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5 Minutes to Grow Beyond Your Autopilot
Therapy with Ibi - Anxiety, Insomnia, Relationships
Join me and fellow therapist, Ibinye Osibodu-Onyali, as we chat about toxic relationships, couples counseling, therapy for Christians, and the misconceptions of therapy.
Introducing…Ibinye Osibodu-Onyali, LMFT
Joanne: This week we have a special guest who is sharing about her practice today. Let’s just jump right in. Can you share about yourself, the things you love, what you focus on, a bit about your journey.
Ibinye: My name’s Ibinye. I’m a licensed marriage and family therapist for women and couples in California. I like to focus on anxiety and insomnia. I also focus a lot on people who were raised in toxic environments—teaching them how to break those generational cycles, speak up for themselves, be assertive, and just live a life out of the box. I also help couples move their relationship from boring and feeling like roommates to actually feeling passionate and feel like lovers again.
Who Is Therapy For?
Joanne: During this pandemic period with things kind of rolling back, in your work with people, has there been one question that you’ve been getting asked often with that?
Ibinye: Yes, two questions actually.
“Can Black women go to therapy?” They usually whisper when they ask. “I’m Black, can I go to therapy? Is that a thing?” Yes! That’s a thing!
“Is it okay for Christian to go to therapy?” People want to make sure. And I’m like, “Yes! I’m a Christian! That’s fine. Yes, you can see me; you can talk to me.” There’s nothing unbiblical about therapy.
Joanne: A lot of hush hush. What do you sense that’s about?
Ibinye: It’s about the shame, the rules, the legalities, and the upbringing that says:
Keep all your business within the church.
Keep all your business within the home.
Don’t tell anyone your problems.
With the faith-based shame, it’s this idea that if you have any struggles, if you’re anxious, if you’re depressed, if you’re crying, then you’re not reading your Bible, or you don’t have the holy spirit within you, or you’re clearly not going to church enough. Something’s wrong with you. There’s a lot of shame that I see.
How Therapy Works through Shame
Joanne: The message that something’s wrong with you, you need to be better, all the variations of that. And within your work of the people who reach out to you, how do you help them get unstuck from that? It’s great that they’ve already got unstuck enough to reach out, but how do support them?
With the Christians—for those that want Biblical-based counseling—we go into scripture. My favorite person that we talk about is David. He seems sad a LOT. He was struggling a lot, there was a lot going on with him, his life isn’t perfect, yet we read that he was anointed by God. Then they’re like, “wait a minute, that’s true.” Then it’s okay to seek out help.
For intergenerational stuff, I ask them some questions about their relationships and families. Things like:
Let’s look at your grandma’s relationship with grandpa, or grandma’s relationship with mom.
How has that worked out for them?
How has that worked out for you?
What you’ve been doing for the past 50 years, 40 years, 30 years, does it feel like it works well for you?
A lot of times they’ll respond with, “No—even though that’s the way I was raised and I’m just trying to walk the line, it doesn’t really work well for me.” I say, “Well, would you be open to trying something that possibly could work for you.” And they’re like, “Yeah, as long as you don’t tell my mom!” Legally, I can’t tell your mom anything anyway, so you get to do whatever you get to do. As they get to start trying new things, they find they start feeling a lot lighter and a lot happier. The anxiety isn’t feeling so heavy anymore and their families get used to their new behavior like, “Okay, I guess this is how she is now.”
Joanne: I kind of imagine that with a lot of these entrenched patterns or ways of experiencing and responding to life, it would be great if families responded well with, “Oh this is how it’s going to be going forward,” but I imagine there are some people who don’t have that experience. For those folks whose families or communities are not as supportive, what would you say to them?
Ibinye: We talk about the depth of tradition and how difficult it is to break from tradition. Everyone is just trying to play this role, whether it’s a church role, cultural role, racial role, whatever that is. I talk to them about finding support from like-minded people. I think that’s so important because sometimes your family or your church or religious body is not your support system. Sometimes they are the ones who are doing harm to you. Sometimes they’re the ones that trigger a lot of the difficult emotions you are going through. I empathize with them and help them understand that those are very common patterns, unfortunately. But outside of that, I ask questions to get them thinking about new connections:
Who are the people who are adding people to your life?
Who are the people who are filling your cup?
Who is helping you feel great?
Those are the people to run to. I don’t say cut off your family or stop going to church, but how about building new relationships? Once they start to experience what those positive relationships look like, it really helps in the healing process. It doesn’t mean that everything is going to end with a bow wrapped on top of it. There’s still a lot of grief work left to be done. But they realize the pain of staying in that tradition is sometimes much greater than the joy of finding this new life and finding your voice and new ways of being, and just being yourself.
What Are Toxic Relationships?
