Marcia Sirota's Blog, page 36

What is Real Love?

These days, the subject of love is on everyone’s mind. But what is real love? To me, it’s a deep appreciation of the other person, a sense of gratitude for knowing them and a powerful desire to be a part of their life.

Real love isn’t about finding a person who can fulfill some sort of role for us, whether it’s spouse, lover or co-parent. And it’s not about us doing it for them. Real love is simply valuing each-other and wanting the best for each-other. Real love is respecting each-other and being there for each-other, always.

Three things will tell you if you have real love in your relationship:

1: You’re happy, more often than not (as opposed to a relationship filled with conflict and intensity, which isn’t real love but rather, real drama)

2: You feel good about yourself (as opposed to being filled with shame, self-blame, self-doubt or self-criticism)

3: You’re able to be your best self (as opposed to finding yourself doing or saying things that are beneath you, because the other person makes you so angry or aggravated).

Real love is seeing each-other clearly and accepting each-other for exactly who you are. It’s not idealizing the other person or putting them up on a pedestal. It’s not expecting your partner to be the one thing that makes your life complete.

Real love will feel great but it’s not the cure for what ails you or the one thing that gives you self-esteem or a purpose in life. Real life will enrich you but it won’t transform your entire existence.

You can have real love in your life, as long as you understand that it’s more about simply appreciating the other person and enjoying their company, rather than trying to get the person to do something or be something for you.

Real love means that you’re happy and satisfied with each-other, just as you are. It isn’t about constantly feeling annoyed, disappointed, frustrated, upset, exasperated or confused. It’s not about feeling stupid, bad, useless or to blame for what’s going wrong in your relationship or your life.

Real love never, ever includes being demeaned, abused or made to feel crazy. Above all, real love will elevate both people and make them into the best possible version of themselves.

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Listen here to my latest podcast. LaRae Quy discusses how we can develop mental toughness.

You Can Be Your Own Valentine

As Valentine’s Day approaches, single people everywhere are beginning to panic. Maybe you’re one of them. Do you ask yourself, “What am I going to do?” “Who am I going to see?” “How am I going to feel?” The idea of being alone on Valentine’s Day fills you with dread. But it doesn’t have to be that way. Regardless of your relationship status, you can have love on Valentine’s Day. You can be your own Valentine.

We live in challenging times. People are finding it more and more difficult to come together in a loving way. As a result, not everyone can find a romantic partner these days, but we all can have love in our lives. You probably already have loving relationships with family, friends, children, even pets.

You also need to know that you can always have more self-love. If you work on loving yourself more you’ll see right away how good it feels. Whether you’re single and looking, in a happy couple, single and content, or in a challenging relationship, everyone can benefit from more self-love.

Self-love is having the same tender emotions toward yourself that you might have toward a child or a pet. It’s valuing yourself, caring for yourself and appreciating yourself. Self-love can be broken down into a few components, including self-acceptance, self-affirmation, self-compassion and self-forgiveness.

Self-acceptance is feeling that you’re okay, no matter what. It’s unconditional positive self-regard.
Self-affirmation is believing in yourself, no matter how many mistakes you’ve made or how many times you’ve failed.
Self-compassion is being understanding and uncritical toward yourself and wanting only the best for yourself.
Self-forgiveness is giving yourself permission to be human and imperfect.

Even if you’re part of a loving couple, it will always benefit you to have more self-love. Being loved by another person will add happiness, meaning and value to your life, but it doesn’t make up for a lack of self-love. Everyone needs both. We all need to be loved by others and to give ourselves unconditional love.

On this Valentine’s day, whether you’re at home watching TV and eating ice-cream, or having a candle-light dinner with the man or woman of your dreams, remember that right now, you can love yourself more and give yourself more acceptance, affirmation, compassion and forgiveness.

You can value, appreciate and care for yourself. You can fill your heart with so much self-love that it overflows out onto your loved ones, showering all of them with loving-kindness. Because the thing is, being your own Valentine is a gift that keeps on giving.

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Listen here to my latest podcast. LaRae Quy discusses how we can develop mental toughness.

