Louis Blythe, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Abandoned”, Courtesy of Christopher Windus, Unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Boots,” courtesy of holeysocksart, pixabay.com, CC0 License; “Contemplation,” courtesy of Simon Powell, Flickr CreativeCommons (CC BY 2.0)

Low Sex Drive in Women: Common Causes

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Women are masters at spinning multiple plates. They spend all day taking care of children or working at the office and then come home to cook meals, bathe kids, nurse others back to health and solve daily dilemmas. There’s no clocking out.

When life gets overwhelming and stress takes a toll, there’s little time or energy to think about having sex. Sex can start to seem like one more thing to add to the ever-growing to-do list. Resentment may even grow between husband and wife. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can help couples navigate these challenges and rebuild intimacy in their relationship.

A wife feels like she’s given every ounce of herself and then her husband asks for even more of her. Life can feel like everybody in the house is constantly taking from you, without any replenishment occurring.

The lack of a sexual appetite can create feelings of guilt and shame. Women often think there’s something wrong with them due to the lack of desire to have sex. If there’s no underlying physical problem, take time to explore the reasons for your low sex drive.

Reasons For a Low Sex Drive in Women

Sex, when it’s pleasurable, creates intimacy, oneness and forms a stronger partnership. But if someone has a higher sex drive and initiates frequently, the lower-drive spouse may begin to feel pressured into having sex. Here are a few reasons women may find themselves struggling with a lower sex drive.

1. The Effect of Motherhood on Sexual Desire

Hormone changes can dramatically decrease the desire to have sex. If you’ve been pregnant, or are in the early years of raising children, it can feel like your body no longer belongs to you.

Saying no to sex may be one way a woman regains control over her physical body during the high demands of motherhood.

Some moms will say no simply because they are exhausted from the level of energy exerted taking care of children. Body image insecurities can also create a hesitation to engage in sexual intimacy with your spouse. Discuss some ways pressure can be alleviated and a feeling of romance can be rekindled to create mutual desire.

2. Marriage Problems

If there’s conflict or issues in your marriage this can disrupt your sex life. Who wants to be intimate with someone you aren’t getting along with? Problems in a marriage can make it tough to get in the mood. In this instance, it’s important to enlist the help of a counselor to uncover the root of the issue and seek reconciliation in the relationship.

It’s important to work on marriage problems as they arise in order to reduce their negative impact on the relationship, including the sexual relationship. It’s one thing to believe your marriage is a priority, but it’s important to take practical steps to keep it that way. The more issues fester, the more work it takes to get back to a place of intimacy.

3. Dissatisfaction with the Sexual Relationship

When sex becomes monotonous, it can strip away every trace of desire. A concrete routine makes sex too regimented. As the years pass, it’s easy to fall into a familiar pattern, but this can make sex more dull than delightful. The beginning of a relationship is usually full of passion and intense connection.

Over time, that physical attraction begins to fade or goes in different phases. Sex starts to seem more like a task to accomplish during the day. If emotional needs are being met consistently, this can increase satisfaction in a sexual relationship.

Physical satisfaction isn’t the ultimate goal but pursuing and mutually enjoying each other is. It may take a few years but many couples discover what works for them in order for each partner to feel satisfied.

4. Stagnancy in the Sexual Relationship

Going through the motions will only widen the intimacy gap between husband and wife. If you’re not fully present, it’s impossible to make a connection. Sometimes all that’s needed is a simple change. Verbalizing your needs respectfully can move a relationship forward again.

Maybe you need a different form of affection to boost your sex drive, or your husband to watch the kids while you go for a pedicure, or you need an evening away together to get excitement growing again. Women have different reasons for their low sex drive which means not every woman will recover their sex drive in the same way.

Talk about ways that you aren’t being fulfilled and come up with an action plan to ignite those passionate feelings again. Start the conversation with your spouse about trying something new in your sexual relationship. Sex isn’t meant to feel like an assembly line, but an adventure you experience with your spouse.

Christian Counseling to Discuss Low Sex Drive

There are many reasons why sex drive can diminish. Counseling provides one way to narrow down the search and find the true reason why your sex drive isn’t as high as it should be. A Christian counselor at Newport Beach Christian Counseling can provide a safe, mature environment for you and your spouse to work on your intimacy issues and develop a deeper bond.

Photos
“Girl with Copper Hair,” courtesy of tintenfieber, pixabay.com, CC0 Public Domain License; “A Mother’s Love,” courtesy of Tanja Heffner, unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Happily Ever After”, Courtesy of Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Indie Cuddles”, Courtesy of Toa Heftiba, Unsplash.com; CC0 License

Child Therapy for Behavior Issues

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When kids struggle to communicate their negative emotions verbally, they often resort to acting out or arguing to demonstrate how they’re feeling. They might throw a tantrum, yell, or scream to communicate their anger instead of being able to explain the source of their frustration.

Parents who think they’ve made a reasonable request might not know how to react when their children respond in anger. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can provide valuable strategies for managing such situations effectively.

For example, imagine you’re cooking dinner and you hear your kids arguing in the next room. You feel frustrated because you’re thinking about all of the times you’ve lectured them to get along.

You may place the blame on your children for acting this way; after all, you’ve told them over and over how they should act. A more helpful focus would be to consider whether your expectations are as clear as they should be, and how consistent you’re being with communication and follow-through.

