Kim Schneiderman
Psychotherapist, Author, Columnist, Writing Workshops

  • Home
  • Professional Services
    • Psychotherapy
    • Writing Workshops
    • Speaking Engagements
  • The Book
  • Media
    • Columns
    • Blog
    • Interviews
    • Articles & Essays
    • In the News
  • Events
  • Kim’s Story
  • Contact

How to Reframe Your Narrative About Challenging Relationships

Imagine your nemesis as the personal trainer of your emotional muscle workout

Every human relationship, whether familial, romantic, or platonic, is more or less an ambitious, hopeful, but potentially hazardous psycho-chemistry experiment. When you combine two unique sets of genetics, backgrounds, and life experiences, you never know whether you’ll get sparks, combustion, or something in between.

Most of us aspire to the sparks and “in between,” anticipating the occasional misunderstanding or disagreement. But as much as we may try to steer clear of the combustive ones, they usually have a not-so-funny way of finding us.

And maybe that’s not such a bad thing. Obviously, physical, sexual, and emotional abuse should never be tolerated. But a little conflict can be potentially beneficial, depending on how we see and respond to it.

One of my favorite models for reframing conflicts comes from literature. When we read a story or watch a film, not only do we expect conflicts, but also we recognize that tension is an important part of the protagonist’s psychological evolution.

In life as in literature, every protagonist has a character arc, a particular way he or she evolves in response to the friction in the plotline. At the outset of every narrative, the protagonist possesses certain viewpoints and capabilities that have gotten the character by until now.

Inevitably, situations arise, usually presented by an adversarial character known as the antagonist, that challenge the protagonist’s perspective or demand skills he or she doesn’t yet possess. The degree to which the protagonist embraces this challenge, or tries to avoid it, determines who he or she becomes, for better or for worse.

Similarly, every person is the ever-evolving protagonist of their own unfolding drama, with choices to make about how to respond to adversity. If you can accept that conflict is an inevitable part of any story, rather than blaming yourself, feeling like a victim, or pretending it doesn’t exist, you’re on a path towards an empowering resolution.

This doesn’t necessarily mean engaging your adversary in verbal battle, but rather doing the important inner work that can and often leads to personal success and redemption.

Your Emotional Muscle Workout

For example, suppose you have a sibling that treats you like a doormat. Perhaps you avoid confronting them about your mistreatment because you fearthey’ll explode or get mean. Taking the self-respecting path of standing up for yourself—simply stating, “Please don’t speak to me that way,” or, “I’m going to walk away if you don’t stop yelling”—would leave you feeling stronger and more confident.

Such a courageous stance might be hard to take if you’re feeling insecure. Often, our antagonists have the power to hurt and trigger us precisely because they poke at our vulnerabilities and insecurities. But understanding, healing, and changing our reactions to these wounds, often through psychotherapy, is an important part of our psychological and spiritual development.

Continue here…

Filed Under: Blog, Media

Leave a Reply Cancel reply

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Feeling Seen and Connected:

An 8-Week Healing Journey for Enneagram 4’s and their Parts

  • Do you often feel misunderstood?
  • Do you envy other’s ease, lightheartedness, and vitality?
  • Do you consider bad artistic taste and lack of originality a capital crime?

If you answered “yes” to a few of these, then there’s a chance you are a “4” in the Enneagram personality system. And that’s a good thing. The Enneagram is a non-hierarchal model that recognizes nine, interconnected types, each with their own unique gifts, vulnerabilities, and paths to self actualization.

Often described as “Artists,” “Romantics” and “Individualists,” Type 4s tend to be creative, self-aware, emotionally honest, empathetic, and highly attuned to meaning and beauty. Yet, type Fours can at times feel like melancholy unicorns, believing that the world doesn’t value what they have to offer, and may therefore question their worth.

That’s why I’m offering an 8-week group for Type 4s that will explore the intersection between the enneagram with Internal Family Systems, a holistic therapeutic model that believes we all possess of core spiritual self and a constellation of parts that help us survive and thrive.

Through psycho-education, interactive sharing, meditations, and writing exercises, you will: deepen your understanding of your parts and how they align with the enneagram regard more entrenched parts of your personality with more compassion and humor feel seen, appreciated, supported, and connected to others recognize your gifts and place in the world; and tap into your innate source of vitality, peace, and inspiration

When: Thursdays, 7 – 9 p.m. EST

Where: Online Dates: 9/29, 10/6, 10/27, 11/3, 11/10, 11/17, 12/1, 12/8

Cost: $399 for 8 weeks

A brief free screening is required for group participation.

For more information, please email me at 914-393-6501.


Reframe Your Narrative About Challenging Relationships

A 10-week Online Course with DailyOM

Tired of people pushing your buttons? For as little as $10 total, you can liberate yourself from self-defeating patterns around people who trigger you. Register here to receive 10 weekly insights, writing exercises, and guided meditations you can access whenever you want.

Lesson 1:  Soul Narrative vs. Self-Defeating Story
Lesson 2:  Exploring the Power of Choice and Voice
Lesson 3:  Your Adversary as Your Personal Trainer
Lesson 4:  Embracing Your Strengths and Superpowers
Lesson 5:  Getting to Know Your Inner Antagonist(s)
Lesson 6:  Dialoguing with the Parts that Get Triggered
Lesson 7:  The Yoga of Character Development
Lesson 8:  Supporting Characters, Tools and Resources
Lesson 9:  Giving Ourselves the Blessing We Seek
Lesson 10: The Golden Happy Ending

A FULL HOUSE AT THE NYC BOOK SIGNING!

11666175_10153509534099665_7556630144058564704_n
IMG_2358
11539252_722074054569793_8893902440045718527_o (1)
IMG_2381
IMG_2357

About The Author: Kim Schneiderman

Psychotherapist and freelance journalist Kim Schneiderman utilizes research-based methods to help people who are stuck – in a dead-end job, relationship, of life stage – imagine themselves as the star of their own stories with the power to reclaim their personal narratives. Drawing on the elements of a story that many of us learned in high school (premise, scene, plot, conflict, climax, resolution), readers will assign titles to different chapters of their lives, observe recurring themes, identify supporting characters, and explore how conflict creates opportunities for personal growth that can lead to a meaningful resolution. They will also be asked to examine how the decisions we make, both big and small, affect our storyline – the relationships we choose, how we spend our day, and how we nourish ourselves, physically, mentally, emotionally, and spiritually.

Unlike most self-help writing workbooks, most of the exercises in Step Out of Your Story are framed in the third-person voice, freeing readers to see beyond their usual point of view. Psychological research suggests that people are more likely to view their lives favorably when they see themselves as characters in a story. In a 2005 Columbia University study reported in the Journal of Psychological Science, test subjects who spoke about difficult chapters in their lives in the third person narrative displayed more confidence and optimism than those who recalled bad memories in the first person. By retracing their steps from the perch of the third-person narrative, people were more likely to regard their problems as something outside themselves – challenges they had conquered or adversaries they had defeated - instead of character flaws. Additionally, the perception that they had overcome obstacles left them feeling more confident to face the future.

Step Out Of Your Story

STEP OUT OF YOUR STORY

Writing Exercises to Reframe and Transform Your Life

Every life is an unfolding story, and how individuals tell their story matters. Recent Stanford and Columbia University studies show that how we view the story of our life shapes the life itself. Who are the heroes and villains? Where does the plot twist? How are conflicts resolved? Learn more...

Order Your Copy Today!

New World Library Amazon Barnes & Noble

 

© 2023 Kim Schneiderman, LCSW, MSW · All Rights Reserved · Website design by SimonAbramson.com