Benefits of expressive writing

According to researcher Dr. James Pennebaker, a psychology professor at the University of Austin, Texas, people who use expressive writing to journal have improved mental and physical health.

Dr. Pennebaker pioneered a study of expressive writing as a coping mechanism for trauma. His, and hundreds of other studies have verified the benefits achieved by people suffering from PTSD, cancer, depression, and various other mental and physical ailments. This journaling technique was found to strengthen the immune system, reduce pain and inflammation, lower infection rate from colds or flu, and decrease depression symptoms. It can also improve memory, sleep quantity and quality, and attitude. It’s clear that there are many benefits associated with expressive writing!

How it works

Using expressive writing allows the writer to recognize a painful or traumatic experience and describe it as a problem to be solved. Doing this allows the writer to identify a particular problem and organize their thoughts and feelings, using written language to create the narrative. This process helps break the rumination cycle, which, in my experience, helps decrease or eliminate cognitive dissonance. Research shows that labeling our emotions actually calms the limbic system and the fight or flight response. (Look up “name it and tame it.”) The prefrontal cortex, which is in charge of executive functions, regains control, and a deeper meaning and understanding can be created around the memory or traumatic event. This leads the writer to feel a new sense of control and personal power regarding the traumatic event. The more we do this this type of journaling, the easier it gets.

When people become more comfortable thinking about and remembering a traumatic event, they are more able to share their feelings with others. Expressive writing may indirectly lead writers to seek emotional support, thereby accelerating the healing process.

As demonstrated in a 2006 study published in the Journal of Psychological Science, expressive writing can also improve relationships. The study found that when one partner wrote about their relationship in detail, both partners began using more positive language when texting each other. The relationship also lasted longer.

Don’t like to write?

If you don’t like journaling, you can still use expressive writing. Recording your thoughts has been shown to work just as well.

To use the technique, write without judgment, self-editing, or correcting spelling or grammatical mistakes. Just write it as you think or feel it. Write for 15 to 20 minutes for at least three consecutive days. Deep dive into your thoughts and feelings and write about them in detail when you do this.

I’m a big fan of journaling using expressive writing. I wrote the “Lemon Moms Companion Workbook” to supply the necessary prompts, questions and challenges to help you use expressive writing as one of your healing tools.

References:

How Do I Love Thee? Let Me Count the Words- The Social Effects of Expressive Writing

Feeling Upset? Try This Special Writing Technique

Expressive writing: Connections to physical and mental health

Tame Reactive Emotions by Naming Them

Tools for healing:

Conscious awareness:  Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions. Practice mindfulness.

Learn about setting boundaries 

Learn about codependency and maladaptive coping skills

Read “Facing our demons during isolation”

More Resources You May Like:

I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self

A Workbook and Journal

How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things

Sold worldwide in any bookstore.

Quick links:

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Walmart

Author Site

Join the Free Email Survival Course:

Weekly lessons, strategies, and homework to start you moving forward

from the effects of hurtful or toxic relationships, dysfunctional thinkers, and Lemon Moms.

Private Facebook group included for members only.

There’s an app for that!

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for instant information, support, and validation!

The Lemon Moms Series:

B&N

Kindle

Audible

Amazon

Nook

Google

Apple

Available formats: eBook, audiobook, hardcover, paperback, and large print too!

Get the TOOLBOX articles twice monthly to your inbox!

About the Author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow. 

Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.

Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.

Visit her author’s site here: DianeMetcalf.com

Learn about the Lemon Moms series here: Lemon Moms

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Here are some of the responses these incredible people provided. I hope this list gives you a new sense of personal power and helps you recognize more of what makes you awesome!