No matter what struggles you might be having in communication or consistency, you can always adjust your approach in order to see benefits.

Part one of this series discussed reflective listening as a tool to make children feel heard. Reflective learning helps the speaker feel that they’re understood and can connect a child to his or her emotions, as well as coach them to comply with your instructions. In this article, we’ll discuss therapeutic limit-setting.

Therapeutic Tips for Parents

As a therapist, some of my unchanging standards are unconditional positive regard, a belief that the client has the inner ability to change, and empathy.

Ensure that you are approaching your child with unconditional positive regard by not allowing their behavior to lead you to judgment or condemnation of who your child is as a person. This will create an environment of safety and security that allows your child to feel protected.

It’s important to remind yourself that your child is the only one who possesses the ability to change his or her behavior.

This means you’re not responsible to make your child learn or understand; you can only do the best you can to communicate while encouraging your child to grow in confidence that he or she is able to overcome difficulties.

Empathy involves valuing your child’s emotions and experiencing and honoring them as an individual, as well as honoring your own individuality. This makes your child feel known and seen as a worthwhile person.

How to Set Limits for Your Children

Using these standards as a foundation, we can apply the following model to set limits for our children’s behavior. This model is based on Garry Landreth’s teaching on how to set limits in child-centered play therapy. It’s called the ACT model of limit setting.

The ACT model is comprised of three components: acknowledge your child’s feelings, communicate the limit, and target the alternatives.

Step One: Acknowledge Your Child’s Feelings

We introduced this topic in our discussion on reflective listening. Acknowledging a child’s feelings means you verbally reflect what you think their current thoughts and emotions are. Pay attention to facial expressions, body language, and both verbal and nonverbal cues.

Acknowledging your child’s feelings makes them feel understood and helps them connect emotions with how they’re acting.

Example: “I know you are feeling very angry with me right now. So angry you want to hit me.”

Step Two: Communicate the Limit

You set a boundary that does not allow your child’s behavior outside of certain limits. This won’t stop a child from feeling upset or angry. Instead, they’re used to stop hurtful, destructive, or disrespectful behavior.

“… but you may not hit me.”

Step Three: Target Alternatives

Once you’ve set a limit on a certain behavior, tell your child how you expect them to behave instead. Let them know how they can express their emotions in a safe and responsible way.

“You may choose to hit your pillow or you may choose to hit a beanbag.”

Limit-setting isn’t just a way to give your child options, even though choices are a part of the model. We use choices in order to acknowledge that children have the ability to control their own behavior.

This helps to teach them the difference between impulse and action, and it is an empowering way to give them the tools to learn self-control.

This model is helpful for parents as well. You no longer feel like you have to control your child’s every move, or that your authority is dependent on whether your child feels like listening to you.

Instead, you’re placing the responsibility for obedience on your child, while focusing on your own responsibility to set expectations and follow through with appropriate consequences when those expectations are not met.

Consequences can be used as Step 4 of the ACT model. A child who has chosen to hit their parent instead of using an acceptable way of expressing their emotions should experience a consequence for their behavior:

“When you chose to hit me, you chose to lose all of your TV time this week.”

Speaking this way might not come naturally in the beginning, but it eventually becomes intuitive and helps both you and your child know what to expect. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers guidance to make this transition smoother and more effective.

This tool is something that is used daily in child therapy settings, and it is highly beneficial. It gives children structure and consistency and teaches them emotional self-regulation, allowing them to grow and flourish.

Photos
“Reconciled,” courtesy of Eye for Ebony, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Girl,” courtesy of Patrick Fore, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Pout,” courtesy of martakoton, pixabay.com, CC0 Public Domain License; “Parenting,” courtesy of marcisim, pixabay.com, CC0 Public Domain License

Codependency Traits in the Church

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“Codependency” is the commonly used term to describe the obvious accommodations that a person makes in order to adjust to an addict’s dependence on substances.

Consequently, it is damaging on two fronts: the addict is reinforced in their unhealthy behavior, and the enabler is likely over-functioning in order to compensate for the lifestyle of the addict. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can help both the addict and the enabler work through these patterns, offering support and guidance for healthier behaviors, boundaries, and relationships.

Codependents may feel as if they are some sort of hero for constantly saving the addict from themselves. But in reality, they are not helping the addict recover and are only compounding their issues. You could say that the codependent person has a control addiction in the same way that the addict does for a particular substance.

Substance addiction may be an extreme example of codependency, but it serves as a helpful one when we look at the nature of the human relationships trapped in this codependent situation.

The Bible teaches that every one of us is addicted to sin. The apostle Paul asserts in Romans 6:17, “though you used to be slaves to sin, you have come to obey from your heart the pattern of teaching that has now claimed your allegiance.”

There is no doubt that the church can become an incredible force for good in breaking addictions and providing a community where codependency traits can be eradicated from people’s relationships.

The New Testament is full of clear direction pointing towards God’s design for Christians to assist each other in growing and maturing spiritually. Some of these instructions include teaching, rebuking, correcting, training, encouraging, reminding, and restoring. All of these things are intended to help someone transition from an unhealthy reliance on another person to a healthy reliance on God.

