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Have you ever been in the supermarket with you child when they threw a fit? How did you feel? Were you embarrassed to the point of the leaving your groceries in the store and going home? Did get a tense look on your face? Did you grit your teeth and threaten to spank your child? Did you do something to pacify your child? 
Why is it that some parents have the ability to handle these situations with grace, while others melt under the pressure? The answer may be as simple as understanding the word, Anxiety. Anxiety is defined as the feeling of worry or unease about a situation with an unknown outcome. Or rather, anxiety is the feeling a person gets when they desire to have control of a situation that they have no real ability to control. Often, anxious people seek control in unhealthy, destructive ways (i.e., yelling, arguing, pacifying). While these methods may be functional (they control the person with whom you are interacting), they are in no way healthy. If this is the case, it makes sense that parent of the child in the grocery store feels anxious. They do not have the ability to control the moods or actions of their children. Although there will be many parents who read this statement and disagree with it, it might be beneficial to give it some more thought.
You are the only person that can control you! While others may influence your decision, the ultimate decision for how you feel and act belongs to you. Anxiety is most often activated by fear or frustration. In the case of a parent and unruly child, the fear might be related to other’s judgments of your ability to parent. The parent’s anxiety seeks to quiet (think control) the child rather than move to understand and engage the child. It is difficult for many of us to engage with anxious people. We feel anxious when we are near them. Therefore, we must either withdraw from them or we must quiet them.
The Screamfree Institute, founded Hal Runkel, focuses on helping people learn to be in anxious free relationships (e.g., parent/child, husband/wife, and friend/friend). More, a person in an anxious free relationship is “learning to relate with others in a calm, cool, and connected way, taking hold of their own emotional responses no matter how anyone else chooses to behave and learning to focus on their self and take care of their self for the world’s benefit.”
If you find yourself arguing, fighting, or constantly engaged in battle with a child, spouse, co-worker, or best friend, you might be struggling with anxiety. You might be trying to control the person you love, rather than trusting them to love and care for you. On the outset, it seems less risky to control someone than to allow them to have free will to hurt you. If these situations are applicable to you, you might consider it is time for you 1) focus on yourself, 2) calm down, and 3) grow up. Relationships can only flourish when they are allowed to grow in non anxious environments.
If you need assistance in these matters, you can contact the Christian Counseling Center at 270-442-5738. You can also check out Hal Runkel’s work on the website, http://www.screamfree.com.
Andrew N. Williams, MMFT, LMFT
Louise Hawkley, PhD, says we should think of loneliness not as a state but as a motivation to get social. Here’s how:
Get out and about. You don’t have to be best friends with someone to benefit from interaction. Amity Brown, who is separated from her husband, takes walks around her neighborhood, smiling at people she passes. “When I started getting to know the neighborhood and the people around me, I felt like part of a community,” she says.
Be selective about making friends. Hawkley points out that if you’re desperate for relationships, you may be willing to tolerate unacceptable treatment. Now that Brown is feeling more stable, she says, “I’m more careful when I choose my friends to make sure they’re low-drama.”
Stay positive. Lonely people tend to expect rejection, which makes it more likely to happen. Social cognitive therapy can help people reframe their thoughts about how others see them.
Loneliness is not only emotionally painful; it can harm your health. It’s a risk factor for a host of problems: high blood pressure; sleep problems; decreased ability to deal with the stress of daily life; and the body’s reduced ability to handle inflammation, leading to conditions such as atherosclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis, and tendinitis, as well as a weakened immune system, so you’re more susceptible to illness. Researchers have yet to identify the exact ways these health problems occur, but they know that loneliness seems to make them worse.
While many of these issues don’t show up until middle age or later, the damage begins early, according to Hawkley. Small increases in stress chemicals released into the bloodstream can, over time, damage blood vessels all over the body.
Of course, some lonely times are inevitable in everyone’s life, and you don’t need to fear them. Think of loneliness as a thirst for companionship, one you can satisfy. Says Hawkley, “It’s a feeling that, if it’s doing its job, it gets you out there to sate that need to feel connected.”
by: Susan Kuchinskas
Loneliness can hit at almost any time. When Amity Brown separated from her husband of 11 years, for instance, she felt — understandably — isolated and sad. “The hardest thing is not having someone with that deep emotional knowledge of me to catch me when I fall,” says the 41-year-old photographer based in Oakland, Calif.
It’s almost inevitable that losing a spouse or moving to a new town can make you feel lonely; but loneliness can strike even without major life changes. You can be alone without being lonely, or you can feel lonely in a crowd. True loneliness is simply a feeling of being disconnected from others; 5% to 7% of middle-aged and older adults report feeling intense or persistent loneliness.
“Loneliness is what you say it is. You can’t tell somebody you shouldn’t be lonely,” says Louise Hawkley, PhD, senior research scientist with the Center for Cognitive and Social Neuroscience at the University of Chicago.
The next two posts will deal with loneliness and illness & the loneliness cure
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