Today has been a rough day. Sometimes reality smacks you in the face and you have to deal with it. I had a break in my schedule to get out of the house and go to what I call my other office, Starbucks (only 3 miles away).
Offering Counseling, Sound Therapy and Performance Coaching. This Blog is all about personal growth & relationships. It is not intended to diagnose, treat, or replace legal or medical advice from a licensed professional.
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Thursday, September 7, 2023
Rough Days
Thursday, August 17, 2023
Anxiety is often thought of as something that other people experience. I am finding that many people have more anxiety than they realize. It may not keep them from leaving the house or working. However, their anxiety acts like a low-grade fever that robs them of vitality and feeling good or even great.
Looking
back, I now realize how much my busy mind was keeping my own low grade anxious
feelings churning. I thought I was problem
solving but in reality, it was worry and rumination. I had got used to those
feelings, so they didn't really get noticed until my adrenalin was really
flowing. Some part of me felt congruent with the height of adrenalin (and as my
father would say) "the joy of meeting yourself coming around the
corner!" This resulted in using food to de-stress, feeling restless a good
deal of the time, an irregular heartbeat and lower back problems.
Over 15 years ago, I began to learn more about the brain and anxiety. The way your brain fires is the way it wires is neurosciences way of saying that you can literally get neurologically addicted to your negative feelings. After working on becoming less tolerant of stress and feeling anxious, I began to rewire my brain and set point for feeling anxious.
When I realized that my worry and stress was rewiring my brain to make it easier to get stressed, I knew it was time to run an experiment on myself. So, I decided that whenever I got to a five or higher (zero to ten scale with zero being chill and 10 being in extreme anxiety), I would use tapping on acupoints or listening to brainwave entrainment music to shift my nervous system. Instead of focusing on the content of my anxiety, I focused on shifting my nervous system once I had a fix on what was bothering me.
Withing 3 weeks, I was going to sleep with greater ease, by 8 weeks I was feeling much calmer than I had in a long time. By six months, it really felt like my brain had established a new pattern. I was able to center myself much quicker (sometimes with just one deep breath) and sit with my feelings more easily, without getting up over a 5.
Today, I intervened much quicker (with my go to shifting tools) to mentally reboot and shift my nervous systems response to life's event. As a result, my relationship with food is healthier, my back is the best it has been in decades and my irregular heartbeat has vanished.
Learning
to calm an over reactive nervous system is about learning to get out of your
head into your life. Most of the stuff we fear never happens.
My go to tools today are brainwave entrainment music, tapping on acupoints, Intention Energy Process and sound therapy.
Here are some links to resources that I used today…
www.Intentiontapping.com click here
www.Biolateral.com click here
My Meditative Sound Channel www.youtube.com/@GregCarpenter click here
Native Flute Sound Meditations Albums www.gregcarpenter.bandcamp.com
click here
Thursday, August 10, 2023
Rethinking Relationships Part II (for Part I scroll down)
Part II
When I
was reading JR Meyers’ book, (The Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy,
Community and Small Groups), it became clear to me that my perceptions on
relationships needed to shift. As
someone who had a major preference for close relationship with strong ties and
deeper sharing (what I refer to as ‘in close’ engagement style), I was
challenged by Myers to look at the value of relationships that can be easy to
dismiss as superficial or perfunctory. Here is a quick run through
of his thoughts and language for belonging and connections.
Four Spaces of Connection (JR Myers)
- Public belonging "occurs when people
connect through outside influence or an external event." While
visiting my sister in Kansas, we attended a football game between the New
England Patriot’s and Kansas City Chief’s. Of course, the East Coast
Carpenters had to wear their Patriot gear.
There was an immediate connection with others Patriot fans without
sharing any personal information. A nod, a yes here and there and even an
occasional high five from a stranger communicated that we were in this
together.
Did
you ever leave a great theatre performance, concert or movie and feel that rush
of energy and connection with others who shared the same experience. That is Public Space belonging. You don’t share any information but still
feel a type of connection to each other.
- Social belonging "occurs when we share
"snapshots" of what it would be like to be in personal space
with us." This is where you put your "best foot forward."
Yet, you aren’t really sharing any deep or private information. Examples
of this space might be at your place of employment or where you get your
hair cut. For some folk, this might be the coffee hour after worship
service, cocktail party, or some other social gathering.
I recently attended my nephew’s wedding in Kansas
City. At the reception I had a chance to
talk to many people I hadn’t met before.
We talked about how we liked to travel, what it was like to live on the
East Coast, what hotels we were staying at, but there was no deep private
information being shared. This is a
space where we are sticking our social toe in the water to see if we want more
connection or if the space is safe enough to get to know someone further.
