Money Demons… And Other Difficult Issues

Dear Miriam, 
I’m in my second marriage and this is even worse than my first! I can’t understand why (and how) I keep getting the same kinds of problem; money fights again and again and again!
MarieLou, 37

Dear MarieLou,

Let’s talk about the most explosive mix in every relationship: Love and money. What is it that makes the fights about money so painful and bitter? Why do fights about money issues turn into emotional volcanoes, regardless of what we’re righting about: unpaid bills, irresponsible spending, losing a job, or gambling? According to Dr. Fernard, “our behavior around money is not some disembodied psychological oddity. It is a reflection of… whole personality style, especially the style of loving.” Now, you can ask the question: Can money conflicts be resolved by financial management? Let’s see together: Are money fights simply about money? In my experience, financial solutions to not resolve the emotional issues that are at the real core of relationship problems (that then manifest themselves as money fights). One of the issues is that many relationship problems do not have a tangible equivalent, so we use money.

It seems easier to fight about money than it is to resolve the real pains and problems in significant relationships. Is it easier? Yes! Is it productive? No. Let me list several powerful demons that can sabotage our life and love:

Self deprivation

Living in debt

Compulsive spending

Compulsive gambling

Enabling money

Sabotaging personal and professional success

Having “bag lady” syndrome

All of them can be used as windows to our core, worked through, and used to help bring us to the light of self-acceptance and love. Then, we will stop (or greatly diminish) self-destructive behavior.

I hope this is an insightful initial look as to how we manifest our daily issues by not taking care of the ones at our core.

Love,
Miriam

Have We Had Past Lives?

Dear Miriam, 
In the September issue of Cosmopolitan, there was an article titled “Have you lived before?”, in which Denise Lanctot (the author) suggested that an answer to a current crisis may lie in a past life, and that exploring that past life may bring a resolution to that crisis. Do you believe in past lives?
Sincerely,
Lisa R.

Dear Lisa,

The growing phenomenon of exploring the past, as well as its overwhelming success in helping people resolve “unfinished dramas of the soul” are well-researched and documented facts. The importance of exploring past lives is that they hold the key to unlock doors that have kept the person a prisoner of painful choices and emotions. It is believed that these long-ago experiences influence the choices, feelings, and behavior that limit a person from reaching their full potential in thislifetime. By unlocking the doors of the past, a person can benefit during their current life in many ways. It is a common belief now that there are no accidents, the cause of all problems that we face can be discovered in our past – significant experiences in this lifetime that may have their roots in others that came before. Here are just a few problems that I have witnessed to correspond to a past life:

Depression and fatigue: past memories of unfinished grieving, loss, and separation

Phobias and fears: unresolved traumas, death by fire, water, etc.

Eating disorders, manifesting as obesity or just the inability to maintain weight: memories of deprivation or starvation

Difficulties in relationships: different “distribution of power” in which sex roles were reversed

Chronic physical problems (sometimes with detectable psychological cause, sometimes without). Past life therapy often relieves chronic pain conditions and headaches.

Financial insecurity

Sexual difficulties

Accidents

All these things can be traced to past life traumas and relieved in therapy. In 1980, psychotherapists and researches who were interested in Time Altering Therapies even created an association for past life research and related therapies. We have our annual conventions, with a wide range of very interesting workshops and lectures.

Finally, do I believe in past lives? Well, as a psychotherapist, I am concerned with helping my clients better themselves and release their issues. I tell my clients that it really does not matter whether they believe in past life or not, for time altering therapies to be effective. The beneficial emotional and physical results are produced through these therapies. Do you believe in past life as a literal or symbolic phenomenon? I believe Dr. Roger Woolger said it best:

“Some days, I believe in past life, some days I think about it as a metaphor. But it works! Past life therapy works real life miracles in my current life, and this is the reason I use it.”

Love,
Miriam

P.S – Personally, in my opinion, I believe past lives are more than just metaphors.

The World As Our Mirror

Dear Miriam, 
In one of your workshops, you mentioned the concept of mirroring in our lives.
“The world is our mirror.”
Can you elaborate on that? It sounded interesting, but we didn’t get to discuss it.
Yours,
Dana R.

