Encontrando tu lugar seguro

Finding your safe place. Reproduction, distribution, public display and any other unauthorized use of this work, in whole or in part without the express written permission of the copyright holder, shall be prohibited. This work is protected by U S copyright laws and international treaties. All trademarks and trade names mentioned in this work are the property of their respective owners and are used here only for descriptive

purposes. Any unauthorized use of this audio book will violate copyright and may be subject to legal sanctions. Copy RIH two thousand twenty- four stream Lili' s Secrets Law. All rights reserved. I' ll be straight and clear. You have an emotional wound if you meet a single requirement that I present to you next. You have problems maintaining healthy relationships, whether as a couple, as a friend or as a family. You constantly repeat the same type

of partner or pattern of behavior in affective sex relationships. You have a hard time spending time with yourself alone. You' re afraid of engagement and partner intimacy. You feel the need to apologize for everything. You feel bad when things get out of your control, even if you can afford it. You make yourself feel guilty spending money on something that is not tremendously necessary. You ' re so afraid to make mistakes, you focus all your energies on others.

You' re keeping an eye on each other' s emotions all the time. To know, how to act. You think you' re never enough. You stay in a hypervigilance state, feeling stressed out repeatedly. You beat yourself up and you push yourself too hard. You feel upset when you need to talk to someone or ask for favors. You demand too much from others. You focus on meeting the needs of the rest, ignoring yours you

have very few memories of your childhood or adolescence. You feel like you' re wasting your time when you rest, you analyze your behavior over and over after any social interaction. To stay calm, knowing you' ve done well, you need the approval of others to stay calm. You live with a very intense feeling of guilt. No apparent reason. If any of these points have removed you or generated some interest in you. This book is for you

years ago. I understood that I had an emotional wound that I had to heal if I wanted to live in calm, but it wasn' t until a few months ago, when I lived a series of situations and came to terms with reality. And now I want you to open your eyes. So let' s start by evoking your memories, what you remember about your childhood and your adolescence, I bet you' ve ever traveled back in time and, wanting it or not, you' ve ended up mentally immersed in some

part of your past. Sometimes it is smells, flavors or images that trigger memories. Other times it is stories shared out loud with others that evoke past times. The mind treasures in its reveques, those experiences that, in one way or another, have marked us, either for good or for bad. I will confess that, even though the brain has an extraordinary capacity to store negative experiences more than positive ones, the goal it always pursues in the face

of any stimulus has a purpose to survive. From the moment we are born, we interact with the world around us and begin our first interpersonal relationships with those closest to us, from our parents, s s brothers and family in general, to known teacher friends. Everyone in some way is part of that complex network, able to condition how we perceive and process everything, because the way we see things is the one in which the environment educates us from the

moment we are born. We are prepared to begin codifying in our minds who we are, what place we occupy and how we should treat ourselves and others. From the moment we are born, Our brain is putting in place various survival mechanisms that condition the way to perceive problems, to conceive danger, to process possible threats or to respond to fear. You know what I recently remembered

was the first time I had an irrational fear. It was just one day that I acted the same way that when I was about seven years old, I went in the car with my parents. My father was driving me and my mother and I were traveling in the back seat back from spending a summer day in the country with the family. In the evening, my father was looking for parking in the area where we lived. At that time I was looking out the window, the few stars that could be appreciated from the neighborhood.

Suddenly I felt a feeling of anguish that I had never experienced before. I thought about how sad it was to end that day and how unfair it would be for everything, including my life and that of my loved ones, to end in that instant. The restlessness invaded my body and the sadness I felt for the end of the day. As you can suppose, it became even darker by my mind, without coming to account, I walked the possibility of having some terminal illness and dying. What a gloomy thought for a child.

True, I have always been a very intense person and with some speed in the association of ideas and although at that time I was too small to understand what was happening to me with the passing of the years, I remembered fleetingly that moment and I could give you an explanation later, already thirty- one years old, I would return home by train. A few days ago. He had left town to take care of some work business. It was night and I was very tired. I leaned my head on the window glass

so I could sleep a little before reaching destination. I was struck by the dark eye of the night, and I looked at whether from there I could see the stars. Immediately, my head decided it was time to recover that childhood memory and bring it to light. Why I looked around now. Although I had the feeling of having moved to a strange and unknown world, the

reality is that nothing had changed in the car. I put on some headphones with music and dived deep into what had until then been a vague memory. Most likely, my mind had related my conduct of that moment to that of almost twenty- five years ago with the newly recovered memory. I went over everything and found a logical explanation. A few days before living that scene, in my parents' car, I had been present in an adult conversation about

illness and death. We had visited a shrine where people used to bring offerings to a religious image so that their health, family, and love- related requests could be fulfilled. These offerings were wax figures of various forms, a heart, a kidney, a leg, human hair. According to the type of offering and the believer' s request, the figure varied. That image was engraved on me. I' ve never seen anything like it before, even though it was so small, I firmly believe that I had enough empathy

to feel the affliction of all those people begging. I am sure that this experience triggered the feeling of anguish and consequent psychosomatic symptoms such as dizziness without nausea. I related at the end of a day to the end of life. From that moment on, that situation was repeated every time the night arrived. I didn' t want to feel that, I didn' t want to think about it, but it was almost automatic. I never told my parents.

I was ashamed to explain to them what was going on in my mind it seemed too grown up even to me and I did not want to be asked questions that I did not know how to answer. One day, that feeling just disappeared. I found a thought to fight me properly. The good thing that one day was over was that in a few hours the next one started. The funny thing is that, sitting on that train and totally unintentionally, my head kept reminiscing. It' s what happens every time we open

a door to the past. The memories that have been waiting for years to come out do it all to one like when you uncork a bottle of cava and the bubbles shoot out of the inside. I managed to recover another episode of irrational fear from my life. When I was ten, we moved into a slightly larger house, there were four of us in the family, and the last one was small. Our new home was so big compared to the previous one that you gave me for thinking that in some room you might have

hidden someone to attack us or steal us. My father worked many hours away from home and my mother spent a lot of time alone with me and my sister. I' m the oldest of the two, so I developed a tremendous responsibility towards her, which sometimes also freaked out my mother. That' s why every day. For several weeks, I searched every room and closet in the new house in case there was anyone hiding who could hurt us.

