When avoidant people are asked to describe their parents, they use generalities like “wonderful, great, warm, loving, and kind.” However when asked to provide specific examples of when their parents behaved this way, they are unable to provide specific examples. They want to believe this really happened but have no specific experience to back it up. Insensitive parenting includes “dismissive” parenting where a parent dismisses a child’s emotions, especially the negative ones. “Rejecting” parenting involves a parent who is emotionally disengaged from the child even from early on as an infant. “Intrusive” parenting is too much of a good thing and a failure on the part of the parent to be attuned to the child in a way that honors their freedom to choose. It is a failure to read subtle cues. If you are in need of counseling or know someone who does, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
Category Archives: General
Avoidant People – Part One
People who have an avoidant attachment style find it difficult to listen sensitively to the thoughts and feelings of others. They also don’t like to disclose their private thoughts and experiences and they are turned off by tenderness and touch. Why is this? Because growing up they felt abandoned and rejected. They learned to hide uncomfortable thoughts and feelings and distance themselves from their feelings. This includes the desire for emotional closeness. Avoidant persons can seem tough and hard on the outside and even develop a “protected self.” The closer one tries to get to an avoidant person the more defensive they may become. If you are in need of counseling or know someone who does, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
Do You Have a Loving Relationship?
There three components of a loving relationship are: (1) having an emotional connection with others, (2) being able to disclose private thoughts and feelings, and (3) participating in nonsexual touch. When you demonstrate or show sensitivity and responsiveness to the feelings of others it creates emotional connection. It implies not only understanding but also empathy, the ability to see the world through another’s eyes. Disclosure is the cornerstone of intimacy. Think “in-to-me-see.” We become vulnerable when we share out most intimate and personal thoughts and experiences with those we are connected to. Lastly, everyone needs touch especially kids. Nonsexual touch is linked to the release of oxytocin. Oxytocin is called the “cuddled hormone”. If you are in need of marriage counseling or need some counseling, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
Your Emotions
Here are some ideas about emotions you might want to consider. There are about 8 primary or basic emotions. These include anger, sorrow, joy, surprise, fear, disgust, guilt/shame, and interest. People seem to be born with the potential or readiness for these emotions. Other types of emotions are learned and are usually some combination of these basic emotions. Some emotional experiences are a reaction to events in your environment, for example becoming angry when someone criticizes you or feeling happy that a loved one is coming to visit you. Other emotional experiences are primarily reactions to one’s own thoughts, actions, and feelings. For example guilt at feeling angry, shame at not doing well on a task, or pride at some achievement or reaching some milestone in life. Emotions come and go like the waves in the sea. Most emotions only last from seconds to minutes. Emotions are self-perpetuating. Once it starts, it keeps restarting itself. When an emotion seems to stay around, it is called a “mood.” Emotions can be useful or destructive. They are rarely neutral. If you are in need of some counseling or know someone who does, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
Priorities and Demands
How often have you been in a situation where later you wished you had said something differently? Maybe you regretted what you said or you just didn’t speak up when you should have. Relationships that are neglected can create an enormous amount of stress. This stress then increases emotional vulnerability and the relationship can quickly go downhill from there. The longer a relationship remains neglected, the harder it is to repair. The ability to repair a “rupture” in a relationship is of primary importance. The key is to balance priorities versus demands in life and relationships. Priorities are those things important to you, things you want to do or get done. Demands are those things other people want you to do, things other people want done. Most troubles with priorities and demands are due to your own priorities conflicting with other people’s priorities. Thus you need good interpersonal skills to maintain your own priorities and/or negotiate compromises. If you are in need of some counseling or know someone who does, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
A Wise Mind
Develop a lifestyle of participating with awareness. A lifestyle without awareness is a characteristic of impulsive (doing things without considering the consequences) and mood dependent behaviors. Mindfulness skills such as Western contemplative prayer or Eastern meditation practices can dramatically help balance the emotional and reasonable parts of the mind. This could be said to be called a “wise mind” where there is a balance between emotional experiencing and logical analysis. If you learn to play a musical instrument you must pay close attention to a lot of things such as hand position, musical notation, and the rhythm. As the skill of playing an instrument improves things such as observing and describing begin to fade in to the background. Learning to drive a stick-shift car is another example of having to pay close attention to what you are doing at first. Learn first to just notice the moment and to experience it with awareness in whatever is happening. Don’t leave the situation or try to terminate an emotion. If you are in need of some counseling, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
The Light
“Lead, Kindly Light, amid the encircling gloom
Lead Thou me on!
The night is dark, and I am far from home –
Lead Thou me on!
Keep Thou my feet; I do not ask to see
The distant scene-one step enough for me.”
Blessed John Henry Newman
If you are in need of counseling or know someone who is, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website at http://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.
Share In Other’s Sorrows
We should not only cope with our own sorrows and learn from them, but we should also share in other people’s sorrow and suffering, even if they have brought it on themselves. A devout person can oftentimes be less sorrowful and consequently less compassionate than the poor sinners of the world. In any society, the difference between the pious and the saintly is often the degree of compassion and acceptance of another’s pain through sorrow that has strangely linked the saintly to the sinful. If you are in need of counseling or know someone who is, please contact Lamar Hunt Jr. or see his website athttp://lamarhuntjrcounseling.com/.