What is loneliness? Is it a nothingness, an absence, or something different for you?

“God, but life is loneliness, despite all the opiates, despite the shrill tinsel gaiety of “parties” with no purpose, despite the false grinning faces we all wear. And when at last you find someone to whom you feel you can pour out your soul, you stop in shock at the words you utter – they are so rusty, so ugly, so meaningless and feeble from being kept in the small cramped dark inside you so long. Yes, there is joy, fulfillment and companionship – but the loneliness of the soul in its appalling self-consciousness is horrible and overpowering.”
-Sylvia Plath

Everyone experiences loneliness. It is aching to be healed and it can be.

Loneliness can feel very destructive. For example, when someone loses a love they may feel lonely and have thoughts of life being useless without love. They may feel as if they are never going to be loved. That is the first bit of symbolism in loneliness. It says that the person learned loneliness at a time that they were feeling destroyed. Very true. Very young children do not know things exist beyond what they can see. So, when a child awakens, they cry for their mother or primary parent and magically he or she appears. If the parent does not show quickly, however, the cry changes to a wail. It is at this point that the child believes he or she has been abandoned and unable to survive. The child is learning loneliness (as well as abandonment).

Loneliness can be tied to shame. This too is learned in early life. Shame is that icky feeling inside that says you aren’t good enough. It is that feeling that has you question why people see you as not good enough when you feel so good on the inside. It makes you ask: why can’t others see my good self? As children, you learn shame from the judgment of your parents and family. Maybe you were told you are an embarrassment or maybe you were told not to tell anyone what happens inside the home. It could be, you were constantly made to feel like you, your dreams, and your actions weren’t good enough to earn love rather than judgments or maybe you just heard so many judgments that you could not assimilate the compliments. All or any can be precursors to the development of shame.

It doesn’t stop there. The shame makes you feel not good enough. It grows to make you feel not good enough to be wanted, loved, or kept. So, you fear you will be abandoned. If you are abandoned you are lonely and without. It is why loneliness is so connected to the absence of belonging. If you do not feel you belong, then you may think you prefer to be alone … Yet, you are looking for love and partnerships! More than likely the isolation in this situation is an effort to master the loneliness.

Isn’t it odd that we push everyone away and want to be left alone when we are lonely? If you understand the shame, fear of abandonment, and the need to master the loneliness, it makes sense. The loneliness may influence thoughts that it is safer to be left alone.Once alone, the feelings of loneliness may increase, This is how the loneliness spirals. It is at this point that destructive thoughts of suicide may appear. If those thoughts appear, understand they are showing you the destructive aspects of the experience. If those thoughts become scary to you please reach out to someone. Loneliness can be healed and more often than not is experienced in bursts but is not permanent. Everyone experiences loneliness in this life. Everyone is capable of transcending or getting to the other side of it. The very few that don’t see the other side of the loneliness gave into the pain and were engulfed in depression or committed suicide.

How do we heal loneliness? This question is not a “how to” that can be answered in this blog because healing loneliness is so individualized. Let me see what I can do to offer a general idea. If you or someone you know is feeling lonely, ask what it feels like. See if a metaphor can be created. Then objectify the metaphor. That allows you or the other to separate from the loneliness and not identify with it. If the loneliness is intense this will not work. It is a time for you to ask yourself or the other what YOU or THEY need at that time. This is not a time to think you know what someone else needs or feel you have to listen to what others tell you you need. It is a time to say, “Come over and sit with me because I do not want to go anywhere.” It is not a time to struggle with a friend who is trying to get you to go out. Be very aware that you do not want to buy into the loneliness you want to help it pass. If you or someone you know is seeming stuck in the loneliness and starting to get lost in depression, please contact a professional immediately. Depression can be healed and averted if dealt with early in the experience.

Please offer your comments on the blog and if you have any questions regarding loneliness, feel free to contact me at AskKristen@KristenBomas.com. I look forward to hearing from you all!