I remember that, in order not to raise suspicions, I did it singing and pretending to play stopped because I noticed that my mother started with a certain distrust of my behavior. No one' s home You can be quiet. He told me one day I was terribly embarrassed to get caught because somehow I

wanted to keep pretending I was a normal, carefree girl. I think my mother told my father because a few days later, we both took a tour of the whole house, while he explained to me and showed how difficult it was for someone to come into the house without breaking the door or to fit in a closet or drawer. Of course my fear was completely irrational. In

part it could be explained by my young age, but believe me. Age has nothing to do with you when such a powerful emotion takes hold of you and there are times when it triggers such three that it ends up dragging you with it to the absolute confusion and disconnection of reality from where that fear came

from, how it was born. I' m clear today. At my young age I already needed to have everything under control and the fact that there were things like illness, death or some external danger that escaped me, made me feel vulnerable and fearful, which triggered my levels of rumination and anxiety. But there is even more, when I was eighteen years old I met the one who was my first partner and with her the irrational fear of abandonment.

This relationship marked a before and after in my life. I' ve never had a boyfriend before and to me everything was a new and terrifying world. Until then, I believed myself to be a strong, independent woman with good self- esteem. In fact, by taking away some that another slipped into

adolescence, he had managed to build me a strong personality. However, in that first relationship things didn' t go well and I could live in my own flesh, which was emotional dependence, not just with that couple, but with all those who came after. That bond was a great stimulus for fear of abandonment, fear of not being enough and not being loved or accepted by others. As I told you already in love, I love you since that

time of my life I live with anxiety. Probably until that moment he had remained dormant somewhere in me, letting himself be seen timidly at some time, but that was the drop that filled the glass and triggered a problem with which I would live my whole life together. I' ve had some times of peace of mind less badly, but when anxiety strikes at the worst of its forms, I need to remember the work done so far and that' s

just what happened. A few months ago. I just published I love you, I love you and I was euphoric with the tremendous reception from the readers. Thanks again, for everything, sales skyrocketed the printing presses, did not supply the media. They kept asking me for interviews. Travels to different cities to meet my readers were weekly. Beautiful words came to me unceasingly. Requests for collaborations with different entities were accumulated in my inbox. My patients and followers

were getting extra help with my written words. My social networks had an incredible engagement. Everything was wonderful, everything I had dreamed of for years. I was making it happen and I, however, wasn' t happy. I felt that I had to take the size at all times to prove that I really am worth this profession, that I could not disappoint anyone, but no one forced me to anything. In fact, no one was pushing me, at least no one but me during my early years at work had a hard

time. I didn' t make it to the end of the month and desperately looked for a hole in the world of psychology. And now that I had finally achieved it, I was afraid of losing that which had cost me so much effort and tears. That is why he demanded more and more for fear of returning to that hell new and greater self- imposed demands preceded the previous ones. Ever since I realized that I had always been very strict with myself, I knew myself that I deserved to be treated with more affection and

I took it to the letter. But those months I was again my worst enemy and as if I had learned nothing during my years of personal work, I again mistreated what was happening to me. Although it took me a long time to make the move. Finally, I went to see my psychiatrist, Alejandro Belmar. He deserves to be named because he' s helped me a

lot. It took me a bit, partly because I didn' t want to assume I was worse than ever, but I knew I had to, because I had a long feeling that something in me wasn' t right. I told him what was happening to me and he asked me some technical questions similar to those I ask my patients. My surprise came when he asked me what I liked to do in my spare time and I didn' t know what to answer. I was paralyzed looking to infinity as I tried to think

of something coherent from my trembling mouth. A somewhat shy walk went out and I started to cry suddenly I realized that I barely had time off and that, when I had it, I didn' t feel like doing anything. I was so tired that all I wanted was to sleep or disappear. There I understood how bad I was and how little I had heard years ago, since the 19- year- old pandemic began. In two thousand and twenty

he had not stopped working. I felt the responsibility to be strong before everything that was happening so I could help others and I sat so much in others that once again I ended up forgetting about myself. The goat always throws on the mountain and in case you haven' t noticed yet, I am the goat and my self- exigency and desire to have everything dor under control are the mountain. As a result, anxiety broke into my life again this time

with more force than usual. It was something I had been carrying since my first toxic couple relationship. In case you don' t remember, the pressure on my chest drowned me a little more every day. Nausea, abdominal pain, insomnia, tachycardia, and ringing in the ear became constant. I got dizzy in the middle of the mall, or I did think I would die of shame. Irrational fears appeared and were associated with even more incoherent ones.

