Hold Me Tight® Workshops

Are the ‘Reds’ of Valentine’s Day giving you the ‘Blues’?

Couples Therapy, Hold Me Tight® Workshops

Are you dreading a disappointment? Are memories of past Valentines hurting you?

Valentine Day is not always an easy day for many of us. If you are in a rocky relationship, recently broken up, or just have not found the ONE, it could be a difficult day, and all those chocolates and flowers can ache.

Rumi the great Sufi poet who write so eloquently about love, tells us that when it comes to LOVE we ‘gamble the circle around the zero’–

“A lover gambles everything, the self, the circle around the zero! He or she cuts and throws it all away”

According to a survey , the most popular Valentine’s Day card (romantically named V330-5 by Hallmark), simply states: “Each time I see you, hold you, think of you, here’s what I do … I fall deeply, madly, happily in love with you. Happy Valentine’s Day.”

When we fall in love we are flooded with oxytocin we are in bliss of romantic dreams, we are on to ‘forever’.

BUT When our relationships hit rocky spots, which they inevitably do, we begin the fights.. the blame.. the despair..

When it comes to our loved ones, we fight for connection, we protest disengagement and separation, we react, we panic, we become defensive and offensive.

We are cued to see any abandonment or rejection as ‘life threatening’.

We are so tightly invested in the meaning of that relationship, that conflicts over simple things can become a life or death matter.

IT’S BECAUSE YOU MATTER SO MUCH TO YOUR LOVER AND YOUR PARTNER — THAT YOU DO NOT GIVE UP THE FIGHT.

In our HOLD ME TIGHT WORKSHOPS you will have the opportunity to rediscover the magic and renew your commitment to your bond.

Here is an opportunity to explore, discover, heal, forgive, discover new possibilities for you and your partner.

Experience this ground breaking work to renew trust and intimacy within your relationship, deepen your emotional connection, develop closeness with one another, and create a secure base for both people to flourish

spaces are limited so sign up now

go to www.daliaanderman.com/workshops/

to sign up and for more information!!!

Don’t underestimate HOLIDAY STRESS — from 41000 ft up in the air!

Hold Me Tight® Workshops, Individual Therapy

Today is my birthday and I’m up at 41K on my way to Israel to deal with some family issues. Oddly the flight attendant on my flight is also having a birthday today.. She got me cake from first class… Waking up at dawn (well not that I really slept) to the sunrise of my birthday and a man praying in the isle next to me…

The HOLIDAY season often brings unwelcome guests – STRESS!
It can come as sadness, loneliness, overwhelm, and even depression.

And it’s no wonder. The holidays present a dizzying array of demands – parties, presents shopping, baking, cleaning, and entertaining, to name just a few.

But it can also be stressful as during the holiday when some of us celebrate with our close families, it can also be time of feel alone, vulnerable, and lonely.

Here are 7 TIPS to watch for, prevent, and cope with, holiday stress.

1. Be realistic. The holidays don’t have to be PERFECT or ‘just like last year’.. Allow for change and flexibility. As families change and grow, traditions and rituals often change as well.

2. Stick to a BUDGET. Before you go gift and food shopping, decide how much money you can afford to spend. Then stick to your budget. Often we feel the need to spend money to show our love. But many times presence come before presents. And baking cookies or fudge can be economical yummy and fun!!

3. Plan ahead. Set aside specific days for shopping, baking, visiting friends and other activities. Plan your menus, make your shopping list, know how much time it takes to accomplish what you hope for, and take into account that everything takes longer during the holidays, including traffic!

4. Acknowledge your feelings. If you or someone you close to, has recently experienced a loss, or can’t be with loved ones, realize that it’s normal to feel sadness and grief. It’s OK to take time to cry or express your feelings. Be honest. Express your needs.
Reach out. If you feel lonely or isolated, seek out community, religious or other social events. They can offer support and companionship.