How does a couple maintain their love and romance once children are in the mix? So often I watch couples, with whom I work, struggle with how to define their relationship and their conversations once they have children. We are a people who have difficulty maintaining loving relationships in general: approximately 80% of our dating relationships dissolve and of the 20% that become permanent, 60% dissolve!! Do our children further enhance the difficulties??

Maybe! As parents, you are first and foremost partners to one another. The family structure was meant to be the parents as the pillar or backbone of the family. The problem is that we do not know how to develop our relationships. So, consequently, when the children come into the relationship, it is very easy to make them your focus! If the focus and the conversations are all about the children then, obviously, the relationship starts to fall apart or fragment.

Our children learn about relationships or partnerships by observing their parents. So, if the parents are not focused on themselves as a partnership, I wonder what the children are learning??

As parents, most couples struggle with the balance of maintaining their own relationship with the relationships they share with their children. Part of the imbalance comes from the “need” to entertain our children. Most comes from a breakdown in the communication: verbally, physically, and sexually. Parents who share in the observing and raising of their children feel the team work and camaraderie. Parents who divide and conquer are actually softly doing that to their relationship as well! Parents who maintain a traditional structure, have to adapt to a partnership that is not traditional! Although one parent may stay home, our culture today is not the same as it was many years ago. There are many influences on the individual at home working versus the one outside the home working and on maintaining household income levels.

There is a need to learn to communicate in a way that grows the partnership and continues to open each partner to the other. Life is infinite. It feels finite by the barriers imposed by fears and the past. As partners you have to constantly stoke your trust so that it is continually evolving as you evolve. This helps the two people to consistently open themselves to one another. Each partner is looking for fulfillment and happiness in their life. Rarely does one partner intend to be hurtful, distant or destructive. It happens because of the history in each of your lives. So, as a couple, you need to heal that which interferes in your intimacy and openness so that you can remain as your Self to the other and, so that, you can explore the other constantly. Further, as a couple, it is important to be conscious of the compassion in your heart. If, as a couple, you can be in a state of compassion when you communicate, you will not take things as personally and always be looking out for the best for your partner and your Self. There are many tricks I can teach to maintaining the romance but that is for another article. In the meantime, remember:

“The greatest gift you will ever give your children is your own healing.”

Pick up the March issue of Our Town News magazine for more on this topic. I’m also proud to announce my cover story will appear in their Broward edition.

WEEK FOUR

We have all had it drilled into us that healthy eating and exercise are critical to a balance in life. Yet some people exercise too much, some not at all, and some people exercise and feel stressed by it. Where do you lie in that continuum? How do you understand and define healthy eating? Do you find yourself going on diets to lose weight and then gaining weight back again? Do you desire to eat healthy? What does that mean to you? Is it a lifestyle or a temporary diet change? To exercise and eat healthy is to bring balance into your life but when exercise and healthy eating are not clearly defined, it can actually lead to stress and imbalance rather than balance in your life.

Stress, Self and Better Health: Exercise and Diet

Let’s start with exercise. How do you define exercise? And, once you’ve defined it, how do you exercise? Is it easy for you to initiate exercise? Is exercise on your daily calendar? How is it on your daily calendar? It is important to know what you enjoy and don’t enjoy. You may not think you enjoy ANY physical activity. If so, is there any activity that you enjoy watching? Or is there someone whose activity is of some interest to you? There are many ways to find your form of exercise!

Not many people exercise in a way that is freeing of stress and complementary to their health. Why? They are exercising because they think they should, they’re exercising because they want the external results, they are exercising to stay away from emotions, and so much more. For some, exercising is truly enjoyable. Are you one of the many who would like to exercise but can’t seem to get started or stay consistent? If you are pushing your self to do something that is counter to your desires oftentimes you will have those results. Again, to bring things into balance you need to know where you are in conflict with your desires and interests.