However, codependency can become an issue for church staff members as they seek to help and pastor many individuals who are struggling in their lives. If leaders fail to maintain a healthy balance in their pastoral lives, codependent relationships can thrive, and burnout is never far away. Simply put – Christian leaders must look after themselves.

Though the main point of the parable is about being ready for the His return, Jesus touches on the subject of personal responsibility in his Parable of the Ten Virgins (Matthew 25:1-13). When the foolish virgins find that they have run out of oil because they didn’t bring enough, they then attempt to borrow more from the wise virgins who refuse because they only brought enough for themselves.

Christians are ultimately responsible for their own faith. God never intended that we should be either the object or the source of some else’s faith. We must all seek after the Lord for ourselves, knowing that He is the one who can fulfill us and grant us strength and healing.

Depending on the Holy Spirit vs. Depending on Flesh

“This is what the Lord says: ‘Cursed is the one who trusts in man, who draws strength from mere flesh and whose heart turns away from the Lord’” (Jeremiah 17:5). The clear message of this verse is that God is to be the church’s source of strength. So don’t place your faith in the church leaders or unbiblical systems of doctrine, but instead look to the Lord.

Many would describe the Christian life as “just one beggar showing another beggar where to get some bread.” This is a brilliant quote as it sums up what the Christian faith is all about. We all need the Lord and our aim should be to point each other to Him.

The apostle Paul says in Philippians 2:12, “Continue to work out your salvation with fear and trembling.” James says in James 1:2-3, “Consider it pure joy, my brothers and sisters, whenever you face trials of many kinds because you know that the testing of your faith produces perseverance.”

These passages demonstrate the process of refinement that God brings about by means of trials that drive the Christian to seek Him out in the midst of the trouble. Of course, it is often much easier to simply instruct someone and think you have all the answers to give when they hit a rough patch in the life.

We must be careful not to try and think on behalf of others. This behavior disempowers the individual and will contribute to their dependent tendencies. It is always more helpful to try and enable the person to become the driving force behind tackling their own issues.

The church can help us with this! The church community should be a place where we spur each other on to grow in our relationship with the Lord Jesus Christ. Codependency runs the risk of robbing people of the things that they need to experience in order to teach them dependence on God.

“What a person desires is unfailing love; better to be poor than a liar.” – Proverbs 19:22

“One who is full loathes honey from the comb, but to the hungry even what is bitter tastes sweet.” – Proverbs 27:7

These verses from Proverbs are excellent because they deal with the different ways people cover up their need for love. The first one addresses our desperate need for an eternal and unfailing love and how we might exchange this for something like money in order to feel secure.

The second one describes a person who does not have a sense of fulfillment, so they are more likely to search for it in places where it cannot be found. Both of these passages describe the motives of a codependent person. People with issues of codependency tend to cover up a hunger for love with something else. In turn, they fail to receive all that God has for them.

Those who are more susceptible to codependency are often seeking after a predictable way to attain a sense of value that has been lacking in their past.

The church is a wonderful environment in which we can be unconditionally loved and accepted, but it can also become a place where performance and pressure are rife. Too often, people are motivated to get involved in church in order to find self-worth. But this is never a good motivation in and of itself.

Christians must discover freedom outside of the “performance mentality” that demands perfect results in every sphere of their lives. Too often, those who are engaged in a codependent relationship have a tendency to behave in this manner.

Codependency is in direct contradiction to the unconditional “agape” love of God. It’s an attempt to exert control over how others feel or think about us, but it is a bottomless pit. You will never be able to do enough, please enough people, or perform to the level you think you should be achieving. When it comes to working for the church in either a voluntary or an employed capacity, we must carefully examine our motives.

There is so much freedom in knowing that God’s love is unconditional. When we are securely rooted in the finished work of Christ, we derive our ultimate value from Him. This helps us avoid attempting to overrule the work of God in other people’s lives. We must never think we know better than the Lord when it comes to dealing with the lives of those around us.

Dependency vs. Interdependency – The Culture of the Church

Of course, the church should be a place where we lean on each other. We are one body in Christ Jesus and must learn to be interdependent and selfless in our service to Him. But Jesus continues to challenge us just as he did with His disciples and listeners. Look at some of the key questions Jesus asked.

  • Why do you look at the speck of sawdust in your brother’s eye and pay no attention to the plank in your own eye? (Matthew 7:3)
  • Why then is it written that the Son of man must suffer much and be rejected? (Mark 9:12)
  • Who do you say I am? (Matthew 6:15)
  • Do you want to get well? (John 5:6)
  • Why are you so afraid? (Matthew 8:26)

Jesus was a master at asking questions that cause us to search our souls and to think for ourselves. By these means, Jesus wants us to learn how to become people of bold and courageous faith, who both lean on Him and are able to take responsibility for their own spiritual lives alongside bolstering others in their faith.

Jesus calls us to be dependent on Him. This is, however, the only truly dependent relationship we should maintain. Of course, we should be interdependent in community – supporting one another, encouraging, and challenging each other. But we should always seek to harbor a special dependency on Christ, who is our master.

A wise piece of advice given to any person working in the ministry would be this: “The main thing you will give your congregation – just like the main thing you will give God – is the person you become.” We must embrace our testimony and utilize our life story for the glory of God. We must always seek to take care of our own issues in a healthy and appropriate way, and must never fall into the trap of thinking we possess all the answers for others.

