Emotionally Engaged
617-935-3362
  • Free Consult
  • Unhappy Bride
  • Brides
    • Why???
    • What Brides Say
    • Could This Be You?
    • Post-Wedding
    • FAQs
    • Book
  • Grooms
  • Parents
  • Cold Feet
  • About
    • Media Appearances
  • Blog

Is Your Text Life Dramatic?

9/30/2013

0 Comments

 
Texting is convenient, fast, easy. None of all that "Hi" and "Cheers!" stuff to deal with. 

But it's destructive for our relationships, writes psychotherapist  Ira Israel in this hilarious and wise blog: 
Text messaging is an absolutely terrible means of communicating emotions, WITH THE POSSIBLE EXCEPTION OF TEXTING ALL IN CAPITAL LETTERS with the possible exception of texting in all capital letters (a.k.a. “shouting”)—LOL!— DUH!—sideways smiley faces and multiple exclamation points!!!!!!!!!!!!!!....

....[Texting] often engenders ambiguity and confusion by failing to convey essential nuances such as disappointment, hope, irony, sadness, elation. For full article, click here.
Texting is quick and easy, but it's devoid of emotion, connection, context, and closeness.   


It's terrain that's ripe for misinterpretation and hurt.

I worked with a bride who told me that she and her fiance texted more than 100 times a day, often fighting with each other via text.  Some minor problem between them in the morning would escalate into an all-day text argument.

"That's way too much texting," I said, bluntly. "Put the phones away while you are at work, and wait until you get home to talk the problem through." 

She didn't like that suggestion much.

Despite her reaction, I've made it not exactly a rule, but a very strong suggestion to all the brides I work with:  

No important conversations over text.
Pass info only.

 I've seen brides be hurt by texts, have destructive fights with their fiances, families, and closest friends.  All of which could be avoided by face-to-face or at least phone contact.

I'm not the only psychotherapist seeing this in their practice.  Writes Israel:
I have witnessed the destruction of countless patients’ important relationships by miscommunications caused by texting and what I refer to as “subtexting.

”Subtexting is the tacit information given and the rampant misinterpretations of that information—namely the response time between text messages.
So, decrease the drama in your texting life. 
Just pass info.  And dive into the complexity that is our intimate human relationships.
Allison Moir-Smith
Picture
Don't have important conversations over text. Just pass info. I've seen brides be hurt by texts, have destructive fights with their fiances, families, and closest friends. All of which could be avoided by face-to-face or at least phone contact.
0 Comments

Louis CK on what it means to be emotionally engaged

9/23/2013

1 Comment

 
Great clip on the power, beauty, and joy of letting your sadness in, byLouis CK on Conan:
I started to get that sad feeling and reached for my phone, but I thought 'don't' — just be sad, let it hit you like a truck," he explains. "I pulled over and I just cried like a bitch, it was beautiful. Sadness is poetic."

We can sometimes be so afraid of feeling sad that we miss out on the full range of human emotions:
Because we don't want to feel that first bit of sad, we push it away with phones or with food, and you never feel completely sad or completely happy.  You just feel kind of satisfied....
This is exactly the kind of thing I tell the brides I work with.  In his own coarse way, Louis CK is describing what it means to be Emotionally Engaged.  

"Don't stand in the way of sadness," he says.  

To that, I'd add: because that's how you get to the joy.  

Go to 1:55 for rant on the beauty of sadness.

Need a little help "going there" emotionally?  Contact me for a free 15-minute video consultation.

Allison Moir-Smith
Picture
"I was grateful to feel sad, and then I met it with true, profound happiness." Louis CK on Conan. Go to 1:55 for the benefits of sadness rant.
1 Comment

The Stories of 7 Brides

9/16/2013

2 Comments

 
7 of the brides I worked with got married. 

 I thought it would be interesting for you to hear a little about the issues we worked on.
  • K., who didn't feel emotionally close enough to her fiance  
  • M., who had to negotiate a new relationship with her controlling father
  • F., who was reluctant to move out of her own condo and into her fiance's house
  • I., who was anxious about getting "financially naked" with her fiance
  • A., who was grieving the loss of a close relative ...while planning a wedding
  • R., who really had a hard time letting go of her single identity and the end of her single life
  • C., who was fearful about how marriage might impact her career goals

Picture
Photo courtesy HomeandWeddings on Etsy
These brides contacted me because they felt anxious and alone in their struggles.

Anxious and alone because the world expected them to be only "brides" -- only excited, only happy, only thinking about dresses and shoes and aisle runners.  

These pressures and expectations didn't match their own inner emotional experiences, which were rich, deep, and lifechanging.  In our work together, each of these brides could be their complex, "unbridely" selves, as they made sense of the very real changes their impending marriages caused them to face.

I'm happy to say that, across the board, without exception, all 7 brides successfully worked through their issues. Each and every bride has reported back to me about the happiness and joy they felt on their wedding days.  Most couldn't believe they had traveled such a distance, emotionally, from where we first started.  At the beginning of our work, they couldn't envision a happy wedding day, they were so wrapped up in their angst and pain.  

And yet, as one bride just told me during her FREE post-wedding download session:  

"Our wedding was phenomenal. The whole thing. Emotionally, I was calmer than I expected to be -- nothing was going to get me down --  and I was surprised at how choked up I got saying my vows.  It was amazing and so satisfying to see all the million tiny details that I worked so hard on, sweated over, and fought for, come to life.  It was perfect."

If you see yourself in any of these 7 brides, or if you are feeling anxious and alone, pressured to be a "perfect bride" and not your complete, complex self, contact me for a free 15-minute Skype consultation.  For these 7 brides, working with me -- having a place in their lives to be "unbridely" -- allowed them to be real, delve deep, grow, learn and come out the other side happy and ready to be married.  

If you'd like that too, please, be in touch.

Click here for your free 15-minute video consultation

Allison Moir-Smith
2 Comments

    How to be a Happier
    ​Bride-to-Be

    Picture

    Free Consultation

    Blog Categories

    All
    Advice
    Anxiety
    Book To Blog
    Brides.com Blogs
    Brides: Feelings
    Brides: Sessions
    Brides: Success Stories
    Cold Feet
    Dear Newly Engaged Me
    Depression
    Emotionally Engaged
    Emotions
    Engagement
    Family
    Grief
    Help For Brides
    Holidays
    Love
    Mother
    Myths
    Psychology
    Real Emotions
    Relationships
    Sessions W Brides
    Wedding Day
    Wedding Planning
    Wedding Stress

    Archives

    May 2022
    April 2021
    April 2020
    March 2020
    December 2019
    October 2019
    March 2019
    February 2019
    December 2018
    October 2018
    December 2017
    March 2017
    December 2016
    November 2016
    October 2016
    September 2016
    July 2016
    May 2016
    April 2016
    March 2016
    February 2016
    January 2016
    December 2015
    November 2015
    October 2015
    July 2015
    June 2015
    May 2015
    April 2015
    March 2015
    February 2015
    January 2015
    December 2014
    November 2014
    October 2014
    September 2014
    August 2014
    July 2014
    June 2014
    May 2014
    April 2014
    March 2014
    February 2014
    January 2014
    December 2013
    November 2013
    October 2013
    September 2013
    August 2013
    July 2013
    June 2013
    May 2013
    April 2013
    March 2013
    February 2013
    January 2013
    December 2012

    RSS Feed

Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Picture
Free Consult
Cold Feet
Contact

Helping brides & grooms feel happier, calmer and better prepared for marriage since 2002.
​