Claim your superpowers

• Dark sense of humor
• Able to sense toxic people
• Able to detect mental illness or something mentally wrong with a person.
• Able to read body language
• Able to sense danger
• Fierce independence
• Resourcefulness
• Resilience
• Psychoanalyze everyone
• Strong intuition
• Self-sufficiency
• Good at pretending to be asleep
• Self mothering/nurturing
• Anticipate multiple outcomes and is prepared for almost anything
• Comfortable being alone
• Able to tolerate high stress
• Know when something bad is going to happen
• Feel other peoples energy
• Feel calm in an emergency or crisis
• Able to figure out complicated things
• Nurturing
• Patient
• Able to read micro facial expressions 
• Able to detect changes in people’s energy
• Can hone in on certain sounds: keys, footsteps, voices, car engines
• Move stealthily/silently
• Become invisible/unnoticeable
• Able to sneeze, cough and cry silently
• Good at keeping other’s secrets
• Empathic
• Remember every detail of events and conversations because of former gaslighting
• Great at dealing with angry people
• Ability to sense a con-artist
• Great at cleaning
• Great at anything to do with image: designing, decorating, clothing, accessorizing
• Great at detecting narcissists
• Able to hide emotions
• Able to detect untrustworthy people
• Able to lie well if needed
• Able to manipulate others if needed
• Very discerning
• Well organized
• Able to admit when wrong
• Resourceful
• Quick thinking
• Able to escape situations
• Able to see other’s perspectives
• Able to manage people
• Able to emotionally detach
• Able to tune people out
• Can switch emotions on and off
• Adapt to any surroundings
• Able to dissect a situation in seconds
• Able to diffuse arguments
• Good emotional control
• Cook well, able to make meals out of nothing
• Outspoken
• Great self-preservation skills
• Super observant
• Deep self-awareness
• Able to save money for unforeseen trouble
• Thrive under pressure
• See the red flags
• Problem solver
• PerfectionistIc
• Successfully sneaky when needed
• Bionic ears
• Diplomatic
• Get along with literally anyone

What superpowers do YOU have? If you send them to me at [email protected], I’ll add them to this list. (anonymously of course!)

Tools for healing:

Conscious awareness: Be aware and make conscious choices before acting. Self-awareness releases us from making impulsive and potentially damaging decisions.

Understand the Abuse Cycle

Learn about letting go of what you can’t control, by using positive-detachment

Learn how expectations can be harmful

Learn how to set boundaries

Self-care: We can only choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our own thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.

Practice mindfulness

Learn about codependency and other maladaptive coping skills

Take the Adverse Childhood Experiences Quiz

Learn the signs of Narcissism Awareness Grief

More Resources You May Like:

I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self

A Workbook and Journal

How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things

Sold worldwide in any bookstore.

Quick links:

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Walmart

Author Site

Join the Free Email Survival Course:

Weekly lessons, strategies, and homework to start you moving forward

from the effects of hurtful or toxic relationships, dysfunctional thinkers, and Lemon Moms.

Private Facebook group included for members only.

There’s an app for that!

Get THE TOOLBOX APP

for instant information, support, and validation!

The Lemon Moms Series:

B&N

Kindle

Audible

Amazon

Nook

Google

Apple

Available formats: eBook, audiobook, hardcover, paperback, and large print too!

Get the TOOLBOX articles twice monthly to your inbox!

About the Author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow. 

Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.

Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.

Visit her author’s site here: DianeMetcalf.com

Learn about the Lemon Moms series here: Lemon Moms

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

The amygdala is a structure that’s part of this system. We have two amygdalae, one on either side of our brains. It’s considered the “emotional” brain because it’s highly involved with memory and the connected emotional responses.

The amygdala’s job is to convert and move information out of short-term memory into long-term memory and to connect emotions to these memories (Krause-Utz et al. 2017).

Fight or Flight

Whenever we experience any traumatic episode, a hormone called adrenalin is released from our adrenal glands. This action causes a memory of the trauma to be created in our amygdala. The memory is not stored linearly like a story. Instead, it’s saved according to how our five senses experienced the trauma as it happened. So, the traumatic memories are stored as bits of visual images, smells, sounds, tastes, or physical contact. The amygdala then gives meaning and a particular degree of emotional intensity to this event.

If the amygdala is continually on high alert, overstimulated from adrenalin from a real or a perceived threat, our emotions won’t become self-regulated like they’re supposed to. When emotions aren’t self-regulated, we continue to respond to old, buried memories with an automatic, knee-jerk behavior called “triggering.” Triggering is caused when the brain has lost the ability to distinguish between something that is a threat and something that’s not. The amygdala misinterprets input from our senses, eyes, ears, nose, mouth, and/or skin, as being dangerous or threatening, even when it’s not.