- Personal belonging is where
"we share private experience, feelings and thoughts without making
folk feel uncomfortable." These are relationships that we typically
name as friends. They know more about us than our acquaintances, but less
than our “intimates.” There is a
continuum of low to higher levels of sharing within this space. When I was attending graduate school in
Boston, I took Jiu Jitsu classes and met another graduate student. We tossed each other around on the mat
during classes but never really shared much information. Soon we were talking more after class
and realized we had more in common than our love of martial arts (both
were interning at different counseling centers at the time). Eventually, we became friends. I can remember like it was yesterday
sitting on the back porch in Boston at the age of 26 and idealistically sharing
how we wanted life to look in three decades. Today, he is one of my best friends.
- Intimate belonging is the space where we “share ‘naked’
experiences, feelings, and thoughts. Most people have very few
relationships that are considered intimate. These relationships are where
we can share the deepest parts of ourselves, the core wounds, and negative
beliefs we hold about ourselves and still feel accepted. In my friendship with Lee, that started
out in social space, moved into personal connection and wound-up decades
later in what Meyers calls intimate belonging. Over the years we developed
a trust where we could share our struggles, losses, fears, and dreams and
know that each other would still be there.
There isn’t much that we don’t know about each other.
Myers
helps us to understand the value of connecting in all four spaces of
belonging. Some may have a bias that
anything less than personal space is somehow “second class.” Others may
undervalue the need for personal and intimate space. His thinking helps us to
understand how each space has its own significance and place of belonging. When my friend Stan (who is a pastor) and I
talked about these concepts, we discovered that I was a bit dismissive of
“superficial” social and public belonging and he really was less comfortable
with Intimate and Personal belonging. By
wrestling and discussing the concepts we learned over time to have a more
balanced appreciation for the connections across all four types.
Understanding
your engagement style and spaces of connection is important for finding your relationship
road map. Somethings can’t be
learned. But emotional and social
intelligence is something where having knowledge and self-awareness can make a
world of difference. Did you ever have
someone come up to you at a social gathering and they were just doing the TMI
(too much information) dance? You can
see the discomfort in the group when folk are talking about the Red Sox,
weather or favorite movie and someone tries to give a detailed description
about their failing marriage or knee replacement surgery struggles.
The
reality is that all of us will cross in and out of all four of these spaces of
belonging, if not every day most likely every week. It is helpful to know how to recognize what
relationship “country” we have walked into.
If you are in public space connection and are expecting deep personal
relationships to quickly develop, you will be greatly disappointed. You might even blame the group or yourself. Knowing our comfort zones and how to navigate
different spaces will help to create more satisfying connections and
experiences.
Let me
know in the comments what are your preferences?
Where
do you feel the need to develop greater skills?
Which
of the connection spaces do you need more of, less of?
Rethinking Relationships
Part I
“In a
world of ‘Likes,’ ‘Followers,’ and ‘Friends,’ it’s difficult to discern who
belongs, how they want to connect, and what you can do to encourage belonging
to you. (Joseph R. Meyers author).” Today it is even a challenge to define
who is our neighbor, who are our people and where do I belong. The division and conflict between “tribes”
and ideologies has never been more apparent, as division over beliefs is
prioritized over belonging and community.
So, who
IS my neighbor? Is it that
anonymous person who sends me an email from some foreign land with the promise
of quick riches or is secretly seeking to get my PayPal password? Is it the
Bank Teller who manages to smile and say have a nice day when I am the 50th
person who has also forgotten to write an account number on their check. Is it
your several hundred friends listed on your Facebook page (for those who
partake) or other social media?
I ran across a book several years ago that
reframed how I looked at relationships.
For me, it transformed my thinking and perceptions in the world of
connection. Working as a pastor and
therapist at the time, I was biased toward close and personal
relationships. I took for granted the importance
of connecting with people in brief social contacts. During the year after my late wife died, I
sometimes didn’t know what to do with all this ‘alone’ time. On some weekends I would go for a hike and
meet a couple on the path that was walking their dog. I would say, “great looking dog.” That would lead to a three-minute connection
and pleasantries with someone I most likely would never see again. These connections are important. Positive connections in social space are
important to our emotional wellbeing.
In
today’s virtual world of connection and instant news, it can also feel like we
are bombarded with a type of connected yet disconnected world of everyone living
virtually next door. Joseph R. Myers, drawing on the work of anthropologist Edward
T. Hall, has shed some light about relationships, connection, and space (The
Search to Belong: Rethinking Intimacy, Community and Small Groups). He states
that our educational training may have prioritized meaning and believing over
belonging and connecting. I would add
that our American culture leans toward valuing doing (work) over being present
with each other. People more than ever are struggling to make connections and
report feeling isolated.
