rejection Archives ⋆ Mike and Susan Dawson

Unhealthy Marriage Patterns: You Can end the Damaging Fear Dance

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2020-05-10T18:43:33+00:00Emotion, Fear|

While sitting down to write this post about unhealthy marriage patterns, I was reminded of a movie scene where an overweight man was lamenting how big he had gotten. He said, “I eat because I’m unhappy, and I’m unhappy because I eat. It’s a vicious cycle.” I bring this up because, as humans, we have a tendency to fall into all sorts of cycles or patterns in everyday life — many of which are not only damaging but can feel never-ending. A perfect example of an unhealthy marriage pattern is the damaging fear dance. As couples, we fall into well-worn patterns when our fear button gets pushed. We’ve written a [...]

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Are You Rejecting Your Partner’s Influence?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2020-01-10T00:36:17+00:00Communication, Conflict|

People who take their partner’s influence into account during their decision-making process will have less negative outcomes and heated emotions in their conflict. How do we know? First, Proverbs tells us that, pride only breeds quarrels, but wisdom is found in those who take advice. Second, research (Gottman, Christensen, and Jacobs) on couples and relationships bears this out. And, ask any psychologist or counselor, and they will tell you the same. My personal experience with couples leads me to this conclusion. Let’s take a look at why. Debbie wants to go to her parents’ home in Seattle for the holidays, which is a norm for her and her husband, Dave. [...]

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Overcome Fear Now!

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2018-02-22T22:46:35+00:00Fear|

Fear is rampant. Turn on the TV and you see it very clearly. Fear is an essential physiological response to physical and emotional danger. If we don’t feel it, we could be in danger of legitimate threats. But often we fear situations in our daily, relational lives that are far from life or death. Usually these are personal fears relating to our own value and worth, or to our vulnerabilities and shame. Fear, in this personal sense, is an anxious feeling caused by our anticipation of a perceived danger or threat to WHO we are and WHAT we do. What are some of these? Types of Personal Fears: • Failure [...]

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Could Changing the Way You Talk about Fear, Change Your Belief about Who you ARE?

michaeldawsonlpc@gmail.com2017-11-02T18:52:40+00:00Fear, Identity|

“I have fear.” There’s a common mistranslation that causes us trouble. We say, “I am afraid,” as if the fear IS us, forever. We don’t say, “I am a fever” or “I am a sore foot.” NO, in those cases, we acknowledge that it’s a temporary condition, something we have, at least for now, but won’t have forever. “Right now, I have fear about launching this project,” is quite different from, “I’m afraid.” The blog above, by Author and Blogger Seth Godin [Read Blog] caused me to really think about how I talk about myself. I find it compelling because I have used or heard these phrases used many times [...]

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