And if we continually live in this high-alert, fight or flight survival mode, we’ll likely begin using coping methods that aren’t good for us. We may lie, depend on drugs, overeat, steal, or do whatever it takes to help us cope with the unmanageable stress. 

Another essential structure within the limbic system is the horseshoe-shaped hippocampus.

The hippocampus also plays a role in moving information from short-term to long-term memory, but its job is cataloging memories for eventual storage and retrieval and developing new memories about past experiences.

The hippocampus is in charge of remembering locations for objects and people. When we remember that we left our keys on the kitchen counter, we’re using our hippocampus. We use the hippocampus for spatial memory, navigating, and orientation. Without it, we wouldn’t remember where the kitchen counter is or how to get there from where we are in relation. This is critical information about our surroundings, and we rely on it to find our way around.

The hippocampus continues to be the focus of research regarding cognition (understanding through thought, experience, and senses) and memory-retention in post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) (Kolassa and  Elbert 2007).

Differences between PTSD and C-PTSD

Complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD) results from a series of trauma-causing events, or one prolonged event, whereas PTSD is usually related to a single traumatic event. This repeated exposure causes additional symptoms not experienced by people with PTSD. C-PTSD can be the result of narcissistic abuse because our very being, who we are at our core, is continually attacked or threatened when we’re in a relationship with a narcissist. Common symptoms of C-PTSD are flashbacks, panic attacks, nightmares, excessive startle reaction, and habitually thinking about the traumatic event (McClelland and Gilyard 2008).

Children who experience neglect or ongoing traumatic abuse are at risk for developing complex post-traumatic stress disorder (C-PTSD), depression, self-harming behaviors, and conditions like anxiety, conduct, attachment, eating, substance use, and other disorders. When these children become adults, they’ll be at risk for revictimization, and physical illnesses like diabetes, heart disease, and immunological disorders. Research shows that women who’ve endured childhood abuse-related PTSD may also have altered brain structures, and their cognitive functioning may also be impaired as compared with women who were abused but not diagnosed with PTSD or women with no history of abuse. Abuse-related PTSD is associated with a reduced ability to focus and categorize information. When the attention and memory encoding activities of the limbic system are suspended due to real or perceived threats, verbal language ability may also become impaired (Ford 2017).

We learn our value as people as well as how to develop healthy, supportive relationships by interacting with our primary caretakers and family members. Kids who’ve been neglected or abused by a caretaker find it challenging to form a healthy attachment to them. If our caretaker was emotionally unstable, neglectful, or abusive, we might have learned that we can’t trust or depend on others to meet our needs. Studies indicate that children are more susceptible to stress and its related illnesses when they’re unable to create a healthy attachment to their caretaker. They may have difficulty interacting with authority figures like teachers and other adults. They struggle with managing and expressing their emotions, and they may react inappropriately or even aggressively in specific settings. Later in life, they may have difficulty sustaining romantic relationships and friendships.

Those of us who have experienced maternal narcissistic abuse may eventually find ourselves in an abusive, toxic, or less-than-satisfying adult relationship.

It’s not hard to see why. It makes sense: this person’s behavior and way of relating to us seem familiar, and we already know our role and what’s expected of us in the relationship.

Tools:

Learn about codependency

Learn about adverse childhood experiences

Understand the Cycle of Abuse

More Resources You May Like:

I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self

A Workbook and Journal

How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things

Sold worldwide in any bookstore.

Quick links:

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Walmart

Author Site

Join the Free Email Survival Course:

Weekly lessons, strategies, and homework to start you moving forward

from the effects of hurtful or toxic relationships, dysfunctional thinkers, and Lemon Moms.

Private Facebook group included for members only.

There’s an app for that!

Get THE TOOLBOX APP

for instant information, support, and validation!

The Lemon Moms Series:

B&N

Kindle

Audible

Amazon

Nook

Google

Apple

Available formats: eBook, audiobook, hardcover, paperback, and large print too!

