The Curious Counselor

Episode 30: Codependent to Co-Independent: Love Yourself Well

Codependency is the need to make someone else happy with the expectation they will make you happy. It is driven by the need to feel loved. CoIndependent means living a life full of love and joy in yourself that you can both share with others and receive. Accepting that we are not only lovable but that the essense of what we are is love helps us realize we don't need to seek love from outside ourselves but its already there. When we learn to connect with that love in ourselves and in God (or your higher power) we no longer have a need to seek it outside ourselves. Love yourself well and you will feel lovable. By not trying to get love but just loving yourself well, you will experience more love from the world and others than ever which feels great but is just icing on the cake because you no longer need it. In this episode I attemp to help explain how to love ourselves better, why to love ourselves better and 10 suggestions on how to get from a self-hater to a self lover. As always, thank you for joining me. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan@thecuriouscouselor.com. [alan@the] Also, check out my youtube channel (The Curious Counselor). May your day be filled with compassionate thoughts, kind words and actions, and curiosity in all things today and every day. Alan Pennington The Curious Counselor

Episode 29: My Daughter makes me so angry! An interview.

Most of the time when we get mad, we immediately can identify the source of our frustration, be it a careless driver, someone cutting in line, a loud child, a less than compassionate friend or coworker or partner or whatever. "That person makes me so mad..." is often our refrane. But, what if our anger is not about the current situation? What if our inability to respond as a kind, compassionate person is not about the other person? What if it is about us? That's good news because if its about us, we can do something about it. In this episode, I interview "Suzie" who's anger is often triggered by her daughter "Sassy". We explore what has been going wrong and how to 1) respond in a more kind compassionate way and 2) explore Suzie's angry response to see if her anger might be related to some earlier trauma messages and triggers. In fact, if we can't be kind to someone, it's never really about the other person. It's always about us and that's good because that means we can all learn to be happier more content more kind, compassionate people. As always, thank you for joining me. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan@thecuriouscouselor.com. [alan@the] Also, check out my youtube channel (The Curious Counselor). May your day be filled with compassionate thoughts, kind words and actions, and curiosity in all things today and every day. Alan Pennington The Curious Counselor

Episode 28: Why My Marriage Failed (and how to save yours)

I went through an awful divorce in 2016 to 2018. I thought my wife and I were doing all the right things to save our marriage (go to church, talk, pray, go to marriage seminars, etc) but still, we ended up in a divorce. Since that time I have been doing a lot of my own trauma work, a lot more praying and had, I think, I bit of good insight. Essentially, I thought was doing all the right things (good job, good income, good, vacations, nice house, went to church, prayed and so forth). I didn't do the bad things (yell, drink, smoke, do drugs, have affairs or whatever) but what I didn't know how to do was to create a safe emotional connection. I had no model for that and neither did my ex wife. What is a safe emotional connection? It is a safe space where you can share your feelings, be heard, be validated, get hugged, feel safe no matter what the topic. I was unable to consistently do that for my ex and she was unable to do that for me. In this epsisode I explore more about what that really means and how you can avoid the traps that we fell into. As always, thank you for joining me. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan@thecuriouscouselor.com. [alan@the] Also, check out my youtube channel (The Curious Counselor). May your day be filled with compassionate thoughts, kind words and actions, and curiosity in all things today and every day. Alan Pennington The Curious Counselor

Episode 27: Divorce, God, Sin, and Grace

I am divorced. Am I doomed to hell? In the sermon on the mount (Mt. 5) Jesus says if you get divorced except for infidelity you commit adultry. Jesus says several other things that are a sin (including anger) then leads up to the last verse of the chapter to say you must be perfect as your heavenly father is perfect (Mt. 5: 48) and if we don't keep the law as well as the pharisees and teachers of the law we will not enter the kingdom of heaven (5:20). But is that the end of it? Shouldn't there be more? What about grace, hope, love, all that stuff? If that's the end, I am totally screwed. Indeed, Moses gave us the law in Exodus but Jesus gave us the law of grace and truth (Jn 1:17). If we carry each other's burden's we will fulfill the law of Christ (Gal. 6:2). So maybe Jesus was explaining to the Jews (as a Jew himself) how the law of Moses works in Mt. 5 and was really trying to say, "look guys, this is what we got. It's not bad. It just won't work. Like you can't earn you way into heaven by being perfect." If that's the case, maybe asking what is and is not a sin is less important than asking God how we should live if we want to live by the law of Christ. Maybe what really counts is living our faith in love (Gal. 5:6). Maybe we should stop judging ourselves and judging others (Lk. 6:37) and start living a life filled with love. Whoever lives in love lives in God and God lives him them (1 Jn 4:16) because God is love (I Jn 4:8). Maybe love is the fulfilment of the law (Gal 13:10). If that's the case, thanks be to God, I don't have to make a list of all the sins I need to be sure and not do (but will do anyway) and just focus on being compassionate to myself and to others (I can do that)!!!! As always, thank you for joining me. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan@thecuriouscouselor.com. [alan@the] May your day be filled with compassionate thoughts, kind words and actions, and curiosity in all things today and every day.

Episode 26: Camilla, DID and Healing her inner Children

In the last episode, we talked about the three (3) phases of healing your inner child: self-regulation, working with internal defenders and finally, how to connect with the inner child. In this epsisode, I interview Camilla (psuedonym), a client of mine who has participated in several earlier episodes (thank you Camilla). She has DID (disassociative identity disorder) and has to date, identified 14 internal personalities. In this episode Camilla (with the help of her parts) reflects on the last episode and how those same steps have helped (or, in some cases, not helped) her. In all cases, I found approaching her and her parts with compassion and curiosity is always an effective approach and I recommend the same in approaching your inner parts (whether or not you have DID which about 2% of the population does). As always, thank you for joining me. If you have questions or comments, feel free to email me at alan@thecuriouscouselor.com. [alan@the] May your day be filled with compassionate thoughts, kind words and actions, and curiosity in all things today and every day.