Dear Dana,

The concept of the world being our mirror is a very popular and intriguing one. As George Bernard Shaw once said: “The only service a friend can really render is to keep up your courage by holding up to you a mirror, in which you can see a noble image of yourself.” If we accept the concept that we create our own reality, the external world can be a giant mirror which reflects what we believe about ourselves and others. The mirror concept suggests that all of life is a mirror, and by looking into the mirror of life, we can learn about ourselves. Understood in this way, the world can show us aspects of ourselves that we can’t see directly. The world around us, people, things, places, and events; they’re all mirrors. It shows you who you are. In your work, in your relationships, everywhere around you. Your actions cause results, and you can measure yourself based on those results. But many ask… “What if I don’t like what I see?”

The good news is, you create it, so you can change it. In self-help oriented, short-term counseling, we can be guided to foster change – change which affects our core belief system, our self-concept. This self-concept is our biggest rival in the world, as well as our best representative. Life is a creative journey when viewed from this perspective; we can learn from the reflection of our lives, we can use it to heal emotional wounds and core beliefs that keep us in the same self-defeating or limiting patterns. If you find yourself wishing to change your world – externally and internally – notice that the most important (and available) key to that change is to understand what we feel and believe is a direct reflection in the outside world. Using the mirror concept, we can use our entire experience in life to learn about ourselves. Each and every area of life acts as a mirror to aspects of ourselves:

relationships, marriage, and family

career and professional choices

social and political involvements

religious and spiritual experiences

fun, recreation, etc.

Quite often, the area of ourselves that is calling for our exploration is the one we feel “stuck” and “entangled” in the most. When we put our conscious effort into uncovering the unconscious and deep meanings to the events around us, we learn to free ourselves from the things we find ourselves stuck in. As we continue to grow through conscious effort, we will see that everything around us is changing, mirroring the very changes we make from within.

Love,
Miriam

The Dream I Never Knew I Had

Dear Miriam,
I love my new self! Spring, dreams, relationships – everything is different. It has meaning I never knew.
Yours,
April

Dear April,

We dream, we all do. There are dreams we know we can realize, there are some we are quite sure we cannot. And … there are dreams that await us in the space and time beyond our consciousness. These are dreams that cannot be conceived ahead of time. These are dreams that meet us on “the path with the heart”, on our road of self-discovery, of becoming the selves we are born to be – the realization of our identity.

Some of the most cherished dreams in our culture are relationships, marriage and family.  

The relational aspects receive a lot of attention: What we want and seek is intimacy. We seek intimacy… and we often find ourselves in troubled relationships. . . Intimacy is a process, but we expect it right away. We want “instant intimacy”. Sex becomes “instant gratification” for intimacy hunger. Sex, courtship, infatuation “romantic love”, all have elements of intimacy… But they are not intimacy (yet!).

The joy of shared intimacy begins with and builds on our identity, the dream we never knew we had – the self-concept that based on self acceptance, self esteem and self awareness. Many of us get in troubled relationships by seeking intimacy before identity. These are two “common struggles” in our culture: identity (who am l?) and intimacy (with whom am I sharing the journey of life?).

Often we try to find our identity through our intimacy…

Well, the problem is: We reverse the order. Identity is the foundation for intimacy, intimacy is built on identity. What are women taught about being women? Women are taught that meaning of their lives comes through their husbands and children. Women are taught that love is romance. The fairy tales – Sleeping Beauty, Cinderella, Beauty and The Beast – tell us wait for our Prince Charming; “sleep”, don’t act, and when (and if!) you’ll wake up, you’ll find yourself riding off into the sunrise taken by your Prince … (maybe to live with his mother?). We are taught to be beauty objects and sex symbols.

Men are taught very different about being men. They are taught to be warriors, protectors, providers and taking it to the extreme: the power objects and economic symbols. Men are taught that intimacy is sex: you work hard and be a success and “it” will find you. Men become addicted to success, work, money, sex. Women become romance and love addicts. We often become addicted to men who are addicted to work, money, sex, alcohol and drugs. We closed the circle – this is how we live together in our insane world.

I believe we all (women and men) desire and seek intimacy. We are just unsure what it is. In our search of intimacy first (and before identity) we often did things that kept us from getting it.