Just in case this wasn' t enough, the damn ruminations gave me a terrible headache. Day if I' d go too. A few hours after visiting the psychiatrist, I observed the two boxes of medication that I had prescribed later. It would be added to even three tablets. Every day I' ve never been afraid to take pills and I guarantee you this wasn' t the first time I took them. They are useful and exes exist for a

reason our well- being. If one thing I' m clear about is that I, to this world, have not come to suffer, but to see myself Mary is a referent clapés psychologist in full success and with an incredible projection taking pills to be able to cope with everything cool that was happening to me. It made me feel even smaller. It seemed to me that the better I went in my professional life, the deeper I sank. The people around me didn' t understand anything, but yes, you have everything,

nothing happens to you. You have to be happy and I thought I already know, I know I have to be happy. The problem is I want to be, but I can' t fuck around. It' s true. I' d been through a thousand shit years ago. Why I couldn ' t enjoy those moments that life and work well done, were giving me away. I just wanted to be happy. I could not settle in resignation a why to me eternal would not help me in anything. The answer to

all this was as I already feared in my history in my past. There were the keys I needed to answer all the reasons why the little duck was sticking out under the door of my consciousness. Day after day. That archaeology I had done years ago with myself and I did it every day with my patients. However, there were again the same questions. The situation was new but my mind' s reaction was very similar to that of many other times,

so I knew it was time to get back to personal work. I was determined to find answers and face my past medication again, as if I had broken a foot and this was a cane that would help me walk or watch the molecules that physiologically had become unbalanced. But still, I had to do something else. I knew I couldn' t go with a cane all my life. I had to relearn to walk, so I built up courage and decided to continue against wind and tide. No. Psychologists are not exempt

from mental health problems. Any person with a brain is susceptible to them, just as any person with a body can have physical health problems. Don' t doctors get sick The four situations in my life that I' ve just witnessed represent some of the many most revealing moments I' ve experienced. For me there are more things I want to tell you on these pages, but for me the most important goal is to provide you with those tools that I didn' t have in your day. I want this book to help you

heal those wounds. I want these pages to help you remember and understand your story, to know the functioning of the brain in every situation, to understand the reality that the mind builds on what you have already experienced, to know

what aspects of life have marked you and how they have conditioned you. I want this book to accompany you so I can answer questions like why I do what I do, why I feel what I feel, why I think what I think, where my discomfort comes from, how I have learned to perceive the world, how I have learned to relate to others and to myself, what is the origin of everything and the most important, what strategies I can put in place to heal my emotional wounds of the past and to live in

peace my present Throughout these pages, I intend to guide you on a journey within you. We will delve into the depths of the brain, your memories and the scientific theories that support all my professional knowledge. I will accompany you from science, as well as from the empathy that arises from my own personal experience, because our lives may have been very different, but I also know what it is like to feel lost in the dark. Let' s open

the pandora box of your life. Understanding your own story can help you heal today, but I will be honest, though it is very worthwhile. The road is hard. After reading this book, you will never see your life again In the same way you are prepared important notes. It is possible that reading what you have written on these pages removes you so take a break when you need it. Take a deep breath and follow when you' re ready. During reading, it may happen that you realize that you need to answer

more questions than you propose, as well as to work on yourself. If so, do not hesitate and resort to a professional. This book contains a very novel knowledge of attachment and very valuable techniques for working with each other and with oneself. But remember that it is not therapy and does not replace medical or psychological service. Look at your pace, but read calmly and don' t be in a hurry. You will need to internalize all the information you

will find in the following pages. The order of the chapters is designed to be read one after another, so I recommend that you not skip any of the events described in this book. In these pages you will find described strictly real personal experiences of the author herself. On the other hand, you can also read testimonies based on actual facts of these patients. The latter are slightly and moderately modified with the intention of safeguarding and respecting the identity and privacy of

the persons involved. All the names used in the narrative are fictitious, so any resemblance to reality that the reader can find is the fruit of chance about grammar. The book uses the generic male, except in the last chapter, which is written in feminine. You will understand why to facilitate the reading of it, but it is dedicated to anyone who wants and needs to read it, regardless of their gender identity and expression. In childhood, the mental health

of the adult is defined. We have to start at the beginning and the beginning is always childhood. At this stage of life is where the most interesting things happen. Not only do we have to go back to childhood when we sense that we may have experienced some painful episode in our brain. It'

s encoded all the information we' ve been acquiring about absolutely everything. Therefore, whenever we need answers, we must make a journey into the past with the intention of relating it to our present and thus be able to explain all the events that are taking place today. Emotional guides. You probably don' t remember the stage when you were a baby is normal according to the latest

studies on it. This is because in this period the brain is using a lot of energy, generating new neurons to learn and it is very difficult to store memories. At the same time, babies and children are sponges that absorb all the information around them, perceive moods and learn everything They learn by watching, touching, smelling, savoring, and listening. And this means that, according to those who are surrounded in childhood, the perspective we have of ourselves,

of others and of the world will be different. Adults are emotional guides for the little ones. In most normal situations, these guides will be our parents, but our closest figures and primary caregivers may also be grandparents, uncles, a teacher, or a tutor. This learning can be explained through the theory of mirror neurons? Mirror neurons? Mirror neurons are a type of nerve

cells responsible for unconsciously imitating other people' s behaviors. Young children are responsible for neuronal development, which is to generate new synapses of neural connections in order to learn about the world around them. We can visualize these cells in motion when, for example, we yawn because we see another person yawning, when we see a YouTube tutorial and imitate what we see, when someone we are talking to crosses our arms and retreat back in tune with their uncomfortable posture,

or when we feel empathy for other people. Well, it turns out these neurons are working just as soon as they come into the world. That' s why some babies smile when they' re smiling or usually mimic the facial expressions of their caregivers. This characteristic of our brain explains one of the forms of learning that observation has the smallest. The other would be by trial and

error. A couple of days ago I spent the afternoon with Julia, my three- year- old cousin, and I witnessed an instant when she learned by observation. When I' m with young children, I like to analyze the things they do and how they react to certain situations of the trade, I guess, but it' s not until they happen that I pay attention

to them, and the truth is that they never stop surprising me. Julia came to my office while her mom was having coffee with my mom in the living room of my house and told me what you' re doing cousin and I was just writing this book. I answered him. I' m working, but I think I' m gonna play music to dance to her.