Get the TOOLBOX articles twice monthly to your inbox!

About the Author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow. 

Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.

Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.

Visit her author’s site here: DianeMetcalf.com

Learn about the Lemon Moms series here: Lemon Moms

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Personally, I wasn’t able to positively detach until I learned about the role that setting healthy boundaries plays in codependent behavior. Even then, exercising positive detachment was anxiety-provoking. When I first learned how to detach with love, I was outside of my comfort zone. I was used to using apathetic detachment. I decided that I needed to get comfortable with loving detachment, and I took any appropriate opportunity to lovingly detach when one presented itself. Eventually, I became comfortable using loving detachment as a way of respecting other’s boundaries, and as a boundary for myself, as well as a form of self-care.

Types of detachment styles

The kinds of detachment I’ve outlined here are taken directly from conversations, reading, and research. This is not an exhaustive list.

1. Numbing detachment
2. Angry detachment
3. Apathetic detachment
4. Positive detachment

Numbing detachment-

When we numb ourselves to avoid feeling pain, we usually do it by using something to assist us in “shutting down” emotionally. “Numbing” includes “escapism” and using avoidance behaviors. Numbing ourselves involves distracting with activities like cleaning, reading, social media, binge-watching TV, or immersing ourselves in church, school, eating, drinking, shopping, community activities, or anything else that suffices.

None of these activities are wrong or hurtful, yet they can be used maladaptively. When we use numbing behaviors, we’re not intentionally trying to be mean or hurtful, but it can happen. Numbing is all about protecting ourselves, but if we’re not careful, it could hurt others.

Pretty much any activity can be used to distract, escape, avoid, and numb. When we want to immerse ourselves in an activity, let’s remember to take a look at our motives and see if we’re actually avoiding or numbing. Is the activity a way for us to evade a person, a painful circumstance, or a memory?

Angry detachment-

It’s important to understand that anger is a secondary emotion. There’s always a primary emotion felt before the anger is felt, and that first emotion triggers the anger. It’s so fleeting that frequently we don’t even notice that first emotion. For example, if I suddenly become angry at someone because I feel they’ve disrespected me, more than likely, my anger was triggered by a primary feeling of unimportance. The feeling of unimportance is the emotional “trigger.”

So angry detachment is a reaction to a trigger. When we detach in anger, we often feel like saying something nasty or hurtful, or we feel like doing something destructive or vengeful. Sometimes we actually take those actions rather than just letting ourselves feel them.

Angry detaching is an attempt to control. It feels like it’s the “last straw,” when we realize that our former attempts at controlling or manipulating aren’t working. It has a punishing vibe to it. “We’ll show THEM!” Outwardly we give the appearance of being emotionally detached because we make ourselves unavailable; we physically or emotionally “walk away,” we don’t take their calls or respond to texts. We may even actively ignore the person when they’re around.

But inwardly, we continue worrying, thinking, and obsessing about them or their behavior. We know what’s going on in their lives because we talk to others who know them, or we see it on social media. We haven’t really detached. Instead, we’re punishing and manipulating them with our anger and silence, but because we’re not interacting with them, it feels like detachment.

So angry detachment is actually a reaction. 

Apathetic detachment-

Apathy (or indifference) involves suppressing all feelings of interest or concern, and it takes the idea of detachment to the extreme. When we’ve detached in apathy, we no longer acknowledge the person. It’s as if they don’t exist! We couldn’t care less about them, and we don’t want to hear about or have anything to do with them.

A therapist friend once asked me, “what is the opposite of love?” and I responded, “hate.” He replied, “most people would agree with you, but no. The opposite of love is indifference.”

Using apathy or indifference as a way of detaching is maladaptive. It can cause irreparable damage to a relationship. Research shows that the degree to which indifference exists in a marriage can accurately predict the probability of divorce!

Positive detachment-

Positive detachment is judgment-free, and it allows us to intellectually, emotionally, and compassionately separate the person from their behavior. It means that we understand that the person and the behavior are two separate things. We can choose to love the person and feel compassion for them while simultaneously despising their behavior. We emotionally or physically distance ourselves from their behavior not to punish or control them but as a demonstration of love for them and self-care for ourselves.