Every single person possesses God-given ability to help others. As Christians, it is a central calling that we be a blessing to those in need. But we must be very careful not to enter into a relational dynamic of codependency, as this is never God-honoring and can be very damaging.

We must always seek to listen to the voice of God first and foremost. He is the one who can truly heal, restore and transform those people who are in need. We must never try and be the savior to others, as attempting to replace Jesus in the life of another is a dangerous and foolish endeavor.

Remember, interdependency in the context of a church community can be a wonderful blessing of rich joy, healing, and companionship. But we must always remember who is at the head of the body. Jesus is the only one who is able to guide our steps and lead us on into fullness of life; we are simply his vessels and the tools in His hand. Newport Beach Christian Counseling encourages individuals and families to remain centered on Christ as they navigate relationships and find healing within their community.

Photos
“Break”, Courtesy of Tanja Heffner, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Scripture,” courtesy of Aaron Burden, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Torn,” courtesy of Jiri Wagner, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Walking in the Park”, Courtesy of Mabel Amber, Pixabay.com; CC0 License

Social Anxiety Disorder: How to Manage and How to Thrive

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Imagine being caught in a riptide. Your breath hitches and heart starts beating so loudly that you can’t hear the crashing waves. You are paralyzed and don’t know whether you will sink or swim. Suddenly, you feel energy flood your body and every hair on your back and arms stand up with anticipation.

You begin to swim, focused on nothing else except the beach. All of this takes less than 15 seconds, but when you get out of the current, you feel like you’ve been swimming for 15 hours.

This example of a flight-or-fight response is similar to the ones people experience in most dangerous, life-threatening situations. Our brain assesses the risk and tells our body how to respond

It is called an automatic stress response to danger, and under it, the body moves faster, bleeds less, and floods muscles with energy hormones while the brain disengages from all other input other than the main threat. This response is instinctual and meant to aid in survival.

But what if this happened every time you had to talk with someone new? Or every time you went to class, or church, or a party? What if this automatic stress response kicked in at coffee shops and shopping malls and yoga studios, and it always seemed like you were being swept out to sea, even when you were on a business call? This kind of survival response can be exhausting when triggered all the time, and can seriously affect a person’s quality of life.

Social anxiety disorder is like this. People with social anxiety fear embarrassment, being judged and evaluated negatively by others, and finding themselves in situations where they could be scrutinized. This fear leads to the avoidance of social situations altogether. Newport Beach Christian Counseling can help individuals address these fears, build confidence, and develop effective coping strategies to manage social anxiety and participate more fully in life.

Sometimes this anxiety can be overwhelming. Social anxiety disorders correlate with a low quality of life. There is a greater risk of dropping out of school, experiencing lower work productivity, and receiving a lower income (Edmund Bourne, Ph.D. 2015). For this to be a clinical diagnosis, however, this fear or anxiety must stick around for six months or longer.

Humans crave connection and we are created for community and positive interaction. Social interaction is necessary for people to thrive. Just as food helps fuel the body, social interaction helps fuel the brain. When a social anxiety disorder is ignored, it puts a person at risk for unhealthy thoughts and behaviors.

While anxiety in itself can be helpful (it typically serves as a prompt to grow or change), paralyzing anxiety can be dangerous. The key is to learn how to manage the anxiety so that it is not so overwhelming that the person is unable to function.

Planning Recovery

Several interventions exist for addressing and treating social anxiety, but the most important thing to know is: ask for help. Help can look different for each person but exists in many forms. Read a book on different treatment approaches, enlist the support of family and/or friends, or meet with a therapist. Just take the first step!

We hope this post will provide you with an overview of successful interventions and give you examples of common treatment plans for this disorder. The four following approaches can help people cope with their social anxiety:

1. Relaxation Training
2. Core Belief Transformation
3. Exposure Tasking
4. Personal Assertiveness Practice

While these four things aren’t the totality of intervention for a social anxiety disorder, they give a good overview of what a therapist might do to help someone manage their diagnosis.

Relaxation Training

We tend to perform best when we feel relaxed. We are more alert and energized, and willing to approach uncomfortable situations. With an anxiety disorder, however, relaxation seems out of reach. This is partly because the fight-or-flight response is antithetical to the relaxation response.

It takes practice. Relaxation training decreases an overactive heart rate, respiration, high blood pressure, muscle tension, and oxygen consumption. It calms the overly analytical brain and increases skin resistance and alpha wave activity in the brain. (Edmund Bourne, Anxiety and Phobia Workbook, 2015).

Since people with social anxiety disorders often have past negative social experiences, they avoid future experiences in an attempt to mitigate any humiliation or degradation they might perceive. This avoidance ultimately strengthens the anxiety response to social situations. With mastery of relaxation techniques, the same person can gain confidence in social situations (even if they had past negative experiences).

Relaxation training can take the form of guided imagery, yoga, progressive muscle relaxation, and abdominal breathing. The method one chooses isn’t as important as the frequency with which they practice their chosen method. Twenty to thirty minutes a day can produce positive, life-changing results.

This is typically the first step to overcoming social anxiety. If you can relax, you can better assess risks. Relaxation helps free a person to face the situation they have previously learned to avoid.