She got excited and told me to put on the arek of the deniey frosen movie I put it but I also plugged in some colored lights that I have on the ceiling and told her that we were going to turn the room into a discotheque. The little girl was hallucinating and dancing very happy. When the song was over, we went down to the pool, spent the afternoon in the water and as we got back home, Julia remembered perfectly how she had turned on the lights and went to do it on her own. I hadn

' t explained to her before how she was doing. He just saw me do it and after a few hours he was able to imitate me. Before I took the plug, I explained what was best for the elders to do. So as I turned the lights back on, she screamed happy disco. Right now I witnessed my cousin' s mirror neurons doing theirs. These cells are intimately related to the right hemisphere of the brain, which is dominant during

the first two years of life. This time is enough to establish the type of attachment that will define us which means that mirror neurons have a lot to do with our future development. Mirror neurons are there doing their homework and are the absolute protagonists of the childhood stage. During this time they have an intensive working day, they spend hours and hours full and are, as Jayo Gome said, in a kind of neuronal Wi FI network that communicates them directly with

their parents' WIFY network. That is why we say that when an adult deals with a child, he throws through these mechanisms three types of message unconsciously. One how am I perceiving you for how I treat you ergo, in what way should you perceive yourself? Two, in what way do I perceive the world, how do I teach you to explore it or to face the eergo? How should you perceive the world? Three, how should you perceive others, how do you bond with me? How are you going to bond

with the others? Imagine you could silence the story of your life. The idea is to eliminate the sound of your childhood and adolescence and leave only the images and sensations. Once this is done, what you have left is the nonverbal message that your parents or caregivers gave you about the world. That' s interesting. True, if you could do this, what would remain of you. You' ve thought about it once we organize memories for sensations when

we teleport with our minds to the past. Rarely do we usually remember sounds unless they are directly related to something very shocking. Most of the time they are emotional images, although we do not usually remember the exact forms of the message. If we remember the contents and how they influenced us, for better or for worse I will tell you a short story with a great moral.

I once went to the grocery store and while reasoning with myself because it was better to buy the pea breast than the cooked ham the little voice of a child interrupted my mental movement. Dad Today at school we painted with our hands and David stained my shirt. I told her I was going to tell the teacher and she didn' t care. The father went to his things without even looking at his son, the child. Meanwhile he repeated the story over and over again behind the back of his caretaker. Dad, you' re

listening to me. It gave me the feeling that the boy was starting to get angry and he was right, because his father was passing Olympic on to him. Dad screamed. In the end, the father suddenly turned around and told him not to shout loudly. What do you think the child will remember about that situation? You think he learned not to scream, because he did not learn two very important things and I assure you that none had to do

with the direct intention of the father. What you really processed with your mirror neurons through your neural Wi FI network and what you will therefore remember is if I scream they take me into consideration and I can feel that I have a

value as a person. My father doesn' t care if I tell him my problems, which means it' s better that I don' t tell them anymore because totally so that if he won' t listen to me And since this doesn' t just remain in something anecdotal of childhood, we' re going to dive into the theory of attachment to understand the extent to which

this kind of situation influences us the theory of attachment. Biyon boy Vi was a psychoanalyst who devoted much of his life to studying development in childhood and its impact on adulthood. His contribution to the most important and known psychology was the theory of attachment, which defends the need to build secure links and the importance of having a primary bond with a reference adult during childhood for good psychoaffective development.

He stated that the kind of emotional bond we had in childhood with our parents or guardians has a great influence on our relationships as adults, whether with others or with ourselves. Attachment is therefore also the way in which people perceive and respond to intimacy. Safety, care and protection are the words that define a secure attachment, the kind of bond that determines that a child feels protected and safe in the environment so that he or she can explore the world around

him or her how attachment is built. As I explained to you in I love you, the attachment system is activated in situations of threat to those that the child does not know and is responsible for providing security. When activated, the child searches for the adult through protest behaviors and, depending on the response, the child will develop a secure attachment or end up developing another kind of anxious, evasive or avoidative or disorganized attachment. The experiment on the strange situation

of Mary Answorth. This is one of my favorite psychological experiments to explain how each of the types of attachment in babies looks, characteristics that will continue to drag into adulthood. It was designed by psychologist Mary Answorth, a student of John Bobby, with the aim of continuing to research his teacher' s theory and classifying the type of attachment of children. It was made in the year nineteen hundred and sixty- nine with 18- month- old babies and their

corresponding mothers. The idea was to observe how the little ones reacted to a brief separation from their mothers attachment figures. The order of the situations was this one. The baby and mother enter a room full of toys and a couple of chairs. Mom starts playing with baby three. The mother sits in one of the four chairs, the baby plays alone, five enters someone unknown and sits in the other chair. Six, the mom leaves the room and leaves

the babies alone with the unknown person. Seven reaction of the baby to separation and stranger. Eight the mother enters again and calms the baby nine reaction of the baby to the king. I find ten, the strange person leaves the room and leaves the mother alone with the baby. Eleven mom leaves the room and leaves the baby alone. Twelve of the baby' s reaction to separation.

The most interesting thing about the study was to observe and note what the baby' s reactions to separation were like and to meet with his attachment figure From these einport observations I drew the following conclusions. With this data one of the most important theories of psychology was developed in relation to established links. Later, the fourth type of attachment that he mentioned earlier, the disorganized attachment,

was discovered. Consider the characteristics attributed to each type of attachment according to the relationship with parents in childhood. For this I will recover the definitions that you could already read in I love you because they seem quite complete and a good starting point to continue deepening. In secure attachment theory it is associated with the

feeling that parents are a stable basis on which to trust. Parents of children who grow up with secure attachment respond to the emotional needs of their children and are perceived by them. Like shelter people. No child with secure attachment is afraid of being abandoned by his or her parents because somehow he or she knows

that cannot happen. Safe attachment allows the child to explore, know the world and relate to others under the tranquility of feeling that the person with whom he or she has that bond of attachment and who he or she considers to be a shelter person or reference to an adult will be there to protect him or her. Safe children are children who suffer when separated from their parents, but

