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Many many years ago, in fact, it feels like another lifetime ago, my “partner picker” was programmed to Narcissist. It seemed like the only men I was attracted to were self-absorbed, self-interested, and self-serving. I continued to find myself in relationships where my role was to, in some way, serve someone else’s selfish interests. I would find myself scratching my head saying, “How the hell did this happen again?” It wasn’t until years later, I realized my beliefs were sabotaging my picker.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety, Trauma and Relationship Therapy

Before I start, let me qualify. I have been impacted by addiction since day one, sober for over nine years, and worked in the field of addictions for the last seven years. I am by no means a 12-step purist. I don’t believe that one size fits all and do I believe there are multiple roads to recovery.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety, Trauma and Relationship Therapy

Have you seen the movie Her? In this movie Theodore is a lonely writer going through a divorce. This poor guy is so lonely that he ends up falling in love with his computer’s operating system. At the beginning of the movie, there is an elevator scene where he’s feeling horrible about his life and himself and says to his phone, “Play melancholy song.”

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These days you can respond to your boss’s email, text your partner about the kids, google search a recipe for your dinner, answer your best friend’s phone call, and shop for your mom’s birthday gift all at the same. This makes you a super-efficient human being, right?

Nope, it doesn’t. It makes you a super stressed-out and anxious human doing in a pressure cooker about explode with anxiety.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety, Trauma and Relationship Therapy

Do you ever wonder about the voice that is commentating in your head all day everyday?

As humans, we have core beliefs that colors our world. This belief system was created by interactions with “our people” when we were kids. I go into more depth about this in my previous blog, Rose Colored Glasses, Nope, I Think Not. It’s important to know if we had “good enough” parenting, we probably developed healthy beliefs about ourselves and the world. By “good enough,” I don’t mean perfect, I mean parents that showed us over the years that we are valuable and that they could be trusted.

Orlando Counseling Providing Anxiety, Trauma and Relationship Therapy

Rose Colored Glasses? Nope, That’s Not Me!

Do you hear things like, “Why are you so negative?” or “Why can’t you see the bright side of things?”

First of all, as humans, we all have what is called a negativity bias. This is our innate drive to tune into, and remember the negative experiences over positive ones. We can thank our ancestors, the cavemen, for this. It was much more important for them to remember which berries were deadly and how to avoid being eaten by a ferocious animal than it was to tune into the butterflies and rainbows. I could talk more about negativity bias, but I will save that for another article.