As with boundary-setting, there is no need to discuss your intent to detach or to get permission.

Positively detaching means choosing to distance yourself emotionally from a situation and its’ consequences. We take the focus off of the other person and put it squarely on ourselves. We understand that the other person is entitled to5, make their own choices, including the choice to hurt us. They’re also entitled to deal with the results of those choices. So while we feel compassion for them, we focus on ourselves, and we feel at peace about whatever happens next.

Why Me?

But why do I need to be the one to detach? Why can’t THEY just change or shape up or get their act together? Well, that would be great, wouldn’t it? If they would just change their behavior and do what we want or expect, our lives would be so much better, wouldn’t they?

But we already know that’s not the way it works. We can’t control other people. The way their behavior affects us isn’t about THEM. It’s about US. Take a pause and think about that for a minute. Let that sink in. This is about us, and about controlling our choices.

When I feel the need to detach, I find it necessary to first accept and validate my thoughts and my feelings. Next, I commit to maintaining my focus and productivity by not concentrating on others. Doing these things puts me in the right frame of mind to detach with love. There’s no anger, no fear, no need to go numb or to be indifferent. It’s like what my teacher-friends say to their students: “Keep your eyes on your own paper.” I commit to keeping my eyes on my own needs, life, and work.

When we view positive detachment from this perspective, we can clearly see that it’s not “running away.”  Positive detachment is “running toward” ourselves. This healthy form of detachment reminds us that we’re a separate person in our own right, with our own likes, needs, and goals and that we have choices and consequences of our own. It helps us remember that we’re not responsible for fixing another person’s feelings or problems.

In each of the above detachment scenarios, the end result is always the same for us: in each, we emotionally or physically “walk away” and take ourselves out of the situation. The difference between each of these scenarios is how we feel after we walk. Of the four, positive detachment is the only one that leaves us feeling at peace no matter what the other person is feeling or doing, no matter what happens next.

Detaching in this way allows us to drop our need to control the outcome. Shifting the focus to our own lives allows us to focus on own needs, wants, and goals, and allows the other person to focus on theirs. (See codependency)

When we positively detach, we stop focusing on others, and we don’t take responsibility for their actions, or the consequences of those actions, any longer. Detaching this way allows us to drop our need to control the outcome. Shifting attention to our own lives allows us to focus on our needs, wants, feelings, and goals while providing that same opportunity to them. We begin to heal.

DO THE WORK.

Tools

Learn how to set boundaries

Take “a pause” and think. In other words, don’t respond immediately. This is a very powerful tool!

Respond rather than react. (Homework: look up the difference and try responding instead of reacting the next time you have the opportunity. See how it feels)

Look at the bigger picture. How important is this thing really? A shift in perspective can determine what’s most valuable so we won’t get upset over things that aren’t as important.

Identify your codependent thoughts and behaviors

Drop your end of the tug-of-war rope. Stop playing the game.​ There’s no tug-of-war if there isn’t someone pulling on the other end.

Use your voice. Choose your words wisely, be mindful of timing, then say what you mean and mean what you say.

Know when something is your responsibility & when it’s not. Say it nicely, say it with firmness. “No, that’s actually something you should be doing for yourself”

Remind yourself that you’re worthy of setting that boundary and that you’re worthy of being fair to yourself.

Remember- I’m in control of me: we can choose to focus on and be responsible for ourselves, our thoughts, actions, and behavior. We can change ourselves with patience, persistence, and practice. We can take responsibility for getting our needs met, instead of waiting for someone to change or to meet our needs for us. We are in control of ourselves and no one is responsible for us but us.

More Resources You May Like:

I AM: A Guided Journey to Your Authentic Self

A Workbook and Journal

How to write the highest vibrating, most powerful affirmations to manifest love, positivity, peace, self-confidence, motivation, success, and other wonderful things

Sold worldwide in any bookstore.

Quick links:

Barnes and Noble

Amazon

Walmart

Author Site

Join the Free Email Survival Course:

Weekly lessons, strategies, and homework to start you moving forward

from the effects of hurtful or toxic relationships, dysfunctional thinkers, and Lemon Moms.