who calm down when they meet with them again. When this does not happen, fears and insecurities influence how they interpret the world around them and relationships with others and with themselves. As you will see, then or avoidive, he associates with distant parents and emotionally unaffordable in his relationship with himself, the child

growing up feeling rejected, unloved and undervalued. It is important to note that, even if the child feels unloved or valued, it does not mean that his parents did not want it, but probably did not know how to convey that affection or they took it for granted and did not believe that it was necessary to say it explicitly. That' s why we' re talking about the child' s feelings. As a result, he had no choice but

to learn to be self- sufficient. This, paradoxically, causes him to show himself before others as a child safe from himself and from the environment around him. But this behavior is nothing more than a barrier that has had to learn to build for its own emotional survival. Apparently, children with evasive attachment do not suffer or suffer when the environment changes or separates from parents, although

it has been shown that they do generate stress. This quality is reflected in the emotional distance they often have towards other anxious attachments is associated with parents who are sometimes available to their children, but it is not always related to inconsistency in care and safety behaviors. Faced with this inconsistency, the child understands that

the environment is not stable. This makes it grow with the feeling that the world is a dangerous place, even though nothing really has ever happened to it and that anything can happen at any time, for example, to be abandoned by what ultimately creates fear. And anxiety about the environment and insecurity in himself, as the terror he develops by believing that the world is too changing can

make him unable to cope with it. Children with anxious attachment suffer a great deal when they separate from parents and take a long time to calm down when separation ends disorganized attachment. This attachment is a mixture between anxious attachment and avoidive attachment, in which the child experiences contradictory and inappropriate parenting behaviors. Caregivers of these children can sometimes express proximity and other times randomly and intermittently avoid. They

react disproportionately to the same situation. They can act aggressively or in a charming and manipulative way. Neglect and insecurity in the care and affection received are also associated with children who did not know how to respect the limits and intimacy victims

in childhood of painful and highly stressful episodes that are chronicled. Children with disorganized attachment, when reunited with their primary human caregiver, as we will see below, can react with contrary behaviors, such as looking away when they are embraced or approaching the attachment figure in a sad or fearful way. When we are born we are dependent beings. We need others to feed, sleep, be clean, feel comfortable and calm our emotional needs. This dependence is necessary and

essential to become autonomous and functional adults over time. If our primary caregivers will focus only on providing basic care, leaving aside emotional care, healthy psycho- affective development would be interrupted, which would be tantamount to problems in the future. Babies cannot self- regulate their emotions alone. They cannot, for example, feel fear and calm themselves. You imagine a baby talking to himself to

calm down. Well, I know you' re scared and lonely right now, but look, you got nothing to be afraid of, come calm down, it' s gonna be okay. I' m afraid this is unworkable. They need a sensitive adult who is available to meet their needs and to co- regulate babies and children are, let' s say, designed to broadcast protest behaviors to primary caregivers in order to get their attention and that they

meet their needs. Be these the kind of protest behavior, you' ll be wondering what a protest behavior in I love you I wanted to explain how this phenomenon appeared dysfunctional in adults in the absence of skills to establish effective communication with other people. However, in babies and children, or existence is perfectly

explained in evolutionary terms. It is very common for you to give yourself every time your reference attachment figures or caregivers separate themselves from them until contact is restored. This behavior usually appears mainly in the form of crying and is born from the need for proximity, safety and protection, or from the pain generated by the separation of the figure of a loved one and the feeling of abandonment it

produces. I get bored, I cry, I feel lonely, I complain, I don' t fly, I don' t see my primary caregiver. I pout, I' m hungry, I scream, I' m sleepy, I pull my hair and I cry. My belly hurts. I cry even louder. I' m scared. I cry, I pooped and upset my diaper. I complain again. Embedded protest behavior and children is a normal and functional attachment behavior that is used primarily to attract adult attention and thus

meet physiological and emotional needs. The goal of this behavior is to transfer the adult also as children can and know they need to regulate themselves. A young man may speak and a child may not know how to express exactly what happens to him, but both will look for ways to convey their protests and thereby communicate their need to the adult. Crying, bad behavior, suspense, lack

of concentration, or any unusual behavior. It can also be a form of language, as you can imagine, the goal of protest behavior is to survive. Sn theory you' ve ever played SIMS in case you don' t

know them. This is a series of social simulation video games. The game allows you to handle virtually anything and you can create characters in lathes and stories and simulate an entire life at the bottom right of the screen usually appears the character and a series of green bars that will turn red as the vital needs

of the character increase, such as hunger or sleep. The player is, in this case, in charge of meeting the needs of the sn If he is hungry, the player must order his character to do the eating action to prevent him from dying if you are sleepy the same and so on, the sim will only enjoy general good health if all the bars are green and if he is abandoned and his basic needs are not met. He ends up dying, because with babies and children it happens the same way. I' ll

explain if we' re strappling this metaphor to real life. Players are adults and sims, babies and children, emotional invalidation in childhood. Some authors mention that it is right to let a baby sleep alone and in a separate room from six months old. They defend that, no matter how much you cry, the baby has to learn to sleep alone and in the dark. But you want me to tell you I don' t agree with this. You

imagine such a small thing facing alone in the darkness of the night. Of course not, José Manuel, but if I am thirty- two years old, if I panic when I go to the country and in the middle of the night I have to go to the bathroom alone with the flashlight, I always ask someone to accompany me rationally. I know very well that I don