Eating healthy is another interesting dilemma for many. There are many ways to eat healthy. It can be an individual style. When do you find you are least apt to eat healthy: when you are in a rush, hurting, angry, etc.? Those influences must be honored before you can design a healthy eating lifestyle that brings balance into your life. Foods that you like and don’t like are important to acknowledge. Foods that your body does not tolerate need to be addressed as well. Do you tend to eat until you feel full? Do you not eat enough? Do you binge? When there are imbalances in what you “should” be eating and what you find yourself eating, you must stop and ask why?

What you eat and how you exercise influences your emotional, physical, and spiritual health. It is a vital part to balance in your life. Yet, by not seeing your internal balance with food and exercise, you could be adding an extra layer of imbalance in your already-stressed life!

Your challenge this week is to list the pros and cons of your current exercise program. If you don’t have one, then list what an ideal exercise program would be for you (be as creative as you’d like!). Now, pick 3 things you would like to change about your eating and/or 3 things you like about your eating. List your favorite must-have foods.

I hope all of you will take the time to watch this video of the current travesty and devastation of life occurring in Venezuela! I hope you will join me in supporting all of my Venezuelan friends as well as freedom for all people on this earth. I am so upset by this situation and it is so close to home and my heart. I thank you all for watching this. I will be continuing to post informative pieces. Please join me in upholding freedom for our friends and neighbors and the people on this earth!

WEEK THREE

Welcome back to our 30-Day Challenge: Stress, Self and Better Health!

Let’s review last week’s challenge:Self Awareness. What was it like looking at your Self experiencing types of movies, books, or music? Were you able to pick a favorite? Were you able to identify your own experience? What did you learn about your Self as you described what moves you without using verbiage that connotes others or outside references? Did you get frustrated? Did you give up? It is very difficult to learn to focus only on your own internal experience of an event. Keep practicing and we will learn more in the workshop.

Stress, Self and Better Health: Meditation and Breathing

Breathing and meditating are the key ingredients to decreasing stress in your life. They heal and prevent stress. They are two of the most important tools for healing and managing anxiety as well.

This week I challenge you to just become conscious of your breath. RIGHT NOW, I want you to become aware of your breath going in and going out of your lungs. Do not change your rhythm or depth of breathing, just follow it in and out. Notice how it feels. Do you feel your chest rising and falling? Do you feel your diaphragm (or tummy) expanding and contracting? Practice becoming aware or conscious of your breathing everyday while sitting, driving, reading, etc!!

Now, while consciously breathing, I want you to close your eyes and begin repeating the phrase “Thank you for the peace within me.” Repeat it over and over at least 20 times. Allow your Self to recognize what it would feel like to experience a peace within your Self. Focus on the internal experience of peace until it begins to happen. I challenge you to do this while laying in bed or on a couch, while driving or riding, when taking an interim break from working on something. I challenge you to do this at least 3 times a day 20 repetitions each time.

Go forth! Step into your peaceful center and let the storm be outside you only! I thank you for participating!

Do you love Valentine’s Day or despise it? Either way, you are experiencing it. Is it a day that you look forward to, hide from, or rebel against? Regardless, you are still responding to it. And, in both questions, more often than not, “it” is defined by someone other than you! Consequently, it is important to define this holiday for your Self!

Everything in this life is inside YOU! Everything on the outside is stimulating you on the inside and, consequently, you are experiencing life in your own way. Valentine’s Day is no different. So, what is Valentine’s Day to you? Don’t answer with, “Nothing. It is important to my partner/spouse.” There is an inherent meaning in that very answer. Don’t tell us it is a “Made-up” holiday, because all holidays are “made up”. Answer the question as genuinely as you can.

As children, it was about showing love and like for everyone! We would bring candies and little cards for all the children, teachers, and some staff!! It was a very exciting day for each child because they all received Valentines from the others and could give Valentine’s to others. Then we grew up and it seems the definition changed. But how so?