Let’s Wake Up to the Toxic Narcissists Among Us

It’s 2017 and extreme narcissists are among us. These toxic individuals are a real problem, as they’re destructive, and often dangerous. When an extreme narcissist holds a position of power, say, as the head of a corporation or a country, we’re in a mess of trouble.

What makes someone an extreme narcissist? It’s a combination of not having been loved enough as a child while also having had lenient, over-indulgent parents. The child is emotionally neglected and materially spoiled, so they grow up feeling both inadequate and overly-entitled, insecure and grandiose.

They feel tremendously needy, but also deserving of special treatment. These traits can be bothersome in a friend and obnoxious in a classmate. They’re lethal in a CEO or a president.

The extreme narcissist feels superior to other people. They lack empathy or remorse, which makes it easy for them to behave in selfish or hurtful ways. They’re incapable of taking responsibility for their actions and blame everyone else for their mistakes. They feel entitled to greater privileges than other people and believe that they’re above the law.

Interestingly, deep down, they feel incredibly inadequate. They require a tremendous amount of ego-stroking and constant assurances that they’re admired, respected, even feared.

The extreme narcissist is at heart, a taker. There’s an emptiness within them that they expect others to fill. They’re supreme users, but it’s never, ever enough. No amount of money, power, influence or sex will ever satisfy them. They’re a bottomless pit of need and greed.

The extreme narcissist is self-obsessed and incapable of caring about other people. Everyone is an object to them, to use and then toss away. They exploit people, animals and the environment without shame or remorse. They see everyone and everything around them as an endless source of resources to consume and then discard.

The extreme narcissist lies without hesitation, fabricating huge whoppers with no regard to the consequences of what they’re saying. They have no interest in the truth; only in saying whatever will serve their immediate needs.

Extreme narcissists are convincing liars because of their grandiose self-confidence. They believe their own hype so strongly that other people buy into their lies. This is extremely unfortunate when the lying narcissist is a CEO or a president.

The extreme narcissist feels entitled to sexually assault a woman and believes that they should have no consequences for this behaviour. They will lie, cheat, steal, bully and abuse others and think that they should get away with all of it because they’re “special.”

The extreme narcissist can’t let in love or respond to demonstrations of compassion or empathy. No matter how much loving-kindness we show them, they won’t appreciate it, value it or benefit from it. They trade only in money, power, prestige, sex and influence.

If we think that our love and empathy will inspire the extreme narcissist to be more empathetic or caring, themselves, we’ll be wrong. This toxic narcissist just won’t get it.

The extreme narcissist sees all human interactions as business transactions in which they attempt to gain what they need. If they feel it’s strategic to repay the other person in some way, they will, but they’re incapable of simply loving and being loved.

The extreme narcissist might say, “I love you,” but what he really feels is pleased that you’ve been so useful to him. Maybe your attractiveness enables the narcissist to feel better about himself in social situations. Maybe he likes all the nice things you do for him. Maybe he benefits from your political connections. Maybe he enjoys your big salary or family money.

Don’t forget, though, that none of this actually means that he loves you. He’ll just as easily trade you in for a younger, cuter, richer or more well-connected model.

Extreme narcissists have “narcissistic rage.” They can’t tolerate being questioned, criticized or challenged. They’re extremely thin-skinned and horribly vindictive. They’ll stop at nothing to “punish” those who contradict them, call them out on their bad behaviour or point out their hypocrisy.

If someone has a normal, negative reaction to the extreme narcissist’s hurtful behaviour, the narcissist will accuse this person of attacking them. Anyone who tries to set a limit with an extreme narcissist will be accused of being “selfish,” “abusive,” “unfair” or “crazy.” In fact, these types of unreasonable responses are one sure-fire way to identify the toxic narcissists in our midst.

Whether we’re having a conversation, watching a televised debate or reading a tweet, we can identify the extreme narcissists by how they respond to feedback. If they insult the other person and try to undermine their reputation or credibility. We know we’re dealing with an extreme narcissist.

The extreme narcissist can be charismatic and charming, but none of it is sincere. They turn it on and off when they think it will help their cause. They’re terrifically lazy and manipulative in the extreme, getting others to do their bidding so as to save them the effort of doing it themselves.