' t have to be afraid of anything. At best I can find myself along the way some tiny spider or a couple of ants, but the lack of light prevents me from controlling the environment and that makes me feel vulnerable. I know perfectly well that being accompanied is not going to get rid of the bite of some mosquito and, in the worst case scenario, I would not

get rid of the attack of some serial killer at maccole miers. But being accompanied gives me security, just like when we are children, and accompanying and emotional regulation by an adult makes us feel that we can explore the environment without fear. Why, then, a six- month- old baby should feel

brave without that attachment figure, moving him safely with his single presence. You would like to feel afraid to ask for help and see that even being surrounded by people you love close the door and let you cry in the dark until

you reach exhaustion. This practice doesn' t make much sense. However, there have always been many myths about childhood that have conditioned the way children are raised and unfortunately, although I hope not, they are still very much present in the 21st century and this, unfortunately, continues to lead us to experience

situations of emotional invalidity in childhood and adolescence. Here are some examples of emotional override in childhood that I' m sure sounds good to you because you' ve heard them or because you' ve lived them and their most common consequences are children. They don' t know about any consequences. You end up witnessing situations and conversations that don' t match your age. This is because I say so. Consequences you learn to meet standards without understanding them and without

developing critical thinking. Don' t complain that in my day everything will be worse. Consequences you understand that there will always be someone with a much worse discomfort than yours and that you do not deserve understanding or compassion for what happens to you. Your emotions aren' t as important as those of other people as if they' re having a hard time. Really. This is curious, because it determines that something will generate more or less discomfort. After all,

the emotional discomfort a person may feel is objective. In the following chapters we will talk about this leave what weeps that if you do not manipulate to get caught and then want to always be in arms or leave what we cry. It' s good to cry in sáncha the lungs consequences you understand that no one attends to your crying, according to psychologist Manuel Hernández Pacheco, one

of my current top references in the theory of attachment. If we left a baby in the middle of a forest without the accompaniment of an adult, he would start crying immediately after the separation of protest behavior, before the feeling of abandonment. He would cry minutes and even time without stopping waiting and wishing that the adult would listen to him and come to his rescue so that he could

regulate his needs. It would pass the time without the baby being able to calm down on its own, while its needs would continue to increase eventually. The babies would finally stop crying. Why should we imagine that neither the cold nor the heat nor the animals could have harmed him? Why, then the baby would stop crying. He' s managed to calm himself down. No.

The correct answer is somewhat darker. The baby has proven that crying, the only tool he knows to broadcast his protests and thus calm his needs, does not work. He' s exhausted and decided to stop using it. Your need for regulation is still there. It has many bars in red, as in sims, without the assistance of an adult who perceives them, the baby is likely to end up dying physiologically. Speaking. Yes, it has

resulted in an exhaustion of his adrenal system. Psychiatrist Marian Rojas calls it cortisol exhaustion, which prevents her from continuing to seek help in some way. In the physiological plane, what happens is that the body itself has tired of keeping alert and can no longer generate more stress. With this. I don' t mean that a baby will die from letting him sleep alone and in the dark, but I do believe that over the years it will have consequences.

We are talking about a person who, at his young age, is beginning to discover that his primary caregivers are not always available. You imagine telling your partner not to ask me for hugs, then I give them to you and you get used to them or a friend who has a problem. She cries like that in the lungs while you ignore her sounds pretty invalid. Not the best thing you can do is dedicate yourself to this profession one that your parents

consider worthy consequences. You learn to pursue a desire of your parents projected on you and not your own. And for more, sinri since they will positively reinforce any conduct related to their desire, you will feel that good things only happen when your behavior is directed towards achieving those goals that have indirectly imposed you.

This will make you feel good and valid when you do what your parents want and guilty when you do something else completely different, even if you like it and fill you more if you obey you are good or if you behave badly. I don' t want any consequences for you You understand that for others to love you, it' s important to behave submissively. That' ll make you have trouble setting limits. You' ll probably end up developing

money. The so- called good girl' s syndrome. You set a limit and they respond with indignation with what I love you and you go and you do this to me consequences these kinds of phrases are used as manipulation. You learn that putting boundaries in a relationship is bad, because that means you don' t want the other person. This will be reflected in your relationship later on and if you don' t want to give the guy a kiss,

come give him that he loves you a lot of consequences. You learn that your limits are worthless and that it is important to do what is expected of you. Whether you like it or not. In fact, one of the keys to preventing sexual abuse in childhood is to respect such limits always. A seven is a very good note, but your little friend, Jaime, got a nine. Next time you have to study more to beat him,

look at your cousin Claudia. She' s been super good because she' s eaten all the food, not like you or my son could already be like yours. When adults say these things, you learn that you are not enough and you must continually compare yourself to feel worth. This conditions the development of your personality, since, instead of discovering who you are, you really

prefer to end up copying personalities that your environment approves. There are people who learn this very early and develop an impressive ability to mine themselves in the social group with which they are at that time. With all we' ve done for you consequences. This phrase is usually used as a manipulation. The intention is to generate pity and guilt. Your parents do for you what they want. No one forces them to give you anything they don' t want.

That' s why it' s unfair that they' ll throw it in your face like this. When they do, you often understand that it is better to set aside your emotions, goals, longings, etc. To be content don' t cry, it' s not for so much or that exaggerated you' re consequences. These expressions determine that you think that your emotions are not important, that it is not right to feel how you feel In the long run it will seem to you that it is foolish that you cry

that you disturb and that you are very sensitive and exaggerated. For a child, maintaining a link with his or her reference adults is much more important than his or her own well- being. Therefore, in the face of all these invalidating situations, they tend to give in and develop submissive behaviors. There are people who stay in them all their lives and continue with that premise, even when they are adults, so they often become victims of emotional dependence.

