"The Power of Intentions: How to Create Change in Your Life"

In order to create change in our lives, our intentions need to align with how we want to live. Intention is the foundation of our motivations and provides a guide to where we want to go. Our intentions become a part of who we are and the goals we have achieved in our lives so far were motivated by our intentions. One study on driving behaviors found that implementing intentions such as "I am not going to speed" can generate a reduction in speeding. It's important to know what we want and need so that our intentions are shaped based on the specific choices we make. While some habits and traits may be passed down from earlier generations, we have the choice to change our behaviors by putting in the intent, time, patience, and effort. It may be uncomfortable to step outside of our comfort zones, but it's necessary for growth and change.

Nubia Santos, Ph.D.

"The Power of Intentions: How to Create Change in Your Life" cites a study on driving behaviors, which found that implementing intentions such as "I am not going to speed" can generate a reduction in speeding (see Langer, E., & Rodin, J. (1977). Long-term effects of a control-relevant intervention with the institutionalized aged. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 35(12), 897-902).

"The Power of Intentions: How to Create Change in Your Life" cites a recent study on the power of intentions, which found that people who set specific and challenging intentions are more likely to achieve their goals than those who have vague or easy goals (see Håkansson, J., Andersson, D., & Elg, M. (2021). Setting specific and challenging intentions: a review and conceptual framework. Journal of Management, 47(2), 389-420).

Emotional Self-Abuse

Have you ever caught yourself saying things like, "I'm not good enough," or "I'll never be able to do this?" What about hindering your own progress or doubting your own reality and trusting others more than yourself to tell you how you feel? If so, you may be experiencing emotional self-abuse.

Emotional self-abuse is a serious issue that can lead to negative long-term effects on our mental health and well-being. It's like having a bully in your own head who is always putting you down and criticizing you.

But the good news is that you can stop the cycle of self-abuse! All you need to do is commit to practicing self-kindness every day. It can be as simple as taking a few minutes to meditate or engaging in a favorite hobby. The key is to do something every day that shows yourself some love, even if you don't believe you deserve it.

It's important to remember that the reasons for self-abuse can be deeply rooted in our development, but with conscious effort, we can begin to break the cycle. By replacing self-abusive language and behaviors with actions of self-kindness, we can create positive change in our lives and start to treat ourselves the way we deserve to be treated - with love and kindness.

So, let's start showing ourselves some love! Take a moment to do something kind for yourself today, and remember that every act of self-kindness is a step towards breaking the cycle of self-abuse and cultivating a healthier, happier you.

References:

1. Neff, K. (2011). Self-compassion: The proven power of being kind to yourself. William Morrow Paperbacks.

2. Fuchs, C. (2017). Emotional abuse: The hidden form of maltreatment. Springer.

3. McLean, S. A., Paxton, S. J., & Wertheim, E. H. (2016). Factors that predict body image dissatisfaction, disordered eating, and weight suppression in female university students. Journal of Eating Disorders, 4(1), 34.

Are You Suffering From Loss Of Sexual Desire?

Loss of sexual desire is a common problem and the causes can greatly vary.  Often, the root cause is psychological and be a result of anxiety, depression, trauma, loss of trust or feelings of safety, or even when a person feels undesired by their partner. But there are actually several potential culprits that could be causing this effect.

Loss of libido can be caused by biological changes in the body such as hormone imbalance or the effects of an illness. Stage-of-life changes, such as menopause, can biologically and psychologically impact the sexual health of women, this is because of symptoms related to hormonal imbalances which are prevalent during this stage. Surgical menopause (medically termed hysterectomy), can also cause loss of libido, due to the removal of key female organs which make up part of a system implicated in the production and regulation of sex hormones.  

Similar results can be experienced by men who have had urological problems.  Often these situations are treated with hormone replacement therapy to compensate for the body’s deficiency of hormone production.

Another culprit in the loss of libido, can be certain medications, such as for hypertension or certain mood stabilizers. Luckily, there are ways to counterbalance these side effects and your doctor can direct you on the best path to take for you.

Parenthood is also known to be a source of low libido. This typically happens when the marriage is already strained and cannot sustain under the demands that a newborn can have on the couple. Couples without children are not off the hook though. What frequently ends up happening, is when people stay together for a while, and because humans have an innate capacity to habituate to their environment, they become used to their partner who no longer are novelty to them.  Generally, speaking, this is mostly a problem when we stop working on our relationships. For instance, we can learn to adopt the idea of doing things differently to create novelty in the relationship.