Core Belief Transformation

Our thoughts are powerful, and when they are unhelpful, they can be powerful barriers to overcoming social anxiety. Our willingness to participate in social activities is directly related to how we think about ourselves, about others, about the situation, etc. Negative thoughts lead to increased anxiety.

We find that the more intense the thoughts are, the more intense the feelings are. The goal of managing any anxiety disorder is to reduce anxiety levels so that one is free to engage their social world. For example, someone with a social anxiety disorder might think and believe that they will look foolish if they speak in a meeting.

The more they think this, the higher their anxiety climbs, making it almost impossible for them to speak up. If they can change their belief that they are “foolish” and switch it to something less intense, like “I’m concerned others won’t like my ideas,” they are freer to explore ways to challenge that thought and speak up.

Edmund Bourne, Ph.D., recommends five questions for lowering the intensity of negative thoughts and challenging mistaken beliefs:

1. What objective evidence do you have for this belief?
2. Does this belief ALWAYS hold true for you?
3. Does this belief take into account the negative and positive outcomes? (Does it look at the whole picture?)
4. Does this belief give you peace of mind or promote your well-being?
5. Did you choose this belief on your own, or did it come from your experience growing up in your family?

Asking these questions will better help a person develop new thoughts that are less anxiety-provoking. While difficult to do at first, a supportive therapist can help those with social anxiety challenge their core beliefs so they can engage their social world without fear.

Exposure Tasking

Social anxiety disorder acts like a phobia. When you are afraid of something, you tend to avoid it. People with social anxiety disorder avoid social situations. They experience anxiety when confronted with particular stimuli (speaking in public, taking public transportation, attending parties, etc.), and when they avoid that stimulus, their anxiety is reduced.

The avoidance is like a reward-system and the more it happens, the more it creates a pathway in the brain to allow it to happen. The brain starts making the connection automatically, and the avoidance becomes second-nature. When anxiety reactions get hardwired into a person’s brain, it can be difficult to re-route.

However, our brains are built to adapt, change, and form new connections. This is called neuroplasticity. This rewiring process is also called exposure and exposure helps people unlearn “the connection between anxiety and a particular situation.” (Bourne, 2015).

Exposure tasking allows a person to enter a scary situation, feel their anxiety rise, endure the anxiety, and realize they can survive it. This ultimately allows that person to unlearn their anxiety response and gain confidence in their ability to handle it.

The key to doing this is to break down the exposure tasks into manageable chunks. The anxiety can be mastered in successive stages instead of all at once.

For example:

Fred is afraid of public speaking. He chooses exposure tasking to help him conquer his fear. He first imagines himself on stage speaking in front of a crowd. While doing this, he acknowledges all his thoughts and feelings.

If they are negative, he replaces them with positive. Next, he practices in front of a mirror. After he feels comfortable, he gathers a group of friends. On this goes until he is able to face the anxiety-provoking situation, literally rewiring his brain.

Personal Assertiveness Practice

The final approach that can help someone cope with social anxiety is assertive communication. This is a direct, non-reactive, clear, and honest form of self-expression that allows a person to interact with others in a non-anxious way.

The key elements of assertive communication include the following:

  • Identifying personal needs;
  • Describing facts;
  • Sharing personal feelings;
  • Making personal requests;
  • Providing positive reasons for need.

For example, if Fred was angry at a friend who always canceled plans, his first step would be to figure out his need. His need would be reliability. After identifying this need, he would sit down with his friend to discuss the facts in a non-emotional way. “You have canceled plans the past 5 times we’ve made them.”

Then he’d share his feelings. “This makes me feel unsure and confused.” Finally, he’d make his request by providing positive reasons for it. “I need you to keep plans when we make them or not make plans until you know for sure that you can go. It will help me feel confident in our relationship and give me assurance that we are in a good place.”

Even if Fred’s friend did not respond well, Fred has demonstrated that he can stand up for himself and not let his anxiety rule his friendships or create unhealthy relationships. Practicing this is key to being able to do this in everyday situations.

Conclusion

These four areas of intervention are just a small overview of what treatment looks like for social anxiety disorder. This is not a substantial how-to, as much as it is an informative look at what needs to happen when approaching this diagnosis.

There is help, intervention, and healing for social anxiety. Recovery is achievable, and with the right supports in place, it is a journey worth taking. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers a supportive environment to guide individuals through their recovery, helping them build confidence, overcome fears, and embrace social interactions with greater ease.

Photos

“Blue Sea”, Courtesy of Clem Onojeghuo, Pexels.com; CC0 License; “Relaxation,” courtesy of Kosal Ley, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Time to Think,” courtesy of Enrico, Flickr Creative Commons; “Group Therapy”, Courtesy of Rudamese, Pixabay.com; CC0 License

Christian Marriage Counseling: Should You Try It?

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If you and/or your spouse are considering marriage counseling, you should not be surprised if you encounter a great deal of resistance. Typically, when a couple reaches the point of needing a marriage counselor the situation has become bad enough that they are even willing to talk to a stranger about it.

In many cases, shame has entered the picture, making the choice to seek counseling even more difficult and more complex. By this point, you are probably asking if there is any real value to marriage counseling, or if it even works.

It should come as no surprise that the answer is yes, but that its relative success depends entirely on both parties’ level of dedication both to each other and the counseling process.