Good girl' s syndrome was mentioned in the previous section as a consequence of situations of emotional impairment in childhood. Now is the time to deepen the concept. Good girl' s syndrome occurs in those people who give more importance to the desires and needs of others than to their own. The majority of people who suffer from it are women, although it can also occur in men. People who suffer from it turn to please others before they do. The same

are very helpful. They are so prudent that they prefer not to speak in such a way as not to offend them it is hard to set limits. They' re afraid to disappoint others. They go over the same mistakes over and over again, especially if they think they may have failed someone. Their personal worth depends on what they think of them. Other people leave for the ultimate their own well- being. They often feel a lot of guilt,

avoid conflicts with others. They take what the others say very seriously. They are often obedient and submissive. They live intensely the rejection. They sacrifice their own happiness to build it from other people. Couples, friends and family tend to idealize others. They consider that all people have good intentions. If they don' t have them, you have to help them get them. They take responsibility for this process. They think something like if I' m good,

they' ll all be good to me. When someone cheats on them, they think they are responsible for the deception. This was my fault. There are aspects of childhood that influence the development of this syndrome, such as, for example, environments of great demand in which to make a mistake is not contemplated and if it occurs, a great deal of emphasis is placed on it from a very negative perspective, receiving phrases as with that character you will

not be loved by anyone. Those things aren' t said by a lady. If you don' t behave yourself, you' re not a good girl. If you' ve felt identified with this description, I want to tell you something. You' re not a good or bad child, because you' re not born to please anyone. You' re a person who

wants to love and respect each other and respect each other. That is why you will set your limits when necessary, because your responsibility is not to content others you will not carry anything or anyone that does not belong to you. And if someone gets angry with this, then get angry, because, yes, other people have the right to be angry, but you also have the right to say what you think. By communicating something, your only responsibility is

to do it assertively. And yes, yet the other person gets angry, gets angry. You can' t give in to things you don' t want or swallow with situations that hurt you out of fear of others' reaction. That' s why he remembers two things. People who get angry when you set limits are those who take advantage of you when you don' t put them that someone feels bad that you put limits says more about that person

than about you, which makes our relationships not a safe place. The first thing we do when we process a danger is to look for contact with others, for example, through the look and you will see that I am right if you are with your friends drinking coffee and suddenly you hear a very loud noise. The first thing you do is look at each other. In animals and children it also happens, although in a more dependent way There is a

very funny online video of an elephant falling while playing bird chase. In it it looks like the animal gets up quickly and scared, running to take refuge next to his mom. Such conduct is also shared by humans in the face of any danger or situation whose threat they do not determine accurately. They look at Mom and Dad or they run next to him and hug them. This means whatever happens. We' re always looking for a connection with others.

We know that there are many things that can make our relationship not a safe place as we saw in I love you. There are many toxic behaviors and attitudes that can wilt our relationship as a couple and condition our perception of the emotional bond, the law of ice, manipulation, intermittent reinforcement, gosting, etc. However, when we look at relationships more broadly, we see that the foundation that feeds a sense of security or insecurity in a relationship is the

trust we have in it. And I' m not referring to the unique and exclusive confidence that our partner does not commit infidelity. I mean the confidence that we have a solid relationship and that the other person is our refuge. Whatever happens, we can find a connection with her at any time and we ' ll find her. I' m going to tell you about a fascinating

concept, the circle of parental security. The safety circle is an intervention program developed by Port Howl line uper and ken Hoffman to support parents who want to establish a secure attachment bond with their children. But watch out because I' m going one step further. Since my work in consultation I have found that the safety circle is also applicable to relations between adults of any kind. The circle is divided into three parts, hands exploration and return. Let' s

look at each of these parts in detail hands. The word hands is in the circle synonymous with security. The hands of the adult responsible for the child are there for what the child needs and accompany the exploration of the world surrounding the small exploration. The child feels safe exploring the environment because he knows that he, the adult, is in the shade available to cover any need. In this phase, the adult should watch the child, help him, rejoice

and enjoy with him return. The child returns to the adult' s hands to meet his needs, which can be protection, comfort, joy for some achievement and management of emotions. The creators of this circle maintain that these three parts are the keys to the child' s caring relationship being considered a safe place for the little one. But I am going to ask two questions about this. What happens in adulthood if there has been no child safety circle.

To answer, I want you to accompany me to see a couple of examples. Arancha was a patient who came to see me at the office because she wanted to improve her self- esteem before getting into it. I suggested to him that it was important to know his story and understand that it had happened years ago so that we could find out where that negative image he had of

himself came from, and so we did. We gave a review of their experiences and stopped at a small detail that served to explain what I am telling you today. He explained to you that he remembered quite clearly a scene in which he showed his mother a drawing when he was barely nine years old. He recalled the disinterest that this showed and related it to so many other times

that he had had the same reaction. That ranch. Like any child of his age, he had come out of the circle to explore his artistic capacity. Before the result she was proud and wanted to share it with her mother. I' ll be back. The answer that would have strengthened the sure attachment of the bond would have been to rejoice with the girl of triumph. It was clear to me that one of the factors that made Arancha have a

very negative image of herself had been this. Your primary caregiver. He had repeatedly conveyed to him the feeling that his achievements were not worth it and ended up developing the imposter' s drome cinema. We' ll see what it is later. Of course, Arancha' s mother had not been negligent. I had been there most of the time in every possible situation. However, she had never given importance to such details and that had somehow conditioned Arancha in

her perception of herself. This means that sometimes, even having good parents, we may have experienced situations that have marked us negatively. We do not necessarily have to have negligent parents to develop emotional wounds. Another case is that of Rodrigo, who was also coming to therapy for a while. He had anxiety and self- exigency through the clouds. For a long time. Analyzing his personal history, he realized the pattern his father repeated when reacting to stressful situations.

Rodrigo told me that one day he broke his arm falling off a slide in a playground. His father ran to his aid, though without first regulating his own emotions, which caused my patient to return to too anxious hands. The poor man screamed and cried probably from the scare and, although I understand perfectly, the fear of the father might not have had the best reaction at

that time. Little Rodrigo depended on his father, an adult to co- regulate, but he ended up infecting his emotional state and perceived the situation in a much more insecure and scandalous way than it could have been. If the primary caregiver had followed the parental safety circle methodology. This wouldn' t have happened. Rodrigo' s father let my patient explore and, for things of fate, the little one suffered an unexpected accident. That first part is phenomenal.