Joanne: In a lot of moments, there are some terms that people have a certain understanding of, and I think toxic relationships are one of those words. They have some idea in their mind of what it looks like, but it might be more much multifaceted and varied. Same with anger—that it’s not just always the rage-y explosive types. There are so many other ways anger can show up. So how would you define and describe toxic relationships? What does it tend to look like in the people you work with?
Ibinye: Toxic relationships FEEL DAMAGING. They are relationships that feel uncomfortable and they often feel like they’re being done maliciously. Very often when clients come to see me, I ask about family relationships, like “how is your relationship with family members?” They say “Fine, everything’s fine.” And then after a while, they describe toxic relationships they’re in without realizing it. Things like:
Every time I leave this person’s presence, I feel exhausted.
I can’t wear that to this person’s house because she’s going to make a bad comment.
I have to change who I am.
I have to be extra quiet when I’m in the presence of this person or else she’s going to say something negative.
Decorative. A child has duct tape over their mouth.
It’s almost like feeling like you cannot be authentic, you can’t be you in the presence of someone, feeling drained after you leave that person. That’s how people typically experience toxic relationships, and sometimes it’s not even overt. Sometimes people aren’t actually saying direct things or throwing direct jabs. It might be a look, a glance, a whisper, or a passive-aggressive comment that they make constantly. You feel like you’re drowning when you’re around them, and nobody around you can see that. Or sometimes it feels like you’re drowning and they’re the ones who pushed you to the deep end and they’re standing there with their arms crossed like, “Oh well, let’s see if she can get herself out of this.”
Joanne: Are there instances where someone’s in toxic relationships and they don’t know?
Ibinye: All the time. We think that you cannot love someone who feels toxic to you. Sometimes it’s the very people that we love. It could be spouses, best friends, family members, people in your religious organizations, coworkers, bosses you respect—anyone around us can exhibit toxic behavior. So I often say, go by that feeling that you get:
You can’t hold your head up high.
You feel exhausted when you’re around them.
You feel like you have to put up a show or put up an act when you have to be with that person.
If that’s what you feel when you’re around a person, then something’s off about that behavior. But I always say don’t tell people that they’re toxic. Like, don’t walk up to your mom and say, “Dear mom, you’re toxic.” It’s not going to go well.
Joanne: One of the things I’m hearing is one sign that of whether you’re in a toxic relationship is how you feel while anticipating meeting with a person or how you feel during and afterward. Are there people who feel numb?
Ibinye: Absolutely. Some people feel nothing when they’re with toxic people. Other times you find that there’s lots of jealousy and competition in toxic relationships. So there sometimes will not be this spirit of cooperation that we all want to be able to have, that support around us. In toxic relationships, it’s almost like somebody has to be in charge. There’s a dynamic of power and control sometimes where somebody always has to get the last word in; it’s difficult to agree to disagree.
Sometimes there’s this back and forth of:
“You’re wrong and I’m right.”
“But are you open to—?”
“No, I’m not open.”
Or there’s the thing with tradition:
“This is how it’s always been.”
“But that’s hurting me.”
It’s shutting down those feelings saying they aren’t real. “It’s not my fault you’re sad. You’re sad because something’s clearly wrong with you and you’re too sensitive. If you learn to stop being sensitive, you won’t be sad when I make these aggressive comments to you.”
Joanne: I’m hearing that one sign that someone might be toxic is that they’re so rigid and one-sided, not open to hearing the other person’s experiences, let alone validating them, controlling, telling the other person what to do, the other person doesn’t have a say, their feelings don’t matter, their emotions don’t matter, etc. What does someone do when they find out that they’ve been doing those things?
Ibinye: Sometimes that’s how we’re raised and that’s what we see around us, so that’s just what we do. It’s not easy because if you’re used to that dynamic of being cutthroat and cutting people down—all of those difficult behaviors—then I say, “Okay, take a moment to pause and think how would you feel if that were done to you.”
The interesting thing is even when you exhibit toxic behaviors, you don’t enjoy it when the behavior is done back to you. You don’t feel warm and fuzzy when someone has that aggressive interaction with you. Even though that’s all you know, it doesn’t feel great on the inside. So take a moment and pause. I ask, “How would you feel if someone did that to you?” And they’ll say, “I’d be upset and I’d attack them back.” Okay, if that behavior triggers that big emotion back in you, then maybe let’s think of another way to talk about this.
We do a lot of practice in assertive communication as opposed to aggressive communication. We also talk about making amends because it’s very important. Not necessarily in the AA way, but it’s okay to take responsibility for your behavior. It’s okay to go back and apologize and say, “I noticed that I’ve been damaging to you, toxic to you, hurtful to you. I noticed that you’ve felt uncomfortable in my presence and I’m sorry.” We also talk about “I” statements. Not “because you’re so sensitive, that’s why I was so damaging to you.” No, we can’t do that. How to really talk and communicate with people and to attune with other people’s emotions we learn how to do some of those things.