It is all a part of the journey: dreams of failing in love, finding that significant other and living happily ever after. The one thing I wish we would all do in this journey: find ourselves and love what we find.

Love

Miriam

We Live The Life We Choose

Dear Miriam, 
You have no idea what a poor opinion I have of myself – and how little I deserve it.
W.S. Gilbert

Dear W.S.,

Can this be changed? Here’s what I think: We are living the life that we choose to live. The choices are made, moment by moment, each moment of our lives. Do we do what is comfortable and safe for us, or do we pursue what has meaning to us, what is our real ‘heart’s desire’? Most of us often choose to feel comfortable and safe. We have the life we have, as an exact result of what we choose to do – often choosing comfort over risk, convenience over daring, conventional over what we believe and really want. But, where does it come from? Why are we that way? Well… in a nutshell, life is pretty simple. “What we dish out, we get back.” We all create our experiences by our choices; our thoughts, our words, our feelings, and our actions – all of which we choose (consciously or unconsciously). What we believe about life and about ourselves will determine our choices.

We create our experiences, and then we give our power away by blaming somebody or something for our frustrations and downfalls. But, if we do not own our experiences, how can we correct or even change the future ones? We get in life not what we want, but what we expect. Put another way, our subconscious mind accepts and acts on our choice of beliefs. What we believe about ourselves and our lives will be true for us, because our beliefs will be reflected by the outside world. Where are these beliefs coming from? Why do so many of us have such a poor self-concept and so many self-imposed limitations? Well, we learn how to feel about ourselves and about life while we are still little (basically, up to age 5-6) by the reactions of primary and important adults in our lives. And very many of us were surrounded by angry, guilty, depressed, and negative people. However, it would be neither wise, nor fair to blame them: they did the best they knew how to, with the knowledge and awareness they had at the time.

It is my belief also, that all of us do our best: if we knew how to live better, most of us would probably do it. The next important thing to know is; In our adult life, we have the tendency to recreate the familiar – the ’emotional environment’ of our primary family. How many of us had a lover, a husband, or a boss who was, in many ways, our mother or father, or a sibling (whether it be in the way they treated us, or the ‘vibe’ they gave off)? To make matters even more complicated, we treat ourselves in the same way we were treated in our primary family. Now you realize where your self-esteem is coming from. In spite of all that I would choose to blame, neither our families, nor our culture is the right scapegoat: how could anyone teach us something they didn’t know themselves? Those of us who are parents now will probably agree with me, wholeheartedly.

Now, after all this, what is our way out of the misery of this ‘victimization circle’? How can we change our lives? How can we parent our children differently? We are all here to transcend our limitations, to overcome our (conscious and unconscious) negative beliefs. We are all here to recognize that the power of change is in the present, right here and now. You might want take notice of your thinking process right now, at this very moment. Do you want those thoughts to create your tomorrow?

Love,
Miriam

P.S – One of the most powerful techniques for inducing a positive change in these areas is hypnotherapy.

How To Release Your Weight – And Suffering – And Keep It Off

Dear Miriam, 
I have been on so many diets… I’ve lost and found my extra pounds so many times. I’m starting to realize that there may be more to my situation than meets the eye. Any suggestions?
Sincerely,
Rita F.

Dear Rita,

If you’ve been on many diets and have found yourself returning to your old eating habits, there’s most probably an emotional cause which requires release. One that comes with many pounds of pain. Some of us constantly struggle with our weight, feeling hopeless when it comes to overcoming our craving for food. If this is how you feel, then most probably, there are some areas of your life that are toxic or unresolved. Here are a few of the most probable ones:

Current issues; love and/or work relationships, finances, and money issues, motherhood guilt, and adult sexual traumas

Childhood and/or adolescence; unresolved (and unexpressed) pain and suffering, psychological abuse, physical abuse, sexual abuse

I would like to stress the link between traumatic sexual experiences (past, recent, or current) and decreasing self-esteem and chronic overeating. Every weight over-conscious woman I’ve ever worked with has searched for a sense of self-acceptance and relief in her relationship with food. Another way to say it is: Many of us have an unhealthy coping mechanism that involves emotional hunger, which manifests as a physical necessity to eat. The whole issue of being ’emotionally overweight’ can be summarized easily.