The extreme narcissist surrounds themselves with sycophants and “yes-men” who stroke their ego and do their dirty work, so that they can keep their tiny hands “clean.” These hangers-on are often narcissists themselves, willing to scoop up the crumbs that the extreme narcissist leaves behind.

The extreme narcissist doesn’t marry for love but for convenience. All of their relationships are utilitarian and if they happen to find another narcissist, their marriage will be characterized by a total lack of emotional intimacy. You can tell that this is the case when you see the couple together and there’s no warmth or genuine affection between them.

The extreme narcissist can be volatile. They’re prone to losing their temper and acting rashly. If they’re in a position of power, their impulsiveness can have wide-reaching and devastating repercussions.

The Red Queen in Lewis Carol’s Alice in Wonderland, yelled, “Off with their heads,” to anyone who displeased her. This was amusing in a story-book. It’s far less amusing in real life. World wars can be started from narcissistic rage and knee-jerk reactions.

In 2017, every citizen of the world needs to understand what an extreme narcissist is, and what they’re capable of. We need to be aware and informed and listen with skepticism to the words coming out of their mouth so that we can best protect ourselves from their machinations and predation.

Knowledge is power. The extreme narcissist wants to convince us that they’re our friend, our leader, our benefactor. In 2017, we must understand that they are none of these things and that we must proceed with extreme caution.

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter. February is all about having more love in your life.

Listen here to my podcast. LaRae Quy, former FBI agent, discusses mental toughness.

Michelle Obama’s Legacy of Kindness

Jimmy Fallon did a tribute to Michelle Obama the other day in which people were supposed to stand in front of a photograph of the First Lady and record a message for her to view at a later date.

Not surprisingly, Mrs. Obama and Mr. Fallon were listening behind a curtain, and then came out to greet each of the participants after they delivered their heartfelt messages. Mrs. Obama gave every one of these people the warmest hug. There were tears galore.

One of the people speaking made the observation that the thread running through all of Mrs. Obama’s speeches was kindness, and that this is the one value he most wants to teach his own children.

Interestingly, when I think about the past eight years with Michelle Obama as First Lady, kindness is exactly the word that comes to mind.

This was a First Lady who, above all, cared about the people in her country – all of the people. Although extremely fashionable, Mrs. Obama was far less interested in wearing couture than in helping her fellow Americans to live their very best lives and to be the very best that they could be.

Both Michelle and Barack Obama have tremendous integrity, compassion and authenticity. It’s obvious to everyone that Mrs. Obama’s Let’s Move initiative to get people exercising and eating healthy sprang from a sincere concern for the welfare of the people of the United States of America.

Every speech she made, every initiative in support of education, for example Let Girls Learn, and every bit of work she did with Joining Forces to raise awareness and money for US veterans demonstrated to us all that Mrs. Obama was motivated by a deep and abiding empathy for her fellow Americans and her fellow human beings.

As a mother of two young girls, Michelle Obama exemplified loving-kindness and a deep concern for their welfare. In rejecting the idea of running for president herself, Mrs. Obama put the needs of her daughters first and foremost, not wanting them to have to deal with the stresses of being the daughters of the president, all over again.

Michelle Obama never used her position to lord it over others. She was more humble than haughty, more elegant than arrogant, more serene than snobbish, and inclusive rather than exclusive. She always wanted to include the American people in the important conversations.

Mrs. Obama was always beautiful and dignified in her role as First lady, but she was also unpretentious, delightfully warm and prone to giving hugs.

She inspired Americans to be more caring and respectful toward one-another, as she never treated anyone with less than the utmost respect. For that reason, she won the love, respect and admiration of her fellow Americans. Many First Ladies are respected and admired, it’s true, but few were as deeply loved as Mrs. Obama has been.

Lately I’ve been writing about the difference between being “nice” and being kind. It’s a simple yet important distinction, as niceness comes out of a need to please others and gain their approval, while kindness comes from an outpouring of the love in someone’s heart.

People who are nice tend to be motivated by insecurity, inadequacy or anxiety within themselves. They need other people to make them feel good about themselves. People who are kind have an open heart. They care about other people and want the best for them.