Joanne: So some signs of someone who is not toxic and who is safe and quality are those who are able to consider another person’s experiences, their own impact on the other person, being able to articulate their own experiences (those “I statements”), and—I think this is a pretty significant one—taking responsibility for your own stuff. The world would be so different if more of us knew how to do that.
Ibinye: Absolutely. You don’t have to be perfect. So, safe does not equal perfect. Nobody is perfect. We make mistakes and mistakes are quite okay. I find when people are raised in toxic environments, it goes hand-in-hand with perfectionism because if you’re anything short of perfect, you will be attacked or shunned or something will happen to you that won’t feel good. So there’s this idea of “I need to be perfect because I don’t want anyone to say anything negative about me, I don’t want to be the butt of anyone’s jokes, I don’t want anyone to look down on me.” It’s about learning that imperfections are just a part of the human experience. Some things you do great, some things you don’t do great, and that’s okay.
Joanne: So perfectionism can be a way that a person is trying to take care of themselves, but it usually doesn’t lead to that outcome.
Cognitive Behavioral Therapy for Insomnia
Joanne: You and I could talk about toxic relationships all day because that’s my jam too. Relationships, emotions, all that. But I noticed you focus on other areas as well, like insomnia and supporting couples in their relationships. Could you share a bit more about each of those?
Ibinye: With insomnia, I do cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for it. The idea behind it is, the way you think about sleep can greatly affect your sleep. The people who struggle with sleep have a lot of anxiety behind their sleep, and all day long, they think, “I wonder if I’m going to sleep” or it’s negative, “I know I’m not going to sleep tonight.” Sometimes they walk into their room, see the bed, and think, “I’m going to be tired tomorrow.” Already thinking future-focus negative thoughts about sleep, which stirs up anxiety and most of us cannot sleep when our bodies are under that kind of sleep. Or you’re laying in bed and willing yourself to sleep. “I’m closing my eyes really tight and I will force my body to shut down.” These unconscious thoughts and behaviors unbeknownst to us are increasing insomnia. With CBT insomnia, I teach clients how to create a great sleep environment, how to change behaviors so they can support sleep, and how to work on those unconscious, automatic thoughts, so we can start to think positive, sleep-promoting thoughts.
Joanne: I should’ve done this Live with you a couple of days ago because I could’ve prevented this last night! Trying harder to sleep makes it worse! I know that you have a useful resource you’ve put together, can you talk about that?
Ibinye: I have a free download and it’s just five myths that are keeping you awake and how you can finally sleep. 5 myths most people with insomnia believe are the golden truths about sleep—those are typically keeping us awake, and then I answer, “let’s debunk this myth” and here’s how you can finally sleep.
Couples Therapy: How to Love and How to Communicate
Joanne: And what’s been fun about working with couples?
Ibinye: I enjoy working with couples because when they come to me, they are like, “we are not communicating, we are arguing all the time, but we want this to work.” Or sometimes one person is like, “I don’t know, I’m on the fence” and one person is like “I really want this to work.” It’s really about teaching them how to respect one another, how to find friendship again, and how to communicate. That is key. How to communicate, how to respect one another, how to see your partner, and how to love your partner how your partner wants to be loved, not the way you think they need to be loved. I think a lot of couples get into trouble with that one.
Joanne: What is an exercise you might do with a couple that comes in having trouble loving the other person well?
Ibinye: I always point to the 5 love languages. They take the quiz on the 5 love languages together so that they can understand what each love language is, and then in session, we talk about the results of the quiz and each partner will explain examples of things that fill their cup. Some questions I ask them are:
What are some things that your partner does that you truly enjoy? (We always try to play to each person’s strengths and things that ARE working. It’s not about, “You don’t know your partner and you’ve dropped the ball.”
What are some things that your partner is already doing that really excited you and make you feel seen? (Then we talk about how the partner can do more of that.)
What are some other things your partner can do?
Then I go to the other partner and ask, “So, now that you’re hearing their perspective, what are two things things that you think you can do that can make your partner happy and loved?” And then that’s their homework.
Couples are typically busy and cannot find time, so I encourage them to prioritize “couples time” by pulling up their phones and putting it in their calendar. We also set rules together, but I don’t set the rules for them. They set the rules for themselves. Some of those rules might look like:
No phones
No social media
You have to sit with me
You have to hold my hand
Once everyone is in agreement, I teach them how to speak up for themselves, how to communicate, and then it’s always about validation. We talk about how to validate each other even when they don’t agree with each other. I also normalize that disagreements are going to happen. Because you are a couple doesn’t mean you have to be one mind and love all the same things. But everything doesn’t have to be an argument. If one person loves red, one person loves blue, “It’s fine. Okay, I can see how you love red; I happen to love blue.” It’s fine and doesn’t have to be an argument.