Having some individual space between partners is important to maintain the vitality of desire.  This means you and your partner could begin a new hobby separately from each other, for instance.  Seeking to do something that excites you, so that when you come home your excitement will make you look interesting again or attractive to your partner, which can in turn get you excited about the relationship again.

Exercise is also key to promoting increased libido, and the lack of it can have the opposite effect, especially in combination with other health problems or chronic stress.  Even moderate amounts of weekly exercise can improve your circulation throughout your entire body, and maintain healthy levels of testosterone production, a natural aphrodisiac, in both males and females.

Foreplay should be included in the maintenance or repair of loss of libido. Foreplay is a great way to stimulate blood flow and to build excitement.  Foreplay promotes the release of oxytocin which in turn promotes increased desire, and empathy towards your partner. Couples can make time to foreplay and it does not need to end in a grand-finally. The practice of making time to be sexually intimate will establish connection, and reactivate your body’s natural healthy response to sex.  And sex goes like this, the more you do it, the more you want it, and the better it gets to be for you.

Hormone therapy for increased libido may be an option for some people, but everyone’s sexuality can benefit from a decrease of daily stress, working on your relationships, and practicing overall healthy habits.

Everyone is unique and so is their sexuality. Therefore, there is not a one size fits all recipe for healthy sexuality or hot sex.  As humans, we might share common aspects of sex practices, however, each individual will have his or her own twist and most definitely a unique perception of the experience.

If you come to see me as a client with loss of sexual desire issues, I would begin by taking a full history of your life, including family/upbringing, psychological, physical, and social health, and what and when things have begun to change. It is important to get the full picture, because as we have just established, sexuality can be affected by any area of your life! You can take this same approach in observing what is going on in your own life.  You can evaluate what is happening in the different domains of your life, and how it all aligns with your goals and expectations of your sexuality, and your life in general. You can try to make some adjustments if it is within your ability. But as always, speaking with a professional would provide great insight and help to take the burden off of you.

10 Practices to Try Before Thinking About Divorce

Think of your relationship as your bicep muscle. It requires doing a little lifting each day for it to become strong. When you neglect your biceps, they will become weak, and much in the same way, if you neglect your relationship, it too becomes weak. Of course, you don’t mean to neglect your biceps nor your relationship, but sometimes the rest of life gets in the way. It takes determination, commitment and consistency to maintain both in good health. A marriage heading toward divorce is like an atrophied bicep, it was neglected for too long, and now it feels like you will never be able to make it strong again.

Much like we maintain other aspects of our lives, such as cleaning our car, exercise, dieting, grooming, or going for our yearly physical, the sexual health of your relationship requires commitment and consistent practice.  You might think that this sounds like a lot of work. The truth is, it is a lot harder to be in a weak or struggling relationship than it is to be in a strong and happy one. The stress generated from a fractured relationship takes more out of a person than the work needed to get the relationship back on track. It is true that in some situations, divorce really is the best option, but in most others, all you need to do is start working out the muscle again.

The only thing that beats seeing results in your body from regular exercise, is seeing results in your relationship!

If you are ready to start working on your marriage, start with these ten simple practices and you will see the results.

1.     Practice respect, regard and compassion for one another. Help your partner with big and small tasks. Give each other a day off from house shores once in awhile.  

2.     Validate your partner’s feelings even if you do not agree with him or her.  It is not about agreeing to everything, but rather just recognizing your partner’s experiences of comfort or discomfort and showing concern (i.e., You appear frustrated, do you need a break? Do you want to go outside and take a walk?  Do you want to talk about it?).

3.     Feel proud of you partner, not envious. Recognize and validate your partner’s accomplishments, big or small. Feel proud of the fact that you have a partner who can accomplish their ambitions and let yourself become inspired to set new goals for yourself as well (i.e., Congratulations for the great year-end review! I feel so proud of your hard work and dedication as a professional and as a wife).

4.     Become each other’s true allies. You are in it together even if you think one of you is to blame.  You can get out of this together. Turn toward each other and not away, and help your partner.

5.     Show gratitude. Small acts count in big ways: a gentle touch, a sweet smile, a warm look, or words of appreciation. Say thank you, and share how much you appreciate something about your partner, even just how helpful it has been that your partner has taken care of doing the dishes this week. Incorporate random acts of small surprises for the other. Surprising your partner with even a single flower, their favorite snack, or a sweet note on a Post-it, can mean so much.

6.     Communicate your needs and wants clearly, so your partner does not need to play the mind reader. Making your partner guess what would make you happy is a lose-lose.

7.     Make time for sex and the relationship as a whole. Commit to weekly dates.  Remember that, in terms of sex, the more you practice it the more you want it... and the better it gets!