Though there is a spectrum of opinions on marital counseling, the fact remains that you are attempting to fix the one relationship that is most valuable to you, so you might need to get past a degree of reluctance to start down the road. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers a supportive environment to help couples overcome hesitation and work toward a healthier, stronger marriage.

Arguments in Favor of Marriage Counseling

1. The Need for a Mediator

Unfortunately, when a couple realizes that their marriage needs help in the 11th hour, communication deteriorated to the point that they are unable to talk through the important issues without arguing.

They need someone to play referee and send each of them back to their corners, to make calls on fouls or boundary violations, and help redirect the way they talk to each other. This way, each person’s side can be voiced and emotional responses toned down.

As our anxiety or anger grows our ability to reason declines, as well as our ability to bond. Only when both spouses contain or manage their emotions (with deep breathing techniques, for example) is mature conversation about tough subjects possible.

Until both parties are able to control their emotions, it is necessary to have a third party on hand to prevent important conversations from degenerating into an argument.

2. The Need for a Fresh Perspective

A second class of issues that can develop within the marriage relationship is conflict that has sometimes formed over the course of years or even decades. A couple can find themselves trapped in unhealthy cycles of feeling, thinking, and communicating. When these problems are left unaddressed over time one can begin to feel that change will never happen.

Talking with a counselor can not only bring a fresh set of eyes to the problem but should ideally add some expertise and experience to the mix. Therapists have the skills to help you break down the walls you’ve put up in response to painful relationship problems, understand the core issues, and establish workarounds to eliminate their effects.

3. The Need to Bring Hope

Long-term persistence of marital issues can lead to that the situation will never (and indeed can never) change. Staying together while feeling like this will only result in living in a world where your relationship is a mere shell of what you’d hoped it would be.

Making the decision together to seek help from a marriage counselor is a hopeful sign for the future. This simple action proclaims that overcoming your problems and finding a new and better way to relate, encourage emotional growth, and encourage relational health is possible.

Remember that while happiness may be a by-product of having one’s needs cared for, it is not the main goal. Feelings of happiness come and go, but feelings of gratitude and trust are ultimately more.

4. Improving Bonding by Overcoming Hardship as a Team

Marital problems can make the relationship seem like a war zone. You begin to feel like you are stuck in the same foxhole shooting at each other.

Once you come to admit what a terrible waste of time it is, a therapist can help you learn to work together against a common foe. Working as one, you will learn to safely navigate the battlefield together, or even better, fortify your firing position to create a space of strength from which the two of you can face anything life brings.

Have you heard the term “war buddy bond”? When soldiers have experienced war together they develop a bond deeper than family ties, stronger than friendship or affection. It is a deep-rooted interest in the other person’s wellbeing which drives their ability to fight for them when they are fighting through internal or external turmoil.

Sometimes, “we have met the enemy and he is us”. We allow negative self-talk to control our thoughts. Spouses who are closely bonded can point out each other’s negative attitudes without initiating feelings of shame. Instead, they can help the struggling spouse back to a more accurate self-evaluation.

There is a kind of beauty in fighting the battle together. Eventually, you will come to realize that you are actually living out your marriage vows by loving, honoring, cherishing, and being there for each other as God has designed for you to be.

5. Doing Hard Things

People typically take the path of least resistance. This is not uncommon or something to feel bad about. However, nearly everything meaningful in life requires effort – sometimes a lot of it. Of course, there are occasions when you need to “take your ball and go home” but giving up too easily and too often can make it one’s default setting.

Unless our marriage has been damaged such that there is nothing left worth saving, there is typically something good left that is worth the effort to try to save. Something in our spouse caused us to say, “I want to be with this person for the rest of my life.” This is something to keep firmly in mind.

Working through marital issues together with a counselor is the best way to return to the place where you recall what you loved about your spouse, and also to discover some new things about them to love.

6. The Stakes are Huge

When a marriage fails, it never does so in a vacuum. Every single relationship that the couple has is impacted. It goes without saying that the failure usually causes devastation to both partners, and in more ways than one. Any children involved can be so heavily damaged by it that it can destroy their capacity for trust in relationships and affect their ability to commit to marriage, themselves.

Meanwhile, relationships with extended family are fractured, even when a divorce is “amicable”. Family bonds are damaged as well, and though they may survive, they will be forever changed.

Friendships can fracture, as mutual friends of the divorcing couple are forced to take sides. In the same way and for the same reasons, church relationships can become strained. Finally, there is still a stigma rightly associated with divorce. Even if you eventually move past it, at some level you will always feel regret.

Arguments Against Marriage Counseling

In spite of the arguments in favor of Christian marriage counseling, but it isn’t for everyone. A number of things should be considered, such as your current emotional state, the level of willingness, and whether you have the diligence to find a suitable counselor. The following factors should be considered if you are thinking about marriage counseling.

1. Both Spouses Need to Be (or Become) Committed

It happens quite frequently that one or both partners experience some hesitation to begin counseling, although those feelings typically dissipate as the benefits of counseling become more obvious. However, when one spouse wants counseling and nags their partner into attending, causing the resistant party to sit there with arms folded, refusing to cooperate, no real progress is going to be made.