The Five Love Languages
Joanne: Can you go over the five love languages?
Ibinye: Love languages aren’t just for people who are coupled up. They are for kids, for coworkers, friends, loved ones. All humans have love languages, which is just the way they like to be loved.
Quality time. It’s basically spending time with your partner but in a way where your partner is attuned with you. People who’s love language is quality time, they like people to spend time with them where you’re actually looking at them, you’re chatting with them, listening to them, and that’s how they also love other people.
Acts of service. “You made my bed for me, you brought my meal to for me, you fixed my bike for me.” Doing things for the other person. They don’t have to be huge tasks, just simple things like “I loaded the dishwasher today.” perfect!
Touch. That would be people who are huggers, people who love to kiss, hold hands, and things that just feel physically. You can tell kids whose love language is physical touch—they’re the ones who’ll come and give you a hug. Some people when they talk touch your arm lightly or tap you—that’s physical touch.
Gifts. When we think of gifts typically, when I have a couple do the quiz and one of them gets gifts, the other partner is “Oh my gosh, this is about to get expensive.” no! It doesn’t have to be expensive. It doesn’t even have to be something you buy. Just the thought behind it that knowing your loved one has spent time crafting or getting something for you. It can even be mixing them a drink and giving it to them.
Word of affirmation. People who want to hear that you love them wanna hear that they’re doing a great job, that you’re proud of them. So, your words are affirming them, loving them, validating their emotions.
Typically I find that couples have different love languages. One could have acts of service and one could have quality time. That’s why it feels like “I don’t feel loved” or “you don’t love me, you don’t appreciate me.” Typically, we love people and show our love in our own love language, so once we learn how to speak our partner’s love language, then they feel like they’re seen and loved.
Joanne: So it’s a way of turning into a person for how they actually are, not how we think they are or how we think they should be. It leads to an acknowledgment and accepting the other person.
Therapy and Therapist Misconceptions
Joanne: So when it comes to the process of therapy, what are some of the myths or misconceptions about therapy that you’ve heard?
Ibinye: I’ve heard a LOT.
Therapy is judgmental.
Your therapist will tell you what to do.
Your therapist will shame you and judge you.
Therapy is exactly like talking to a friend, so what’s the point? They aren’t going to teach you anything.
If you go to a therapist, then they’ll put you on medication, and then you’ll be on medication for the rest of your life.
Therapists just want to stick you to a very strict diagnosis.
I think sometimes how TV portrays therapists, people are surprised that I laugh a lot or they didn’t expect me to be this nice. I’ve heard people be worried that I will tell everyone their business and put it on social media. No! There’s confidentiality'; I don’t do that.
Joanne: So what would you say therapy is?
Ibinye: Therapy is a process of getting you to where you want to be. The reason I’m keeping it so vague is because we don’t tell you where you need to be. The way I work is; I ask what you would like your life to look like in 6 months or a year, they tell me, and we work towards that. We start by exploring different aspects of their lives:
What would you want your social relationships to look like?
What would you like to feel when you wake up in the morning?
We talk about career. What do you feel is standing in your way?
It’s a process of really getting to know yourself. A process of getting to heal difficult emotions that keep us stuck or afraid or stagnant. Learning how to create relationships with yourself and with those around you so we can learn how to thrive. I know it’s sort of nebulous how I’m describing it, but that’s the best description I can come up with.
Joanne: There’s such diversity in individuals anyway. Everyone’s goals and desires are different and there’s no need to pigeonhole people into one way of growing or healing. For example, one person’s work could be how to do anger less or how to have better ways of doing anger, but for another person, it might be how to practice anger more. Either one could be really healing for a particular person and their relationships. What other resources do you have available apart from?
Ibinye: Currently, I am enrolling for the women of color online support group. It started because when the pandemic hit, I kept hearing from women of color say, “I just feel alone. I feel like there’s so much going on and I have no one to talk to.” But they weren’t just talking about seeing a therapist, they were talking about a community of women who knew what they were going through. So, it’s a place where they don’t have to be so perfect and don’t have to be the caretaker all the time.
You get to sit, connect with other women of color who understand some of the struggles you are going through, get to support you through it. We tackle different topics; we talk about race and racism and how to maneuver that. Of course, we aren’t going to solve racism in 8 weeks, but we talk about how to maneuver that so it doesn’t feel like something that’s strangling you all the time. We talk about ways to take care of yourself. What can self-care look like? How to build self-care, self-confidence, and how to ask for help because most of the majority of the women that I talk to do not ask for help ever. It’s an 8-week group, we meet once a week for 8 weeks and you just leave feeling like some of the burdens have been taken off your shoulders. That’s why it’s called Lay Down Your Burdens.