8.     Take breaks to sooth yourselves after stressful or emotionally exhausting situations, for example, right after a bad argument or heated discussion.  Let your partner know that you need some time to digest the topic and that you are happy to continue the discussion after you have a chance to cool your head. Communicate when you plan to return to the topic, for example, after dinner or tomorrow morning.

9.     If nothing else, seek the help of a professional!  The benefits of seeking counseling are endless, and it can work wonders for a relationship! Couples workshops are another great way to learn tools to strengthen the bond between you and your partner. You can also seek more general advice from a professional by reading a book on marriage, which you can even do with your partner.

10.     Remember that people change, and we need to make time to learn about each other. We constantly change our hairstyles, our taste in food, and a bunch of other aspects of ourselves. It is important to make the effort to constantly learn about the novelties within each other, like you would have back when you started dating!  This is accomplished by making time to talk. You should spend at least one hour a week alone with your partner to reconnect, and to really learn about each other.   Ask your partner if blue continues to be his favorite color, or about his most recent aspirations and dreams. You may be surprised!

If this seems like a lot of work, just remind yourself that going through a divorce or even just letting your marriage disintegrate, is a lot harder than anything on this list. You should be willing to try everything before resorting to divorce. Trust me when I say, it is worth the try!

6 Tips to Get Your Marriage Off the Back Burner

With so much going on in life, it can be easy to let your marriage end up on the back burner. Unfortunately, once it’s there, it does not tend to automatically become priority again on its own. It requires active effort by both partners. Before we get into what you can do to remedy the situation, let’s first find out why this tends to happen.

First, as a human being, you have a natural tendency to habituate to what is consistent with your environment. In other words, once you get comfortable with the people and things in your life, there is a natural tendency to  begin to take it for granted. When your partner no longer seems novel to you, you may stop trying to learn about him or her, or you may stop working to ensure that they will stay—because they’re already here! Most people are completely unaware when this happens, and it by no means is a sign that you no longer love your partner! This is a human thing! We all simply adapt.

Another reason your relationship may have taken the back burner is that now that you both accept that the other one is here to stay, you get to compete for attention with all other life commitments and the worries and stress they bring.  Work related problems, financial problems, kids, are all screaming allowedly for your attention—and you are comfortable enough with your partner to give your all to these other commitments!  It is only natural that you would.  Before you know it, you are busy putting off the endless fire of life, while forgetting to tend to your love life.

Life happens every day for everyone, and your relationship does not need to suffer for life to happen.

Here is what you can do:

TIP 1: Team Up to Work on Your Relationship Together

Ask your partner if he or she is in, on working with you to improve your relationship.  Then, schedule a time to meet that is good for both. During this time, you will share ideas of how you can make some time for your marriage, and you can still make a date of it. Take a walk in the park, and reminisce about the best times you have had together so far. This is also a good opportunity to address any issues or concerns you may have.  Remember, to use “I” statements when addressing these issues. Example: “I feel hurt when you ….”  versus “you hurt me”. This way of communicating will help view your partner view your concerns from your point of view, rather than feel attacked. Teaming up, creates an opportunity for both parties to take responsibility for their role in the relationship, and this will help to reestablish your connection.

TIP 2: Make Your Marriage Your Priority

Commit to going on weekly or bi-weekly dates. You can go out to a restaurant, or picnic at a park, or the movies (remember this is not intended to be a family movie night- it’s a date!).  It is important that you respect this commitment. If you need to reschedule you can, but do so for the same week. If you absolutely cannot make it that week, you have to give each other a rain check and schedule a makeup for the date you missed.

TIP 3: Become Well-Disciplined With Your Marriage

 During your first meeting, you can agree to meet once per week for (30 minutes or so), to check in with each other.  Use this time to assess how well your plan is working, and adjust it as needed.  Make sure to keep the conversation ‘in the moment’. Do not focus on what isn’t working, instead look for alternative solutions together.

During these follow-up meetings, you will ask each other how you can contribute more to the happiness of each other (how can you help more, what would you like that your partner might be able to provide). Do offer to contribute anyway you can to ease things up for each other.  Also, give each other breaks from house shores.  Remember to recognize that sometimes your partner cannot help much more because of other life committments. You can make it up in the future, or you can hire part-time help for temporary relief.

TIP 4: Create Space Between Each Other

 While you are working to reconnect as a couple, you also need to reconnect with yourself.  Find time for yourself to do something only you are passionate about. This does not have to be big. You can take on a hobby, go for a daily run, or spend time with your friends.  