If we were not so emotionally hungry, we would not be eating as much. If we didn’t eat as much, we wouldn’t have so much extra weight. The primary feelings that lead to that emotionally fueled hunger are unresolved and under-expressed (sometimes even unremembered) anger, fear, and shame. Only after you release the pain and suffering of stress and abuse, can you come to redefining your self-worth and begin accepting yourself and rebuilding your self-esteem. When we are ready to release the past with all of the attached pain, the weight is no longer needed; it will be released, and our chronic unhappiness will be lifted. My newer clients often ask me, “Why should I go through the pain of my past? How long will it take? Why can’t you just hypnotize me to lose weight?” I urge my clients to uncover that buried pain from the past that deprives them from today’s happiness, joy, and aliveness.

It takes as long as it has to. Obviously, your desire and readiness to release the past are major factors.

Love,
Miriam

P.S – In case you don’t catch why people ask about hypnotism, I use hypno-counselling for habit-modification, stress reduction, discovering family patterns, weight releasing goals, sources of anxiety, depression, and compulsive eating, among other things.

Moving On From Melodrama

Dear Miriam,
I keep finding myself in quite strange relationships. It is not love… it feels like obsession. Quite often, it feels awful! I never know what will happen next and I’m getting more and more unhappy with myself. Why do I do this to myself, and what is this all about?
Kelly H., 27

Dear Kelly,

Why would some women continuously get themselves into relationships that don’t bring anything but pain? Why are some of us habitual drama-seekers, consciously or unconsciously creating melodramatic experiences that are so plainly detrimental to our lives? Yes, it feels awful… but, it’s never dull. Let’s consider the nature of these dramatic experiences. First of all, many real life experiences are painfully dramatic:

Illness

Accidents

Loss of employment

Divorce

Many other experiences are joyfully dramatic:

Major professional achievements

The birth of a child

Weddings

All of these contain heightened emotions and feelings of increased aliveness. Unlike these dramatic events of our lives, the kind of drama we concern ourselves with here are MELODRAMATIC. The best example of melodrama out there is soap operas: exaggerated reactions, constant crisis, excessive emotions, constant frustration, and thrill. Some dramas, whether deliberately or unconsciously created, are extreme and self-destructive, while others are more subtle. The cumulative effects of either are equally destructive.

One of the most tragic aspects of dramatic living is that we are often unconscious of our part in creating it. It feels that our troubles and problems are out of control. We find ourselves as the helpless victim. If you suspect that living in drama is part of your life, you would probably like to know the origin of all of this drama. First, we must understand that the drive to seek various novel and complex sensations, emotions, and experiences through reasonable risk is healthy. However, for cultural reasons, many of us (especially women) learn to get involved in particular destructive “thrill” – a self-defeating drama that exhausts our energy, decreases our self-esteem and personal power, and keeps us disconnected from our deepest feelings. Instead of dealing with the pain that lays at the root of our poor self-concept, or our current life situations (deteriorating intimacy, unfulfilling relationships, meaningless jobs, etc.), we create melodrama, which conceals any possible insight. Not only this, but one of the most damaging consequences of this drama is that the conflicts and crisis prevent us from lasting intimacy in relationships. So the problem is two-fold! Another issue, the gradual decline in self-concept, affects all areas of our lives, including our careers.

In a nutshell, a life of drama is painful and self-defeating. It brings us excitement, but eventually leads to a greater agony. Do we have to choose? Does life have to be “good, but boring” OR “bad, but exciting”? Not at all. To reiterate, we all have needs for excitement. The question is: can we have it in a way that increases our self-esteem, leads to empowerment and self-actualization? When we learn to transform drama into healthy excitement, our whole image changes; our energy will increase, our self-concept and personal power will be strengthened, our ‘care’ feelings will be accessible, the intimacy in our relationships will have space to develop. You’re probably asking, “how do I get that?”

As usual, you probably already know the main steps: take responsibility for your life and actions, learn about your past and own it, forgive yourself and everyone else in your life, regardless of whether or not they deserve it, live in the moment, be aware and be grateful that you’re here!

Love,
Miriam