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© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:
“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
Power of Perspective: Cycle or Spiral?
You may feel sometimes like you’re going in circles - expending so much energy, time, and resources to change, only to find yourself in the same place all over again. As more time goes on, you feel like the future is bleak - what’s the point of trying, if it’s going to be the same? Perhaps what’s the issue is not what’s happening but how you perceive what’s happening. What if you ARE actually changing?
Going in Circles
I thought I dealt with this already. Why am I going through this again?
Am I always going to be attracted to the same kinds of assholes?
Are things never going to get better?
Maybe you’re getting into fights with your partner again, and you’re thinking, “I TOLD myself I wouldn’t do this again,” only to find yourself doing the thing again. The same feelings arise, the same words are said, the same dance is danced, and you’re sick of it.
Maybe you vowed to actually finish a project this time, to find out that, ALSO this time, you didn’t.
You might be feeling stuck in your own reactive patterns, helpless to do anything about it. No amount of books you read, seminars you attend, and exercises you try seem to do the trick.
If you find yourself feeling like you’re in the exact same place despite all attempts to change, you might be stuck in a SHAME CYCLE.
The Shame Cycle
In the shame cycle, you keep feeling trapped, going around the same bend. There seems to be no development, and all attempts of change seem negated.
The first time you go around, there’s frustration (“Argh!! What the hell??”) and impatience (“Why isn’t this changing more quickly?!?”). With a burst of motivation and tons of creative juices flowing, you might push yourself (“This time, I’ll get it right.” “Maybe if I change this one thing…”)
When that doesn’t work and you see the same dynamics again, you might try pointing the finger outside yourself with anger/blame. “This time it wasn’t my fault.” “They did this to me; they messed me up.”
Several more rounds of this, confusion, anxiety, and despair set in. “Why can’t I shake this off?” “Why can’t I figure it out?”
Each round you go, you lose energy to bother trying anything different. Frustration and impatience give way to apathy and complacence. “What’s the point, if I’m only going to end up in the same spot anyway?”
Each round you go, you feel more and more hopelessness and defeated. “What if this is all who I am? Maybe I’ll just be this way forever.”
Each round you go, your self-esteem takes another blow. At first, there was guilt (“I messed up.”). Now there’s shame (“I’m messed up.”)
When you get to this point, your nervous system - overloaded with all the stress - starts to collapse.
FIGHT doesn’t work.
FLIGHT doesn’t work.
So FREEZE sets in.
This shutdown can lead down some dark paths:
Depression - you feel nothing will change, the future looks bleak
Anxiety - you feel out of control and disoriented
Shame - you see yourself as permanently flawed
The Resilience Spiral
For ANY human being going through a legit growth process, there WILL be moments when you’ll feel like you’re going through the same thing over and over again.
That’s VERY HUMAN and VERY NORMAL.
(You’re okay! I’m here, too!)
Even when we make similar kinds of reactive, autopilot decisions, NOT EVERYTHING is exactly the same. Some things are indeed different, and possibly different for the better.
When we start looking NOT for what’s the SAME but for what’s DIFFERENT, what we perceive changes: what we’re walking is not a CIRCLE, but a SPIRAL.
Depending on what angle you’re looking at, a circle is a top-down (or bottom-up) cross-section view of a spiral. It’s 2D, not 3D. It’s missing a whole dimension, namely TIME, and how much things have CHANGED over time.
Not a SHAME CIRCLE (where you slow down/stop), but a RESILIENCE SPIRAL (where you keep moving ahead/up).
Sure, you might be doing at Age 29 the kinds of things you did at Age 19 (like procrastinating hard core on a work project like you did on school assignments). But 29-You is WISER than 19-You, because you’ve gained some experience and learned some things (many the hard way). You might still procrastinate, but Older-You will wait ‘til the week preceding the deadline rather than the literal night before, because now you know that your body will definitely NOT be able to pull a Red Bulled all-nighter and survive a full work day.
29-You also knows that if you keep getting defensive when your partner brings up important topics, y’all will go another several rounds of flinging criticism at each other, with neither party coming out on top and both of you losing.
29-You also learned two years ago that sometimes it really DOES help to tell your partner, “Hey, I’m noticing I’m feeling really tense right now because I got off a long day at work. I need some time for my body to catch up to my brain, plus I’m really hangry. Can we eat and hang out first, and then talk about this around 8pm?”
Initially there might still be some annoyance for both of you, but in the end, the thing actually gets talked about and both of you get your needs met much more effectively than you did two years prior.
Give yourself more credit. You’ve earned it.
Hear me out. I am NOT a fan of “Fake it ‘til you make it” or “Look for the silver lining!” I’m not going to tell you to artificially make up something positive just so that you can feel better about yourself, because that’s still a distortion (just going the opposite direction).