It’s obvious that Michelle Obama is a genuinely kind, caring person whose loving-kindness overflows from her very full heart.

We’ve all been extremely lucky to have such an uplifting, inspiring and wonderfully kind First Lady of the United States. She’s a role-model, an advocate, an educator and an inspiration to everyone around the world.

In the coming months and years, we should remember Michelle Obama’s legacy of kindness and not allow the negativity, divisiveness and cynicism of the incoming administration to make us forget that love should always be our guiding principle, and kindness should always be our first choice.

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter. February is all about having more love in your life.

My new book, Be Kind, Not Nice: How to Stop People-Pleasing, Build Your Confidence and Discover Your Authentic Self is now available.

The Cure to Unhappiness? Open Your Heart to Others

Lately, I’ve been thinking a lot about the importance of making connections. We all really need them but it seems that people are more disconnected than they’ve ever been.

Recently, I had a conversation with the psychotherapist Megan Bruneau, for my Ruthless Compassion podcast. She’s also noticed how people are more lonely and alienated these days.

In her practice, Ms. Bruneau has observed how disconnection and isolation lead to problems such as depression, anxiety, even psychosis. Her recommendation was that we make more of an effort to connect with each-other on a daily basis.

Sadly, our consumerist society has resulted in people increasingly seeing each-other as objects to exploit and take advantage of, when all we really need is to connect with one-another.

More and more, people are being reduced to one basic function: as a source of money, social status, political or career advancement, or sex.

In our society, it’s not uncommon that one person befriends another because they believe that this “friend” will benefit them socially, financially or politically. It’s not uncommon for a man to date a woman to make him look good to his associates, or a woman to use a man for financial security or social status.

Relationships based more on personal gain than mutual affection have always been part of our world, but it all seems more blatant, these days. And, sadly, these types of exploitative arrangements encourage everyone else to keep seeing other people as helpful objects to make use of, rather than as delightful individuals to share and connect with.

In his book, Happiness: A Guide to Developing Life’s Most Important Skill, Matthieu Ricard, the French writer, Buddhist monk and “happiest man in the world” talks about why so many people are deeply unhappy today.

Ricard says that in part, it’s because they “instrumentalize” one-another. This is another way of saying that people too often see each-other as objects to use, instead of opening their hearts to one-another and enjoying being together.

Ricard would like us to make more of an effort to access our empathy and compassion for other people. He says that loving and caring about others are the only real ways to create happiness.

Recent research tells us that it’s only through love and compassion that we find real happiness. In her new audio book, The Science of Compassion, the health psychologist Kelly McGonigal describes how doing for others changes our physiology, improves our mood and deepens our sense of connection.

Studies show that being generous makes us happy, while being selfish or insensitive toward others increases our loneliness and unhappiness. Using others, no matter what we gain from these transactions, leaves us even more miserable than we were before.

Connecting to other people and being kind to them raises our levels of endorphins – the chemicals that cause us to feel happy and improve our overall well-being. It boosts our oxytocin, the bonding hormone. So, the more we connect, the more we want to connect.

Loneliness and disconnection, including acts of greed or selfishness, will increase our levels of the stress hormone, cortisol, which promotes anxiety and depression, causes us to keep weight on and lowers our ability to fight off infections, heart disease and cancer.

People these days use each-other to boost their self-worth.They maneuver to be the “top dog” and get everyone in the group to do things their way. They show off their flashy possessions or brag about their exploits.

They compete with one-another for who’s the most wealthy, attractive or successful. They post endless pictures on social media, demonstrating how great they are, but all of this is just making them more lonely, alienated and sad.

When we’re disconnected, we become isolated and miserable. And when we’re miserable, we isolate ourselves further. Conveniently, society offers us an alternative to creating meaningful connections: we can be a consumer.

We’re actively encouraged (by businesses that offer goods or services) to overeat, drink excessively, gamble or medicate ourselves to fill up our emptiness and soothe our feelings of alienation.

We’re constantly encouraged to go shopping. Advertisers promise us that having more “stuff” will compensate for the loneliness and distress we’re feeling.