Take the time to define what Valentine’s Day is to you. Then address the experience YOU would like to have on Valentine’s Day. Is Valentine’s Day only for couples? Or is it for the love of anyone in your life? If the latter, are you a Valentine to your Self? Share your thoughts. If you have someone who you wish to honor on Valentine’s Day, be sure you each understand the other’s desired experience. Let me give you an example of a woman who was understanding of the differences between her and the man she was dating. A friend had just started dating this man, and was looking forward to a romantic dinner at a restaurant. She later found out the man had no intention of celebrating Valentine’s Day. So, she booked a table at a favorite restaurant of theirs and invited him to dinner with her. So, rather than criticizing him for not meeting her expectations she created a good evening. They were able to talk about their different definitions of the holiday and what each of them had envisioned experiencing on that day. They both had a wonderful Valentine’s Day. They shared that holiday in years that followed.

If you do not have an other with whom you can celebrate this holiday, consider asking your Self to be your Valentine and enjoy a great day!

It is with my heart that I acknowledge each of you and the gift you give to me by reading and sharing my writings.

HAPPY VALENTINE’S DAY TO YOU!!!

WEEK ONE

We welcome you to our 30-Day Challenge for less stress and better health! Over the next 4 Mondays, we will offer you some information and questions that can be your beginning to decreased stress levels and increased health! At the end of the 4th week, we will offer a brief online course that will tie the 4 weeks together and allow you to deepen the experience. Let’s begin:

Stress, Self and Better Health: Expectations

It has been known for all of time that stress leads to illness and injury. Today our media reports that stress is the leading influence for illness. There can be physical, chemical and emotional stressors. The physical stressors can be injuries, working out, sunburn, etc. Chemical stressors can be unhealthy food, medications, petrolatum products, pollution, etc. Finally, emotional stressors are anything that evokes the fear-based emotions (versus the love-based emotions). Consequently, if we have great nutrition, awareness of our body, and live in an absence of fear we will not experience the impact of stress!! Let’s get real. Most Americans cannot say that is their life. So, what can we do to begin decreasing the stress in our lives?

The physical and chemical stressors are the easiest to implement change. Once you identify where the stressors lie, you can, one by one, eliminate most of them. For example, you can hire a nutritionist (for healthier foods) or install a water treatment system (for water without chemicals) or work with a physician who has a holistic practice (to eliminate medications) etc. The emotional stressors are more difficult mostly because they are not tangible and are fear-based (and no one likes fear!). So, this series will address the emotional stressors more so than the others.

This week we are going to address expectations. Expectations are inherent in almost all emotional stress. Expectations are those thoughts or comments that are from someone or somewhere else and do not match your inner desires. They are an external frame of reference. Even if you think you are placing expectations on your self, you are truly using expectations that others had put upon you. Otherwise, you would have personal goals.

Let me give you an example. If I get home at the end of the day and I look at the dishes in the sink and I think, “Wow, I really should wash all those dishes,” then, I am thinking I need to wash the dishes because someone told me I should. Should is word that represents the expectation. If, however, I walk into the house and I see the dishes in the sink and I say to myself, “I’d really like to clean his dishes and make myself a dinner tonight,” or, maybe I say, “Ah, I’ll clean the dishes in the morning when I awaken. Either of the last two sentences is going to be closer to the way I feel inside. Maybe they both are. But as soon as I think I “should” do something or I “need” to do something, then I have switched from a personal goal or desire to an external expectation.

There is one glitch!! In the “workplace” and competitive sports there are going to be inherent expectations. That is because of the external structure and that it is that structure that dictates the outcome or bottom line. Once you become aware of expectations within yourself, you then will learn how to separate those that are inherent in the structure and those that are personally affecting you. It is at that point you will learn to balance the external structure with your internal personal being.

So, here’s the challenge for this week. I want you to become very aware of when and how often you say or think the following words or phrases:

You can do this by putting a rubber band on your wrist and popping it each time you hear yourself say or think any of those words or phrases. You can also keep a little notepad (or tape a piece of paper to the desk) and make a mark every time one of those words or phrases comes in language or thought.
Second, I would like you to be identify if the expectations are of you or another.

Third, I would like you to become very aware of those words or phrases in others around you. Who, around you, expresses expectations the most?