I’m just saying, GIVE YOURSELF CREDIT for things you’ve ACTUALLY CHANGED FOR THE BETTER.
Why is this so important? Because your body needs to know that you are an AGENT, meaning a being that can produce a specified effect. Overgeneralizations like “Always” or “Never” statements overload your nervous system, and it collapses beneath it. Once despair kicks in, the mind develops “learned helplessness”, meaning you live AS IF you are truly helpless even when there are things technically still within your control, responsibility, and ability.
Some things ARE outside of your control. That’s fine. You’re not supposed to do anything with them anyway. The point is for you to take ownership of things that ARE within your ability to do something about it. Keep your nervous system online with concrete evidence, including things that you did WELL and things that DID change for the better.
OWN the outcome, good and bad:
If bad, OWN that, repair the situation, learn from it, and try doing something new. Adjust as you go.
If good, OWN that and keep doing more of the same until you learn something that works even better.
Spiral, not Cycle
Some questions to ponder:
What’s your “reactive autopilot mode”? What are some patterns you have in your life, work, or relationships that seem to be stubbornly persistent over time? (The Enneagram might be a useful tool in revealing your autopilot.)
What are 1-3 things that DID change? (Think frequency, intensity, duration, quality, or direction.)
For example, you might still have generally one-sided relationships, but you’re more selective about with whom you’re connecting for what, stir up less emotional intensity in new connections, calibrate how much of yourself you share with others, or say no more often.)
Intentionally LOOK for small improvements in yourself or any situation. When we seek these exceptions, it’s easier to build upon our existing momentum to continue healing, growing, and changing for the better.
EVEN WHEN things FEEL the same, there are STILL differences.
What are your Enneagram type's emotional habits?
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© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne: “I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
Does this resonate?
Radical Candor: Balancing Regard for Self and Others
Do you feel like your needs don’t matter, despite how much you do for others? Learn how to move towards radical candor, a relationship stance that creates room in the relationship big enough for both yourself and others.
Healthy Relationships Start with BALANCE
Connection with others varies from person to person. Sometimes you give more to the relationship, sometimes you might give less. Sometimes the relationship exists without much contribution from either party.
But the strongest relationships form when BOTH you and the other person make room for BOTH of your needs & wants. One person is not inherently more important than the other.
What makes this reciprocity possible? The ability to clearly and directly advocate for yourself while considering the well-being of both yourself and the other — what Kim Scott calls “Radical Candor”.
In this book, Scott outlines the four types of relationships defined by the balance or imbalance of self and others.
The 4 Relationship Quadrants
Kim Scott illustrates the four relationship types in an XY grid, where the X-axis represents care or regard for the self, and the Y-axis represents care or regard for others. When relationships have an imbalance of care for yourself or others, it can create relationships with conflict, resentment, shame, and inauthenticity. Learning which quadrants on the graph your relationships fall into can help you pinpoint areas to work on in order to achieve a balanced relationship that actively creates enough space for BOTH yourself and others.
Obnoxious Aggression
This relationship type falls into the bottom-right quadrant, reflecting a relationship with high regard for the self and little regard for others.
Characteristics:
Bully types or bossy.
Steamroll through relationships.
Don’t take feedback (e.g., disregard feedback or refuse to listen to feedback).
Unnecessarily aggressive (e.g., seem to look for challenges or accidentally challenge others often).
Rely on their power over others.
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Learn how to consider others/increase care for others. (E.g., practice reflecting on how others may interpret your words and tone. Will saying X hurt their feelings?)
Directly ask for feedback and respond to it for course-correction. (E.g., invite others to give you feedback. “How could I have addressed this better?” Consciously listen and implement feedback.)
Understand others are different from you. (E.g., not everyone has the ability to know their own needs as well as you do. Give people the space to understand theirs and feel safe to ask for your support.)
Don’t expect others to act as you do. (E.g., a person may not be able to stand up for themselves as you can.)
Manipulative Insincerity
This quadrant lies in the bottom left of the graph, depicting a relationship with regard for neither the self or others.
Characteristics:
Gossipers.
Show up in certain circles but do something else entirely different behind the scenes. (E.g., fulfills work roles adequately on the surface and disrupts working relationships with gossip amongst co-workers.)
Very surprising or mysterious. (E.g., others usually can tell where these people stand and their insincerity is not a complete shock. You can probably think of a few people like this in your workplace or social circles right now.)
Hard to read.
Interacting with these people might tense up the body.
Have a plastered/plastic smile with no “evidence” of what they are doing wrong. (E.g., appear friendly but inauthentic, and it is unclear why they appear inauthentic because there is no evidence of it.)