5. Learn to say no. Saying yes when you should say no can leave you feeling resentful and overwhelmed. Friends and colleagues will understand if you can’t participate in every project or activity. So often we overextend ourselves only to feel spent exhausted and depleted. Set clear boundaries even with family and friends.

6. Make sure to take some time for yourself. Spending just 15 minutes alone, without distractions, may refresh you enough to handle everything you need to do.
Don’t neglect your daily practice of exercising, yoga, or meditation.

7. Take time to do NOTHING AT ALL!!!

So with some practical tips, paying attention, and following some of the above, you can minimize the stress of the holidays. You may even end up enjoying the holidays more than you thought you would.

Happy Holidays stay warm and may Santa bring your wishes come true!!

Are GHOSTS of past Relationships Haunting You?

Hold Me Tight® Workshops

Hold Me (Tight) ….. I’m Scared.

Time to invite your partner into the haunted house and make it safe?

Many times we carry injuries and wounds from past relationships with attachment figures (parents, caregivers, past love relationships), into our PRESENT life; unaware how those attachment injuries affect our present capacity to open, bond, love, take risks, and be vulnerable with our partner.

We guard ourselves; defend and protect our hearts from getting hurt, from feeling abandoned, rejected, not good enough, unlovable; we promise ourselves ‘never again’… guarding ourselves, becoming defensive, and building fortresses that keep us ‘safe’ but isolated.

We misread our partner’s own emotions of fear as signals of rejection; we interpret our partner’s withdrawing into their own scared self, as abandonment; and on and on the cycle continues…

We see our relationship get hijacked by those fearful patterns and we are hopeless and helpless in the midst of it all.

Maybe it is time to let those GHOSTS of past relationships out of the attic and learn how to release them? Time to invite your partner into the haunted house and make it safe.

Come to our HMT workshop to understand how those ghosts of past relationships are showing up again and again. Learn to recognize – and release – the hold the past has on your love relationships!!

Come experience FORGIVENESS and transformation, while learning to communicate with your PARTNER.

HOLD ME TIGHT couples workshop in

Nevada City CA Nov 14-16.
www.daliaanderman.com/workshops

Dalia Anderman, MFT

“Your task is not to seek for love, but merely to seek and find all the barriers within yourself that you have built against it.”
~ Rumi

Autumn and What I Did Not Know About My Empty Nest

Hold Me Tight® Workshops, Individual Therapy

As the summer noises diminish, and the fall quiet resumes, the sounds of the empty nest are becoming EVER so ‘loudly clear’….
With my younger daughter off to her college life, I stand at the grocery store, trying to remind myself that no, I do not need all that food, as the teenagers who filled the house, and emptied the refrigerator, are all gone and flown out of the nest. There is sadness and stillness; there is joy and calmness, there is confusion.
There is also a lot to do, but rather then move quickly through it all, I try to remind myself my own wisdom that I part with my own clients through those times.
I ask myself to stay vulnerable to those feelings and not wish them away. I invite myself and you, my fellow ’empty nesters’ — to

Grieve, Feel, Allow, Write, Talk, Share, Slow down, Look around, Feel…
I hope your summer was full with joy, beauty, presence, and the acute awareness of how precious every moment of our life is.. Here in Nevada City, we are blessed with a summer revolving in and around our beloved Yuba River...swimming, hiking, cooling, grounding…the three forks of the Yuba become home during the summer.

…And speaking of community — I have the privilege of serving on the Mental Health team at Burning Man which is part of an extensive Medical and Emergency Services system. Burning Man is a festival in the desert of Nevada which happens every end of summer. Burning Man is based on the principle of a community of inclusion, reliance, sharing, giving, participating, where there is no Money exchange and yet, abundance.

Look for our upcoming Hold Me Tight workshops in next week’s newsletter.

Hold Me Tight Couples Workshop

November 14-15-16, 2014

Nevada City, CA

AND last but not a bit the least… I need to ASK for your HELP!