The
Washington Post reports, “While research on the benefits of social connections has
generally focused on the importance of “strong ties,” or the intimate
relationships we have with family and close friends, a growing body of research
is shedding light on the hidden benefits of casual acquaintances, too. Surprisingly,
these “weak ties” (that funny colleague, for example) can serve important
functions such as boosting physical and psychological health and buffering
against stress and loneliness, researchers have found.”
That isn’t to suggest
they take the place of stronger more intimate relationships. Those are also clearly very important. But it does give us pause to reflect on our
own relationship patterns and connections.
Consider
your own need for personal space or connection. If we place you on a bell
curve, some of you will come out on the 15 per cent who have a more
distant engagement style. You are
more reluctant to share personal information. Others of you will be on that
other end of the 15 percent who will have an “in close” engagement
style where you don’t feel like you are really connected unless you know a
person’s hope/dreams, what makes them tick and what is most important to
them. Most folk fall somewhere in the
middle. One style isn’t superior to the
other. They each have their strengths
and constraints.
Understanding
differences and perceptions is important in developing friendships and entering
new groups. What one person might
perceive as distant and aloof might be seen as respectful of boundaries and
privacy, by another. What someone might judge
as intrusive behavior without boundaries, could be described as friendly, warm,
and engaging by another. It all depends
on your relationship engagement preferences.
I would be curious to read in the comments your own preferences. I also would be interested in your experience
of social media. In my experience it is
a connected yet somewhat disconnected platform.
It certainly doesn’t replace face to face get togethers. Yet, the number
and variety of comments I received when I posted about my grief after Liz died
was extremely meaningful and supportive.
In Part II we will take a closer look at Myers four different spaces of belonging and connection and how they can help us evaluate our own preferences and relationship needs.
Wednesday, July 26, 2023
Relationships
Part of me wants to quarrel with Jeff Brown's statement. There is a younger part of me that wants to hold onto the fantasy that great relationships are easy and always in a state of flow. But in my experience, his words ring true. Great connections aren't conflict free. They come from being able to move through conflict and to repair. A series of moving from harmony, to struggle, repair and back to harmony. Moving forward in our growth together (but not always at the same time or pace).
Learning to let the dust settle and addressing a repeating conflict when both parties are in a better place is sage wisdom.
Monday, July 17, 2023
The One Eye Technique - Calming Your Mind and Emotions
The One Eye Technique (or what I like to call The Dimmer Switch) is based on dual brain theory. I ran across this idea in my Brainspotting training and also in Frederick Schiffer's book "Of Two Minds: The Revolutionary Science of Dual Brain Psychology."
Rate your stress or feeling intensity on a scale of 1 -10 (SUDS) Keeping both eyes open, place your hand over your left eye to block input. For some folk, covering their right eye provides more relief. So you can give each a try to see which works better for you. Hold for 60 seconds. Relaxation breathing during this time will create added benefits. After one minute, rate your feeling intensity on the same scale. Most persons report a reduction of 2 – 4 in intensity. Repeat to bring further down in intensity. Combine this technique with Relaxation Breathing for best results.
Tuesday, February 7, 2023
Conference: The Art and Science of Transformational Change
I will leading a Pre-Conference Intensives ONE-DAY TRAINING in Baltimore on Thursday, June 1, 2023 8:30 am - 4:15 pm on "Enrich & Expand Your Results through Sound Therapy:Simple & In-Depth Techniques"
For more information about the conference go to this link. It is one of the most rewarding confences I attend each year on Energy Psychology.https://www.ep-conference.org/Description
Learn simple ways to incorporate sound therapy to enhance your work - you don't have to be a musician. Discover how to use sound interventions to work on core issues. Observe live demonstrations of different sound modalities for removing blocks, releasing emotional attachments, and restoring energy balance. We will conclude with a group Sound Meditation/Bath.
OBJECTIVES
• Name 2 sound tools that can be integrated to enhance therapy work.
• List 2 sound work tools for self-care.
• Name 2 electronic therapeutic sound devices that can be used with clients or for self-care.
• Describe 2 sound therapy approaches for working with core issues.
• Identify 2 intention statements for use with clients.
• Describe the "felt experience" of a Group Sound Meditation.
Greg Carpenter, LMFT, is a marriage and family therapist, performance coach, certified IEP practitioner/trainer, and sound therapist. He uses mind-body therapies to relieve stress/anxiety, relationship concerns, and increase vitality. Greg has found meridian tapping, Intention Energy Process and sound therapy to be the most effective techniques to help people move towards personal transformation.
https://www.energypsych.org/