When you create space between each other, you get to preserve your individuality, which was what attracted your partner in the first place.  This will make you desired and interesting again, keeping things renewed.  Remember that we adapt to certainties in life! That is, we stop focusing with enthusiasm on the person and things we interpret to be permanent in our environment.  Keeping things fresh requires balancing your personal needs with the needs of your relationship.

TIP 5: Educate Yourself

There are many tools you can use to help improve your marriage, such as in the aspects of communication, or how to balance parenting and romance. You can use your weekly check in time to read a book together, by taking turns reading to each other.   You can also enroll in a workshop to help jump start things.   Or, you can even see a relationship coach or counselor for direction.

TIP 6: Show Gratitude and Appreciation

This is probably the most important tip! We all can use a little validation and recognition. Do not just assume that your partner knows how much you appreciate him or her.  Tell them instead.  Say thank you! Express your gratitude every day. For example: “Thank you for putting the dishes in the machine today; thank you for driving the kids today, it was very helpful to me; thank you for cooking dinner tonight, I know this must have been difficult for you considering you have so much work to do.” “I am really grateful to have you as my partner!” Showing appreciation and gratitude is a practice, if you need to, set reminders in your phone until you have trained your brain to focus on the positive aspects of your partner and your relationship.

You and your partner get to decide together about how important your relationship is. Then, you can choose to invest 20 minutes per day on yourself, plus at least 30 minutes per week on the couple, plus 2-hours weekly for a date together. The math adds up to a total of 1 hour and 40 minutes weekly to yourself, and approximately 2 hours and 30 minutes weekly together. Is your marriage worth this time?

Good luck and remember to be patient with the process.  Implementing new things take time, and this is why you have the weekly 30-minute follow-up meetings to make the necessary adjustments.

Have Your New Years Resolutions Already Failed?

It’s the end of January and I Already Failed My New Year’s Resolutions

So, you already failed on most of your goals projected for the New Year, and we haven’t even closed January yet. You have been cheating yourself with a few cigarettes and some bedtime ice cream. You feel repulsed by the honesty of your scale, you never made it to the gym this week, and you missed the enrollment deadline for the creative writing course you have been promising yourself for years—Yikes!.

You are probably beginning to experience a range of unpleasant feelings including disappointment, frustration, anger, and sadness.  You might even feel envious as you compare yourself with others who you perceive to have a better handle on things than you do.  You begin to focus on all of your negative aspects, and the qualities you lack, such as how unattractive or unintelligent you are.These thoughts and feelings begin to overwhelm you only to bring you back again to feeling unmotivated to make the changes you wish to make in your life.

At this time you might consider accepting the fact that “your plan didn’t work out." Now that you have finally accepted this somewhat brutal reality you can begin modifying the process of attaining your goals.

New Year’s resolutions sound great, but the reality is that they tend to be unrealistic in many aspects.  When listing our resolutions, we tend to give ourselves a short timeline to change habits and behaviors that we have been practicing for a long time. You applied the same concept of “practice makes perfect” when it came to forming your old habits and behaviors-- you have practiced them until they became second nature to you.  The same principle applies to changes we want to make.  In other words, it's going to be a process. So, what should you do?

Begin With Real Expectations

If you expect different results, try doing things differently. If you do things they way you have always done them, then everything will be the way they always have been. If year after year, you consistently fail on your resolutions, you most likely have been consistently creating unrealistic expectations on unrealistic timelines.

Try giving yourself a time frame during which you will develop a new habit, rather than setting a strict start date on which you plan to be a totally changed person.  For example, consider gradually implementing exercise to your weekly routine so that you allow for the new habit to naturally develop.

Going from zero exercise to hitting the gym five days a week at 6am, is a nice thought, but it is unrealistic. Scheduling one or two workouts a week, however, is much more likely to happen, and then you can build from there. If deep down you know that even that seems far fetched, then just start walking! For a person who does not do any exercise, 20 - 30 minutes of daily walking will go a long way. Do that consistently for a while and see what happens.  Once you get in the rhythm of moving everyday, you can take it up a notch, and start to incorporate strength training or more fast paced cardio.

You did not get where you are today overnight, and so you cannot expect to get where you want to go overnight.

Account For All Variables in Your Current Lifestyle When Designing Your New Goals

Changes do not occur in isolation. Anything you bring in or out of the context of your life will impact other aspects of your life, and may involve both pleasant and unpleasant experiences and outcomes. When trying to change some aspect of your life, you need to be prepared to deal with whatever barriers your current lifestyle, has in place that will keep you from getting where you want to go.