Go forth!! Enjoy your challenge!!

Damn!! I can’t believe I did that. How stupid! … You LOST weight! But I surely FOUND it!

How often do you find yourself talking poorly to your Self? Too often people say, whisper, or think negatively of their Self – negative self talk. Sometimes it is so progressed that it happens without awareness. It isn’t that people want to talk harshly to themselves, it is just something that is familiar and learned. People don’t like it when others talk badly about them, judge them, or hurt them. People would rather experience kind words from others. They want to be liked, believed in, and heard. And similarly, they must then learn to talk positively to themselves. Let’s look at the negative self talk and its affects and then address positive self talk and how it can be brought to the forefront.

In order to talk negatively to your Self you must have learned such judgements and labels. It is of your past. And so, the negative self talk is one way you keep yourself from living in the present. Negative self talk keeps you in your past – in those challenges that keep you from true happiness. It is driven by fear of not being good enough or shame. That means that it is not part of who you truly are. It is what you assimilated from everyone else and is how you are carrying them around with you daily!!

How might it serve you to judge and criticize your Self so harshly? (Don’t say it doesn’t!) At some level you may be trying to master those very judgements. Or, you may be looking for the indirect compliments that come when someone says “No you aren’t,” or “Don’t talk to yourself that way.” Whatever it is, it is not comforting you. The negative thoughts are destroying your Self and its identity, confidence, and esteem. They are fueling the very insecurities that you would love to live without. Those insecurities keep you from life’s happiness and fulfillment. Which would you rather experience – laughter and joy or loneliness and sadness? Which do you think you’re feeding when you talk negatively to your Self?

The more you live in judgment of your Self, the more you are living with a fear of judgment from others. Further, the more you live in judgment of your Self, the more you are judging others. Consequently, if you are judging your Self AND others you are doubling up on feeding the fears that YOU are being judged. Ah! That is not a path to happiness!

The judgments and criticisms of your self talk are anchored in your fear-based emotions. Fear feeds on your thinking and then feeds your fear-based thinking. That means the negative self talk feeds upon itself and grows and picks up speed. Much like any fear does – it spirals rapidly. If those thoughts and comments are increasing in your daily existence, then how are they affecting your perceptions of the world around you? Negatively!! Further, if your perceptions are your reality then your reality is pretty negative. Ugh!

As you go forward, listen for your negative thoughts, comments, etc. and say to your Self – “STOP!” Saying stop breaks the momentum and alerts you to the negative self talk. That awareness is the biggest step. Then ask your Self if you would allow someone to talk to your child in the way you just spoke to your Self. Hear and feel the “No.” There are several things you can do at this point to begin the healing, but that’s for another forum. It is critical that the awareness grows so you can slow the talk before you begin any further steps in healing.

Once you’ve said “Stop,” it is time to insert a positive comment. Even if all you can say is “You didn’t deserve that” or “No you aren’t (that),” you have started a positive trend. Positive energy and thinking is more addictive than the fear or negative thoughts! So, the quicker you get started the quicker you begin your path to freedom. As your self talk becomes more and more positive your day will be perceived as more and more positive and people will be more positive around you. And so it goes.

There are several things you can do to help the positive self talk. Make a list of positives about your Self. Make another list of what you would like to hear another say to you. Keep the lists handy for positive self talk after you “stop” the negative thought. Compliment your Self when you complete something or do anything successfully. It doesn’t matter how minor the event. Remember, you could stub your toe and rip your Self up over that little event!! Positive thoughts and verbiage help you develop your dreams, your happiness and your freedom!

I’ll leave you with these two thoughts, one is a beautiful quote and the other is a video. I want you to ask your Self after the video, “Don’t you deserve to feel this way about your Self?”