Private Facebook group included for members only.

There’s an app for that!

Get THE TOOLBOX APP

for instant information, support, and validation!

The Lemon Moms Series:

B&N

Kindle

Audible

Amazon

Nook

Google

Apple

Available formats: eBook, audiobook, hardcover, paperback, and large print too!

Get the TOOLBOX articles twice monthly to your inbox!

About the Author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf developed strong coping skills and healing strategies for herself. She happily shares those with others who want to learn and grow. 

Her Lemon Moms series and other books and articles are a combination of her education, knowledge, personal growth, and insight from her childhood experiences and subsequent recovery work.

Diane holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology and a Bachelor of Arts in Psychology. She’s worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse, and is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer about family dysfunction. On The Toolbox, she writes about recovery strategies from hurtful people and painful, dysfunctional, or toxic relationships. She has authored four transformational books about healing and moving forward from narcissistic Victim Syndrome.

Visit her author’s site here: DianeMetcalf.com

Learn about the Lemon Moms series here: Lemon Moms

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Healthy coping mechanisms help us make sense of confusing or threatening life experiences. They help us to respond appropriately in healthy ways. You’ve heard the saying “when life gives you lemons, make lemonade”? Well, that’s a coping skill: taking something negative and turning it into a positive. But in reality, nothing actually changes except how we view and handle the incident. In other words, life has still given us lemons. Instead of getting angry or depressed, feeling slighted or misunderstood, or letting it ruin our day, we can choose to look at it another way. We can see it as an opportunity to re-frame what happened and experience it in a way that feels better. We make lemonade.

Our coping skillset needs to adjust and adapt throughout the day, every day. That’s why we continually learn and rely on new ways of coping!

This toolbox blog will teach how to take potentially hurtful life experiences and view them in a healthier, more positive perspective. Without healthy coping skills, our perception of the world could become quite negative, and cause us to misinterpret accidents and intentions. We could easily become those people who see the drinking-glass as “half-empty” rather than “half-full”. That doesn’t sound like an enjoyable way to live, and I’m all for choosing “half-full.”

The great thing about coping skills is that anyone can learn new ones. It’s never too late! New coping techniques can be learned and improved at any age.  In this blog, I’ll refer to coping skills as our “emotional toolbox”. I like that analogy because I like the idea of having equipment or “gear” on board that I can pull out and use any time I need to.

We’ll use our toolboxes every day, all day long. When things get difficult or go wrong, we’ll have tools for handling whatever it is. Having a toolbox will help us handle difficult people, crises, toxic situations, unexpected events, personal and interpersonal problems, conflict and other life stressors.

Every article in this blog contains a tool or a set of tools. The tools are listed at the end of each post and you can add them to your own personal toolbox. Practice using them whenever life gives the opportunity!

Every tool is not for everybody. You don’t have to try every tool and you probably shouldn’t. Just go with your intuition when you’re trying to figure out if a tool might be helpful to you or not. Take the ones you’d like to try. Come back for more if you need to.

This is a safe space for learning, growing and helping each other. Please feel free to leave kind and constructive comments or feedback. Share some tools too if you’ve used them and they’ve helped you. 🙂

Here’s to all of our continued emotional growth and prosperity!

Tools:

Learn How to Recognize a Narcissist

Understand the Narcissistic Abuse Cycle

Learn about the Gray Rock technique

Learn to set boundaries 

Learn about dysfunctional family roles

Understand trauma bonds

Learn about codependency and maladaptive coping skills

Like these posts? Want more? Sign up to receive new posts every other Friday!

More resources for healing from childhood trauma, abuse or neglect:

Books by Diane Metcalf-Lemon Moms: A Guide to Understand and Survive Maternal Narcissism, the Lemon Moms Companion Workbook, and Lemon Moms: Life Altering Affirmations, Change Your Self-talk, Change YourSELF. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Kindle, paperback, audiobook.)

About the author

As a result of growing up in a dysfunctional home, and with the help of professional therapists and continued personal growth, Diane Metcalf has developed strong coping skills and healing strategies. She happily shares those insights with others who want to learn and recover. 