As I am joining the 21st century, I am finding myself trying hard to catch up with the technology, marketing and social media requirements that at times become so overwhelming to me…

SO the way you can HELP is to ‘like’ my page Dalia Anderman MFT on FaceBook and/or write a review, or give a STAR rating.

Also on GOOGLE+

Nevada City

I thank YOU so much for doing this for ME!!

Dalia Anderman, MFT

“And the day came when the risk to remain tight in a bud was more painful than the risk it took to blossom” ~ Anais Nin

The Birds and the bees and all Things Mating in this Time of Online Dating

Hold Me Tight® Workshops

SPRING has arrived!

I’m a couples therapist and my lens is.. well.. kind of skewed, so when spring arrives I sense its effect on myself, my loved-ones and of course in the therapy room.
It’s mating time, and with it comes: “Am I the One for You?”.

In a recent VERY long international flight — when I exhausted all the movies and books and notes, and there were still 7 hours of flights to come– I opened the on-flight magazine and found an ad for a company called “It’s Just Lunch” for business people too busy to do their own ‘online dating’ or mate-finding. For what seems like a high fee this agency will arrange for you everything you need for finding that ‘SPECIAL ONE’.

I wondered how my ‘Yente’ great-grandmothers in the villages of Eastern Europe will label ‘match making’ adventures in the era of computers helping you find a match..

Nowadays you do not need a match maker, or a costly agency, you can ‘do it yourself’ using ONLINE DATING.
Everyone does!

BUT beware! Online dating is not for the faint of heart…

According to a recent study more than a third of marriages between 2005 and 2012 began online, and the research also said that these marriages tend to be happier and longer than marriages of couples who met in more traditional ways.

There are online dating sites for everyone and there are some GOOD RULES about online dating:

Your PROFILE is important, so put some efforts into reflecting who you are. Those efforts will bring results! USE A FRIEND TO HELP YOU — most of us are a bit shy to ‘sell’ ourselves. You can be serious, funny, deep, clever, witty, don’t be afraid, there is nothing to lose. You can even be vulnerable BUT not too much disclosure! TMI (too much information): like window shopping you want to be attractive, but keep the looker intrigued enough to step in..

PICTURES: Be current! Do not add a photo of yourself as a teenager. There is nothing more discouraging then the look on the face of a potential partner when they.. or you.. realize that 20 or more years have passed since that photo was taken. No need to add your truck or your dog or your aunt Bertie with you in the picture! Most of the pics may have a tropical landscape in the background, after all it is on vacations when we zip that iphone out…

FIRST DATE: Meet in a coffee shop, and be clear that it’s only a coffee. You can always move to dinner if both of you wish, but don’t get stuck on a long planned day where you both, (or either one of you), can not wait for it to end. BE SAFE.

FAST FORWARD TO 2014: I’m an online dating veteran with hundreds of virtual and dozens of in-person exchanges under my belt. And I’m not the only one. According to the Pew Research Center, 11 percent of all Americans who use the Internet have used an online dating site, and that number jumps to 38 percent among people who are single and looking. To say that online dating is widely pervasive is an understatement!!

Enough said… GOOD LUCK and IF you need help…call me…

Dalia

What do Elephants, Lions and Couples Relationships have in common?

Hold Me Tight® Workshops

Longevity? Power struggles? Long pregnancy? (did you know that an elephant gestation is 22 months!) Well, we know about the power struggles, and how they hurt our relationship… But to achieve longevity, at times, we need to improve our communication, secure our bonding, and promote better understanding.

The other thing elephants, lions, and couples retreats have in common is that Julie and I just came back from co~facilitating Hold Me Tight workshops in two universities in South Africa and it was awesome!!!

Now we are so excited to bring these successful couples retreats to Nevada City, helping couples in Northern California understand their relationship, and deepen their connection with each other.

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