Use power indirectly. (E.g., guilt-tripping, gossiping, making fun of others, challenging the character of others, dismissive, etc.)
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Learn how to be direct with communication. (E.g., avoid using indirect means of power like guilt-tripping and dismissiveness.)
Learn how to state their own needs.
Honor and respect the other person. (People are different from each other and each deserves respect.)
Give information directly to avoid confusion or self-doubt from other parties. (E.g., instead of guilt-tripping a roommate to help with chores, tell them you need help maintaining the house upkeep.)
Ruinous Empathy
This person falls into the top left quadrant, where a person gives too much emphasis to others and not enough to the self. Most of my clients fall into this quadrant.
Characteristics:
Filled with guilt, anxiety, shame.
Have an allergic reaction to anger/highly sensitive people.
Overdo their empathy. (Empathy CAN be overdone and is not automatically a good thing.)
Empathy goes too far and leaves no room for the self.
On the surface, they are kind, serving, empathetic people, but this happens with an engine of shame behind the scenes. (E.g., shame may motivate a person to serve others because they feel like they are not enough.)
Overly extending self to others leads to burnout easily and creates a shame spiral. (E.g., “I should be able to do better,” self-judgment for “selfishness.”)
Can cultivate resentment when there is not enough time for oneself. (Resentment often shows up with guilt, and people may have a difficult time noticing and/or acknowledging this.)
Tips for Reaching Radical Candor:
Must learn how to care for themselves as much as others. (This will feel selfish at first because you’ve been trained to center on others, but it is NOT selfish, it’s SELF-CARING. In order to deeply care for others well, you must care for yourself; otherwise, acts are tainted with resentment, guilt, and shame.)
Practice anger. (Let yourself feel angry and hurt. These emotions are not selfish to have.)
Practice self-care and self-compassion.
Do things that at first trigger a sense of guilt and shame—this indicates you are going in the right direction. (E.g., be honest about your needs and explain to your loved ones when they do something that upsets you. This will trigger a sense of guilt/shame at first, but these are necessary steps for balancing your relationship and moving into radical candor.)
Radical Candor
This is the ideal place for a relationship. In the top-right quadrant, this represents an equal balance between the self and others.
Characteristics:
Able to create balance where you know others matter just as much as you do, and you matter just as much as others.
Are able to speak up for their own needs.
Speaking the truth kindly but directly.
Intentionally addresses issues instead of skirting around problems.
Reaching Radical Candor
Moving into the quadrant of radical candor can be very difficult for some people. Being assertive about your own needs can be scary if you have trouble putting yourself out there or if you are scared of the negative reactions from others, but it is necessary work for strong relationships. When you consciously and directly address issues in the relationship or clearly communicate your needs, you give the other person a chance to repair and address these issues and needs. Waiting for others to fulfill needs and address issues that you skirt around or avoid speaking about lays the groundwork for an imbalanced relationship and resentment.
As you navigate your work and social life in the coming weeks, evaluate your relationships and see if you can identify which quadrant(s) you fall into. Is there a balance between yourself and others? From there, you can work towards achieving radical candor in your relationships.
The BIG Feelings First Aid Kit
Messy feelings spilling out at the WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE, WRONG WAY?
Grab this free PDF guide that shows you how to handle feelings like a pro so that you can keep moving forward in life!
© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Practitioner in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:
“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
Does this resonate?
How Online Therapy Can Help
Grab a blanket, your favorite cup of coffee, and a journal! When social distancing and quarantine are the ways to keep yourself and loved ones safe from coronavirus (COVID-19), online therapy can help you get care and support in the comfort of your home.
How Online Therapy Can Help in the Time of Coronavirus
In light of the major disruptions that COVID-19 caused on all levels of society, anxiety levels have gone through the roof. Uncertainty surrounding the future, physical health, loved ones’ well-being, social life, finances, and even groceries puts great pressure on our mental, emotional, and relational health.
As we are all experiencing the effects of social distancing and shelter-in-place, now is the time to consider whether online therapy might be right for you. (Phone sessions also count as what’s called Telehealth.)
If you’ve only done in-person sessions:
Online therapy does involve some adjusting. Naturally, your brain is used to being in the same room as your therapist, but usually 1-3 sessions is all you need until your body gets the hang of it. Before you even know it, you’re able to process just as well as before, if not more deeply because you’re in your own space.
The room has changed, but your therapist has not. Your therapist can still follow you well, paying close attention to what you say (or don’t) with words and nonverbal cues.
If this is your first time in therapy:
Imagine doing FaceTime with a close friend. How do you feel talking to them about what you’re doing through? It might still be scary, but if they responded well enough in the past, you may have enough courage to share a bit more. After you do so, you feel better for it - you feel more known, less alone, and encouraged to keep going.