Her books and articles are the results of her education, knowledge, and personal insight regarding her own abusive experiences and subsequent recovery work. She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager or Advocate, nor is she or has she ever been a licensed psychologist.

Diane is an experienced advocate, speaker, and writer on the topics of domestic violence, abuse, and family dysfunction. Currently, she writes about toxic relationships and recovery tools. Diane holds a Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology and has worked in numerous fields, including domestic violence and abuse. She also holds a Master of Science degree in Information Technology.

Currently, Diane runs her own website design company, Image and Aspect, and writes articles and tutorials for Tips and Snips, her inspirational blog for creative people. She continues to learn and write about Emotional Healing.

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.

Codependent people find it easier to be in, and maintain, one-sided, emotionally damaging and/or abusive relationships than non-codependent people.

Codependency was first identified over a decade ago, the result of years of studying interpersonal relationships within families of alcoholics. It is an emotional and behavioral illness that affects one’s ability to have healthy, mutually satisfying relationships. It can also be a learned behavior, and able to be passed down through generations. It is learned by watching and imitating codependent family members. Unaddressed, unhealed codependency lends itself nicely to all kinds of unhealthy adult relationships involving alcoholism, substance abuse, and mental illnesses (including narcissism).

​The key to healing from this unhealthy way of thinking and behaving is to acknowledge the codependency,  then make the necessary changes to our perceiving, thinking, and behaving. We can’t fix or heal another person, but we CAN control our attitudes and choices.

Tools:

1. Keep it simple: simple solutions are often the most effective. Look at what’s really happening. Stay away from the “what if’s.” Take a rational, gradual approach to solving problems instead of allowing fear or panic to take the lead.
2. Respond rather than react. (Homework: look up the difference and try responding the next time you have the opportunity. See how it feels)
3. Easy does it: forcing a solution often does not work. We’re simply not able to solve every problem in the time frame we want it to happen. Healing  codependency requires us to understand and accept that some problems are not ours to solve. 
4. Take a more accepting attitude toward yourself. Find ways to enjoy your day, no matter how much or how little you achieve.
5. “Let go,” emotionally detach. Let go of trying to control things that you cannot control. Let go of people, what they said or didn’t say, what they did or didn’t do. Let go of expectations. Let go of controlling the outcome.
6. Let yourself observe and just be surprised.
7. Practice “live and let live” and “not my circus not my clowns.” Look those up and think about their meaning. Can you start using these new attitudes to let go of the need to control?

Until next time, here’s to all of our continued emotional growth and prosperity!

Diane

You may also like these resources:

Toxic Undo

The Toolbox

Setting Personal Boundaries

What are Trauma Bonds?

How to Recognize a Narcissist

Lemon Moms: Resources to guide you in healing from childhood trauma, abuse or neglect. Available on Amazon and wherever books are sold. (Kindle, Audiobook and paperback format.)

Diane Metcalf earned her Bachelor of Arts degree in Psychology in 1982 and a Master of Science in Information Technology in 2013.

She has held Social Worker, Counselor, and Managerial Positions in the fields of Domestic Violence and Abuse, Geriatric Healthcare, Developmental Disabilities, and Reproductive Health. She is an experienced Advocate and Speaker on the topics of Domestic Violence and Abuse and has been a guest on Lockport Community Television (LCTV), sharing her knowledge and experience regarding Domestic Abuse with the local community. In addition, she experienced Maternal Narcissistic Abuse and has been involved in other toxic relationships. She consciously learned (and continues to learn) appropriate coping skills and strategies to live happily. She shares those insights here.

Her books and articles are the result of her education, knowledge, and personal insight regarding her own abusive experiences and subsequent recovery work. She is no longer a practicing Social Worker, Counselor, Program Manager, or Advocate, nor is she or has she ever been a licensed psychologist.

Currently, Diane runs her own website design company, Image and Aspect, and writes articles and tutorials for Tips and Snips, her inspirational blog for creative people. She continues to learn and write about Emotional Healing.

This website is intended for informational purposes only and is not a substitute for professional therapy.