It takes hard work to bring about change, and a spouse continues to resist the process shows themselves to be unwilling to change. If your spouse is recalcitrant it doesn’t mean that you shouldn’t try to get therapy, but when their resistance continues through therapy sessions, it might be wiser to end the therapy.

But if the spouse is willing to continue the therapy and shows any signs of engaging, even with a bad attitude, it is best to give the therapy a chance. How they’re engaging is less important than the fact of their engagement.

However, if the spouse sits there in silence, or only responds with negativity or criticism, it is probably best to just be done. In order for any progress to be made, both partners have to want it to work.

2. It May Be Too Late

Sadly, some couples don’t try to get counseling until they are way past the point of no return. If communication has deteriorated to the point that words are only being used as weapons, no progress can be made in or out of counseling.

Progress can only be gained when both partners are willing to humbly repent of their need to be right, vindicated, and to pay back their spouse for injuries (real or imagined).

Both spouses need to be convinced that something was good in the relationship that though lost, can still be saved. This can only happen when we can admit to and repent of our part in the breaking of the relationship. Lack of forgiveness spells the beginning of the end in any kind of relationship.

3. Spouses Have to Want to Change

If a spouse is involved in infidelity, agrees to counseling, but refuses to stop the affair, progress in therapy will be impossible.

Perhaps a spouse is engaging in destructive, disruptive or damaging behaviors and refuses to get help. This means that they are choosing their behavior over their marriage, which amounts to a violation of their marriage vows. They essentially saying that they will hurt whoever they want in order to please themselves.

Such a statement will bring nothing but heartache to the betrayed partner. Such a spouse no longer has your best interests at heart and has already left the marriage at least on an emotional level.

4. Individual Issues May Need to be Worked Through First

Marriage counseling may not currently be the best choice if either or both spouses have a history of serious emotional trauma before the marriage. Extra work may need to be done so that the person can separate old emotions related to the trauma from new emotions associated with the marriage.

Some couples may begin counseling together, only to split off into individual sessions in order to focus on their individual needs. If progress is made individually, therapists may reconvene the couples’ counseling or stop sessions if progress was sufficient.

5. Know Your Limits

There can be any number of personal reasons why counseling wouldn’t be beneficial though a person may have to give counseling a try in order to figure out what those reasons are. People sometimes have a pathological aversion to taking advice or are so pridefully convinced that they are right, that no one can convince them that they are wrong.

However, if a person with that attitude actually wants counseling, it is a good indicator that they recognize that there is a problem in the first place and want change. The extent of the possible change won’t be evident to them until they give counseling a try.

Anxiety at the very thought of marriage counseling could prove incapacitating, preventing one from ever seeking it. In that situation, a psychiatrist can help you find the proper medication to reduce your anxiety to the point that you can get counseling.

6. Finding the Right Counselor

Sadly, there are some therapists who provide really bad counsel. For example, a counselor advised a woman in marriage counseling to have extra-marital affairs in order to better understand the adulterous feelings she had – behavior which would be disastrous to the marriage.

If you become persuaded that your therapist is not helping fix your marriage problems, break things off, immediately. This doesn’t mean that you throw in the towel on counseling, but it is better to have no counseling than worthless or destructive counseling.

Typically, it is better to get counseling for seemingly insurmountable problems in a marriage, than not. If both spouses desire to work at it with a Christian Counselor at Newport Beach Christian Counseling then there is a good possibility of success.

Photos:
“Couple on Seine,” courtesy of Zoetnet, Flickr Creative Commons, 2.0 License; “Conversation”, courtesy of Christin Hume, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Committed,” courtesy of Zoriana Stakhniv, unsplash.com, CC0 License; “Heartache,” courtesy of Takmeomeo, pixabaycom, CC0 Public Domain License

How to Navigate the Five Primary Grief Stages

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Grief is an incredibly difficult thing to go through. At some point, we are all likely to experience it in some form – whether through the loss of a loved one, the breakdown of a relationship, or even a personal failure. You may have heard of the “stages” of grief.

These are often used to try and define the different coping mechanisms we employ in response to grief, as we come to terms with loss and heartache. But they are by no means one-size-fits-all – people will experience grief in very individual ways. Newport Beach Christian Counseling offers support to help individuals navigate their unique grief journey, providing personalized approaches to healing and coping.

Simply put, there is no one right path of grief, and you should never feel under pressure to conform to one particular way. David Kessler, an expert on grief, writes that the stages of grief “are a part of the framework that makes up our learning to live with the one we lost. They are tools to help us frame and identify what we may be feeling.”

He suggests that they are not merely some sort of “stations of the cross” to be performed in order. In fact, not everyone experiences every one of them, or if they do, it is not in a set order. He hopes the stages of grief will provide a knowledge of the landscape of grief, better helping us to handle the loss. Grief will be as unique as the individual experiencing it.

Grief can be incredibly lonely. Despite your best efforts, you may not be able to fully explain how you feel, making it an extraordinarily isolated place to be. That said, there are some recognizable elements of the grieving process that can be common to many people.

Indeed, it is important to become familiar with these, so that you are prepared for when they hit. Again, it is vital to stress that there is no “right” way to grieve, and each person will develop their own individual methods of coping.