One of the greatest barriers our lifestyles put in the way of change, is TIME. Begin by assessing your time situation to create realistic time slots for you to implement your goals in your weekly schedule. If your resolution is to workout everyday after work, but in reality, your schedule after work is already too full, then you are setting yourself up to fail from the beginning. If you are serious about your goals, it may mean that you need to sacrifice the extra hour of sleep in the morning to fit in your workout. Or you may need to have a discussion with your partner about alternating cooking duties each night so you have more time after work.

Set Realistic Goals and Break Them Up Into Smaller Goals

Take some time to write down your goals. Again, have realistic expectations of yourself, your schedule, and the nature of the goal when determining what you expect to achieve and by when.  Now you need to break them all up into long-term, weekly, and daily goals.

Your weekly and daily goals should include the steps needed to achieve your long-term goals. For example, breaking down the process of enrolling in the creative writing course into manageable stages.  The idea here is to gradually plug these steps in your daily/weekly planner, until you arrive on the first day of the creative writing class (your long-term goal).

If Your Goals Get Derailed

Now you are feeling proud of yourself in how well you are able to sustain your commitment to your goals until one day you have particularly trying day at work, and you skip your daily goals.  Next thing you know, two weeks has passed and you haven’t returned to the gym. It is okay to become derailed sometimes.  Have self-compassion.  Are you tolerant and forgiving when other people mess up?   Apply the same act of kindness to yourself.  Say to yourself the same things you would tell your best friend who got derailed from their goals, “it’s OK!”. Slip ups happen! Give yourself the same chance.  Now that you’ve done that go back to your list of goals and your planner and make the adjustments necessary to gradually put yourself back on course.

Be Proactive

Don’t forget to periodically reevaluate if you are staying on the path of attaining your goals.  This could prevent slipping off your path, and ensuring that your plan continues to serve you.   For example, you might come across some extra free time in the near future, and that would be a great time to increase the number of times per week that you exercise, rather than letting that time slip under the radar.

Praise Yourself

Don’t forget to acknowledge your daily and weekly accomplishments related to your goals! Like you would praise others for their accomplishments, do the same to yourself.  You, better then anyone, know how much hard work, focus and dedication has been needed to get this far!  

-Nubia Santos MS, M.ED, LMHC, CST

What it Means to Schedule Time for Sex

When I prescribe such a thing as scheduling time for sex, my clients barely allow me to close my mouth in the completion of the sentence, debunking the suggestion by replying that this would feel “mechanical”, and that sex should be “spontaneous”.

Here is what I have to say about that:

If you are trying to balance too many things in your life, let’s say, work, children, financial stress, trying to incorporate a fitness routine, and you find that you barely have enough time to sit down for a proper meal, let alone, think about having sex with your partner- Then you need to schedule time for sex!

Is having no sex at all better than the possibility that it might not feel completely spontaneous?

Now, let me clarify something important,  I am not advocating that you set a timer on your phone and once it goes off, it’s the cue for both of you to drop your pants… that’s not very sexy.

Here Is What I Do Advocate That You Try:

Think of this as scheduling a date with your partner, and you get to schedule it for whenever works best for both of you. This is just a time for you to be together, without the distractions you are both faced with all day. Watch a romantic movie or go for a walk in the park. Bring a blanket, lunch, and the music you liked to listen to when you met each other. The next time, you can lay down and hold each other, and talk about future hopes and dreams together. You can reminisce about some of the best times you have already had together. Allow sex to come naturally, whether that is on the first date, or on the tenth.

No pressure:

As a matter of fact, pressure is literally your enemy here. You have been pressuring each other about your lack of sex and that has only made things worse, right?

The Only Rule:

It is very important to respect this commitment and to ensure that nothing gets in its way.  If you absolutely must, you can reschedule for another day that same week,  but under no circumstances, can either of you cancel this weekly appointment with each other. Ask yourself, what your priorities really are.

Remember:

It has taken you time to grow apart, it’s only reasonable to expect a bit of time to grow close again.  You will accomplish this with time, patience, commitment, consistency, respect, and compassion.

The other thing to remember is that growing apart has placed you in a different comfort zone.  Bringing yourselves together will require getting out of your current comfort zone. It is therefore understandable that you may feel uncomfortable with this whole idea. However, this is still your partner- the one you love! If you start slowly, as I have suggested, it won’t take long for you both to get into it. 

If You Are Still Unsure:

Start even smaller! You can start simply by scheduling a 20-minute walk together, once a week, instead of an actual date. The most important thing is that you both remain open to each other and to the idea of reconnecting. When you feel the momentum, allow it to take over!

-Nubia Santos MS, M.ED, LMHC, CST