“Thoughts Become Things… Choose The Good Ones!”
― Mike Dooley

Since the mid 1970’s, we have appeared to grow to be a predominantly litigious society. So much so that liability appears to be more important than life! We no longer think of the child or the person first. We are trained to think of the liability first and the person second. For example, we are told NOT to physically help a person in a car accident because we could be held liable! We have been trained to think “liability” so much that we no longer trust (although this is only one of several components). Furthermore, the “liability” mentality appears to have aided in the fragmentation of our society and culture! “Liability” positioning also seems to have aided in the entitlement that appears to be a dominant characteristic of our people. It is a fighting mentality: a me-against-you mentality.

Anyway, I have digressed. To me, the most painful of all of this is the reality of liability overriding human welfare. It is no longer a community raising the children. It is the community staying away from someone else’s child. Thereby creating an environment with an absence of safety for the child. Think about it. A child who plays with friends in the neighborhood and knows all adults are watching him or her to be sure he or she is ok, feels very safe. A child who walks “empty” streets to a friend’s house (because they know no other adults), feels greater aloneness and fear. So, fear begets fear! Fear fragments! So, here we are — a culture where we are increasing the fear and mistrust.

Is it starting to make “sense” why we are so mistrusting and litigious?! Can you see how, if we are untrusting of one another, we cannot have community and if we do not have community, then we are going to become self-centered, -serving, and -contained?! It is from that point that the “paranoia” of litigation begins. I have known many professionals in the health-care industry who do the least possible reporting of child and spouse abuse. In other words, if another reported the abuse, they document that in their notes and keep moving forward like they are not responsible. But what about when they have information that could decide the case? Many times, a health-care professional sits quietly in the background due to fear of litigation if they come forward with their proof. Often times, there is a person who suffers as a result of that choice to refrain.

It is no longer ok for a physician to tell the spouse what is going on with their partner without formal ok. I have witnessed a situation where a violent parent was visiting with their adolescent child. The child was scared about the parents intention. Yet, when I asked the charge nurse to dispatch a behavior technician into the visitation room to quietly observe the interactions, I was met with a resounding NO! I was informed the facility cannot be liable. What about the welfare of the child?! An adult person, in a seriously abusive relationship, cannot get support until there is “physical evidence” (physical harm) — because of liability. We cannot seek support in an abusive relationship until the physical abuse has taken over to a point of visibility??!! How does a culture allow this to get so out of control?

With the absence of community and family, and the absence of trust, the more fear in which we will live and therefore the more litigious we will become as a people. The more litigious we become, the more we will fear one another and the less apt we are to feel apathy, altruism, and responsibility to protect or warn. A great example is one day I was a passenger in a car of 7 adults. We passed a new accident. I said, “call 911”. The response I got was, “No, I’m sure that’s already been done!” So, I pulled my phone out and called and everyone got upset that I wasn’t obedient. Here’s why I wasn’t. Years ago on an Easter weekend, I was on Alligator Alley in South Florida. Two cars in front of me I saw the smoke of an accident and immediately called 911. I described the accident as it had just unfolded and gave the mile marker 45 for reference. I was one of MANY passing cars and yet was the first to call emergency services. So, why was i the first? Why do people not want to get involved? I believe that we have lost our sense of community and altruism. I believe that, in part, we are thinking too much about protecting our Self from litigation to respond to the welfare of our people.

For today, notice at least one thought you will have that is aware of liability. Then allow yourself to answer the question, “Where did I learn to think this way?” If we can move beyond this mentality one person at a time, we have the hope of creating change in the way we each help one another.

How many of you would like to achieve greater peace and less stress in this new year? This week I am offering you a 60-second tool that can be used throughout your day to help you reduce the feeling or impact of the stress in your life. You will be able to use this technique at your desk, in a meeting, while driving, in bed to sleep and so much more.

We have become unconscious of much of our Self and our body in our busy days. So today, let’s begin being conscious of just our breath. You will want to practice this exercise often. If you do, it will soon become second nature to put your self into a relaxed state in any environment or situation.

Before clicking play, please put both feet on the ground, lean back comfortably, and enjoy!!

Now that you have experienced the technique, keep practicing it. Should you be interested in learning more about relaxation techniques or meditation, please feel free to write me or comment on the blog!