Christian Hope for the Grieving

While it might feel as if no one truly understands what you are going through, the Lord knows everything there is to know about it. Indeed, not only does God promise to come close to us in our pain and heartache, but he also declares, in Revelation 21:4, that “He will wipe every tear from [your] eyes. There will be no more death or mourning or crying or pain.”

Christ knew the depths of earthly grief and can identify with our deepest pain. At the grave of Lazarus, the Bible says that “Jesus wept” (John 11:35). Of course, Jesus went on to resurrect Lazarus, demonstrating his ultimate power over the “final enemy” of death.

The Longterm Process of Grief

Grief is a process and should be viewed in the long-term. Too often, we look for a “quick fix” or the ability to rush through the prescribed “stages of grief,” failing to give ourselves ample time. It is important to note, however, that even with all the time in the world, the pain may never fully leave you.

Grief can be a long process, and though the pain may ease over time and as you deal with it alongside friends, family and a trained counselor, it may always be with you.

It is worth looking at the latest version of the DSM (Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders), which is used by mental health professionals to analyze and diagnose their patients. In the part about depressive disorders, it has a caveat that demonstrates how important it is to distinguish between grief and actual mental disorders:

“Careful consideration is given to the delineation of normal sadness and grief from a major depressive episode. Bereavement may induce great suffering, but it does not typically induce an episode of major depressive disorder.”

Death is an Amputation

So, with this in mind, it is important to point out that there should never be an “end goal” for grief – it is a process that must be managed carefully and sensitively. A trained counselor will assist you to move forward in your life while always honoring the person lost.

Theologian and writer C.S. Lewis, who lost his beloved wife, wrote that “the death of a beloved is an amputation.” He also wrote of how no-one ever truly “gets over” a loss like that, but that they learn to adapt to their new life without having the person around.

In his book, A Grief Observed, Lewis wrote: “He will probably have recurrent pains in the stump all his life, and perhaps pretty bad ones, and he will always be a one-legged man. There will be hardly any moment when he forgets it. Bathing, dressing, sitting down and getting up again, even lying in bed, will all be different. His whole way of life will be changed. All sorts of pleasures and activities that he once took for granted will have to be simply written off.”

Grief and love are intimately related. You only grieve someone so much because you loved them so much.

Grief is Not Just About Death

When we think of grief, our minds often jump to the aching loss of someone we love. But as we mentioned earlier, there are plenty of other life events that can cause you to experience a season of grieving.

Examples could include:

  • Loss of a pet
  • Loss of employment
  • Loss of physical or mental capabilities
  • Separation from someone you love
  • End of a friendship or relationship
  • Infidelity
  • Divorce

These are highly emotional events and may evoke a reaction of grief similar to the death of someone close to you.

The Five Grief Stages

With that being said, it is worth looking at a few of the more prominent aspects of grief to gain a more general understanding of the grieving process and what it usually looks like.

Elizabeth Kübler-Ross’s five stages of death from her book “Of Death and Dying serves as the most significant work in this area. Though somewhat trivialized through the years, these aspects are still incredibly helpful to understand when exploring the topic of grief. She defined the five grief stages as:

1. Denial

Denial is a typical reaction to the immediate shock that hits you when something emotionally devastating occurs. It can be a way of coping that can help us to get through a loss during those painful and traumatic moments.

2. Anger

Though it may seem counterintuitive, anger may at times be helpful because it helps us release our emotions, instead of merely turning numb. Though the anger may be directed at any number of different things, it is always rooted in pain.

3. Bargaining

This reaction is likely to be an initial attempt to rationalize what has happened. Of course, that is impossible to do – what has happened cannot be undone. Nevertheless, our human nature will try its very best to do something to rectify the situation. We cling to any hope that tells us the situation could possibly be reversed.

4. Depression

When some time has passed, depression often sets in. The initial shock has worn off, and you are left feeling bewildered, sad and hopeless at the devastating loss.

5. Acceptance

Acceptance doesn’t mean that we have forgotten about what happened and have totally moved on with our lives. Instead, acceptance comes when we face the stark reality of the loss and figure out how to live with what happened.

Focusing on the Four Tasks of Mourning

Another helpful model for understanding grief stages comes from William J. Worden. In his Four Tasks of Mourning, he sees a more active role for the person who is grieving, rather than merely floating passively through the grief process.

This model can assist people in moving beyond the denial that is frequently experienced in the immediate aftermath of the death of a loved one. Worden believes that intentionally trying to work through the four tasks is absolutely essential in order for “equilibrium to be reestablished.”

The four key tasks are:

1. Accepting the reality of the loss

2. Working through the pain of the grief

3. Adjusting to life without the deceased

4. Finding a lasting connection to the deceased while also moving on with your life

Getting Help

If you or someone you know is facing grief, contact a Christian counselor at Newport Beach Christian Counseling for guidance, support, and reassurance, as you process your pain. Counseling is a protected and confidential space in which you can express your grief whatever way you feel. A good counselor will both honor the profound depth of your grief while also providing support as your process your loss.

Photos
“A Private Grief”, Courtesy of Nicholas Bui, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “The Road Ahead”, Courtesy of Johannes Plenio, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Grieving Man”, Courtesy of Tom Pumford, Unsplash.com; CC0 License; “Lightning Storm”, Courtesy of Jeremy Bishop, Unsplash.com; CC0 License