Unfortunately, all this consuming just creates a vicious circle of more misery and alienation, more attempts at using people and things to try and feel better, and more unhappiness and emptiness.

Using people or things isn’t a valid solution to our feelings of loneliness, emptiness and alienation.

Consuming things – or other people – has never made anyone happy. That’s why someone who uses other people or things in order to fill the void is compelled to keep on being a user. It never feels like enough.

If we’re suffering from disconnection, the only answer is to connect.

When we’re disconnected, we’re unable to value other people or respect their lives.  It’s easy to be rude, selfish or hurtful. We become, in a sense, “antisocial.”

Feeling disconnected makes it easier to behave badly toward others, and a vicious circle is created, because our bad behaviour will end up pushing people away. When these people get angry or withdraw from us, it will reinforce our sense of alienation and encourage us to be that much more antisocial.

The more disconnected we feel, the more insensitive and self-centered we become, the more isolated we become and the more alienated and empty we feel.

Instead of a vicious circle of increasing disconnection and turning to consuming to compensate, we can begin to create a positive spiral of empathy, compassion and growing connection.

Most people think that constantly giving to others or helping others will make them happy. Unfortunately, being a people-pleaser won’t make us any more happy than being selfish and a user.

There’s a real difference between connecting and people-pleasing. Connecting is opening your heart to others. People-pleasing is trying to get others to like you, approve of you, and make you feel good about yourself.

You have to love yourself and connect to others with a heart filled with self-love. That’s the true path to happiness. More people-pleasing won’t make you any happier than more using others.

More of the wrong solution doesn’t become the right solution. The answer to our loneliness, emptiness and unhappiness isn’t to exploit more people or consume more things. The answer is to open our hearts, love more, care more and try to connect more. That’s what we need most, right now, as individuals and as a society.

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter February is all about having more love in your life.

Listen here to my latest podcast. Therapist Megan Bruneau talks about how women’s friendliness is often interpreted as flirtation.

The New Year’s Resolution You Can Really Keep in 2017

 You know the drill. Every January 1st, you make your New Year’s resolutions with the best of intentions, and every January 6th, you’ve already broken most of them. Is it even possible to keep New Year’s resolutions?  I think so. You just have to make the right ones.

We make resolutions to quit smoking, lose ten pounds, drink less alcohol, eat less sugar. We resolve to go to the gym more often or use the exercise equipment that’s been gathering dust in our basement.

We make these resolutions with the best of intentions, but often, by the middle of January, we realize that nothing much has changed.

It’s hard to keep these resolutions. We want to do better but our will-power is weak. We feel ambivalent about making these changes: part of us wants to lose weight, drink less, etc. but part of us likes things just as they are.

I propose that we rethink the kinds of New Year’s resolutions that we make. It’s not that I disagree with making plans to improve our health and establish better habits, but maybe we don’t have to put ourselves on the spot about making such major changes in our lives.

Maybe we can approach these lifestyle changes more gradually, over the course of the year.

I think that we can use New Year’s as a time to think about different types of changes. For example, the type of person we want to be.

I propose that this New Year’s, we all resolve to be more loving and kind. We can resolve to open our hearts to others and be more compassionate and empathetic.

These aren’t difficult resolutions to keep. Being more loving and compassionate will instantly make us happier, so there’s an immediate pay-off to keeping this resolution.

Giving up smoking or foregoing sugar involve a lot of restriction and deprivation, but opening your heart makes you feel really good. The sense of connection and belonging you’ll experience is deeply  fulfilling.

The easiest resolution to keep this year is to open your heart to others, and the nicest thing about this is that it will come back to you, multiplied many times. When you’re more loving toward others, they’ll respond to you with more love.

The ripples of kindness and caring will spread outward, and people will be paying it forward, everywhere.

Why don’t we leave the lifestyle changes for later and focus right now on love. After all, the great sages, John, Paul, George and Ringo once said. “All you need is love.”

Sign up here for my free monthly wellness newsletter February is all about having more love in your life.

Listen here to my latest podcast. Therapist Megan Bruneau talks about how women’s friendliness is often interpreted as flirtation.