Therapy is similar in that way: you’re sharing important things to someone who knows and cares for you. Therapy is definitely not equivalent to a friendship (as it’s a one-way relationship), but I do have your best interest and your desired outcome in mind. I’m not going to force you to do anything you don’t want to, but am going to check in often to see if I’m getting you well. How you feel matters.
Therapy will be done at a pace that feels right for you. Online therapy can help you build connection on your turf, without needing to worry about what pants you’re wearing.
Suit up in your PJs, and let’s get to it!
Benefits of Online Therapy (Telehealth)
There are tons of advantages that online therapy can offer:
You can meet in the comfort of your home with your favorite coffee mug, plush blanket, and jammies!
Or you can meet during a lunch break. (You just need secure, steady internet connection and a private space.)
No traffic/parking/commute time.
More flexible scheduling and the possibility for more frequent and shorter sessions.
More insurance companies are covering online therapy in light of COVID-19 (*check if your plan also covers out-of-network providers or only paneled therapists*)
A wider pool of therapists who specialize in what you need without any additional commute (make sure they're in your the same state).
I am located in the San Francisco Bay Area in California (San Jose, Santa Clara, Saratoga, Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino, Willow Glen, Sunnyvale).
How It Works
I use the telehealth feature of Simple Practice, which is the same platform I use for all my intake forms, scheduling, and billing. As a platform that thousands of therapists use, Simple Practice uses cutting edge technology to ensure the privacy and security of sensitive information.
When it’s time for our session, click on the secure link you will receive via email. You will be able to see a page where your video and mine will pop up.
Wherever you choose to “meet”, make sure to:
Secure a quiet, private space (no interruptions or others barging in). Use headphones.
Use a computer, tablet, or phone that has a microphone and camera.
Have access to secure, steady internet connection. (Phone sessions may still be an option.)
Close all other browsers and programs so that we can have full bandwidth usage and to minimize lags/drops in connection.
Get comfortable! Dress comfortably or grab a blanket. Prep a journal, tissues, and a cup of tea/coffee/water.
Ready to Begin?
FAQs about Online Counseling
Is it as Good as in-person therapy?
Thousands of people have found online sessions to be just as effective (if not more) than in-person sessions. As a therapist who has been seeing my most recent therapist solely through online sessions, I was first skeptical as to whether it would be as good as being in the same physical room as my therapist. After one or two sessions, though, I was pleasantly surprised how easily I could connect with my thoughts and emotions, just as much as I did in face-to-face sessions. I also appreciated the convenience of being able to meet wherever, as long as I had steady, secure internet connection.
Is Online Therapy for Me?
Virtual therapy can be a great way to get support, but it’s not for everyone:
Those unable to acquire secure, steady internet connection (phone sessions may still be an option)
Those unable to acquire a safe, private space (no locked doors, thin walls, housemates barging in often)
Those diagnosed with a major mental illness such as bipolar disorder, schizophrenia, or severe depression who require higher level of care
Those struggling with significant alcohol or substance abuse
Those experiencing suicidal thoughts (call 911 or seek immediate care at your nearest emergency department, and follow up with a local in-person therapist)
The BIG Feelings First Aid Kit
Messy feelings spilling out at the WRONG TIME, WRONG PLACE, WRONG WAY?
Grab this free PDF guide that shows you how to handle feelings like a pro so that you can keep moving forward in life!
© Copyright 2021 Joanne B. Kim. All rights reserved.
JOANNE B. KIM, LMFT
Joanne is a Licensed Marriage & Family Therapist and Certified Brainspotting Therapist in San Jose, CA, who loves helping people create emotionally thriving relationships. She helps people EXHAUSTED by anxiety, shame, and an allergic reaction to anger create VIBRANT relationships where they matter, too.
Many of her clients are:
(1) the highly responsible, conscientious, and empathic types
(2) Enneagram Type Ones, Twos, Fours, or Nines
(3) Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs)
(4) adult survivors of emotional abuse and neglect
The most common words spoken by those who’ve sat with Joanne:
“I thought it was just me. I’m NOT crazy!”
“I can finally figure out what to do with all these feelings!”
Does this resonate?
Proudly helping women, healers, pastors, caregivers, and Highly Sensitive Persons (HSPs) who are EXHAUSTED by anxiety, guilt, shame, and an allergic reaction with anger create VIBRANT relationships where THEY MATTER, TOO!
Enneagram, EMDR, and Brainspotting Therapy in the Silicon Valley (Santa Clara County - San Jose, Los Gatos, Campbell, Cupertino, Saratoga, Santa Clara, Sunnyvale, Los Altos, Milpitas) and the San Francisco Bay Area. Offering telehealth video sessions in California.
See how the Enneagram and genogram reveal trauma, boundaries, and generational patterns in families like the Bridgertons — and maybe yours too!