Yes, contrary, the father would have touched him in his exploration, showing anxiety and fear in order to prevent something bad from happening to him. Nor would it have been good for Rodrigo, since he would not have felt the security and tranquility that a child needs from his reference figure to explore without fear. Sometimes unexpected things happen, but that can happen doesn' t mean they' re going to happen. What this example shows is that adults have

to self- regulate to be able to co- regulate children. For that we must learn first to manage our emotions. It is understood that parents do not always do things perfectly. There' s no perfect parenting to be good enough. That' s good enough. It is likely that all the adults we grew up with went through times when they were not available to see what we needed or to provide for it when we were younger, and this is applicable to the present. Even if today we are the adult referents of some

child. Accepting that this is so will prevent us from generating an irrational demand for ourselves if others. The important thing is to be there most of the time, even if we want to be perfect and not cause emotional injuries to the little ones, that is frankly impossible. In the example of my patient, Rodrigo, there was no type of self- regulation in the primary caregiver attended to the child, letting himself be carried away by his own emotions which

made him feel insecure. Rodrigo ended up taking fear of the slide for a while he did not feel safe to explore in the same place, although he later missed it, but judging by the way his father had to react to the danger, the way my patient had to perceive the world his catastrophic vision of things could come from having understood the environment through his father' s eyes.

How could he have done well, if the primary caregiver had set the parental safety circle in motion, he would have approached it in a quiet way. The child would have been asked what had happened to him that he did, how he did not and whether any part of the body hurt him. The little one in the face of the adult' s calm, despite the physical pain, would have perceived the situation in a more secure way, emotionally

without giving it greater significance. The child would have understood that unexpected things could happen, but that the world is not a dangerous place because its reference adult did not see it, so they could therefore continue to explore with total tranquility. Emotional regulation or management. It' s the way we have psychologists calling a series of learned skills that help us in times of distress. Since they are learned, they need to be trained. We' re all born with

a nervous system. Yeah, but we don' t come into the world with the innate ability to handle it. We need to meet him and train him. So I' d like you not to feel guilty and not to blame anyone if you' ve ever had the feeling that you haven' t been understood or cared for properly. Remember to do things as you know, if you can, that' s a lot. There is always room for

improvement and this is fine because it allows us to grow and evolve. This theory is interesting because it seems to me that, in addition to providing a balance in upbringing, it is also applicable to relations with oneself and with the environment, as we have already seen in the cases of Arancha and Rodrigo, as well as between adults. As I said before and here goes the second question, the circle of security in adult relations is also important. The answer

is yes. We must have the feeling that our partner will always be there waiting for us with open arms. Whatever happens be careful. I' m not saying he' s by our side in person 24 hours a day. I mean, we have to feel that it is, that it is very different and not just that. We must feel that in the face of any problems that may arise, the climate will not be one of punishment or travail,

but of interest and understanding. Imagine that a child does something wrong and the parents approach him with screams and a certain aggressive attitude to explain how much punished he is there, how bad he has done it. This whole thing will process what happened from fear. I' ve done something horrible. Next time I' d better not do anything. My parents love me, but I do something they don' t like. Maybe they' ll stop. However, yes, on the contrary and in the same situation, parents approach

and explain calmly what has happened? Why is it wrong what you' ve done? And they also try to get the child to reflect with them and assimilate the message they want to convey to him. Your reaction will be very different. You will understand that you have done wrong, but you will not prosecute the situation from fear. Well, with adult relationships it happens exactly the

same. For example, if I have a problem with my partner, the way I communicate it will determine how she perceives the problem, as well as look at the relationship in I want to talk to you about the importance of safe attachment in adults when establishing relationships of healthy couples. If, instead of talking about a reference figure and a child, we were talking about John and Joan, everything would happen as follows. Juana has a problem with Juan.

Turns out he forgot to put in a washing machine and she doesn' t have a shirt available that she needed just for that day. We could have up to three options to respond to this situation by Juana. Answer one gets angry with John screaming to tell him how irritated, what he is, who always does the same thing and who is tired of his disappointments. As a result, one, in the face of Juana' s attitude, John will become defensive and confront her, so that he will have the feeling that the

problem is much greater than it seems in the long run. If this is repeated, John will get tired of Juana' s outbursts of anger and will understand that it is better not to talk to her, than to discuss it is a bad thing and that perhaps the couple relationship is not as safe as he thought, because sometimes Joan, the person who is supposed to love him

and wants to spend his life with him, seems his enemy. Answer two to be angry with John without saying anything, to wait for him to miraculously guess what happens to him so that he can explain, point by point, how outraged he feels, not only because of the forgetfulness of the washing machine, but because he has not noticed his anger. Consequence two before Juana' s attitude, The consequence will be the same as the first, adding that

John will not understand anything because of the contradictory messages he has received. Answer three, get angry with John, let some time pass to try to calm down before reacting, once he is calm enough to tell him that he needs to talk to him, do it by conveying his displeasure with words or see consequence three before Juana' s attitude, John will remain calm, which will help him to put himself in the place of his partner and understand the displeasure.

He may be feeling. Juán will have the feeling that the problem is not transcendental, but it is important to Joan in the long run. This way of resolving conflicts will determine a healthy and safe bond in the couple' s relationship. The message that both will receive unconsciously from the situation will be no matter what problem we have. We can always communicate it, listen to each other, understand each other and solve it as a team. Discussing is

a good thing, because it allows us to evolve as a couple. We want the answer three. It is the only one that corresponds to an attitude proper to a safe attachment in adults and, therefore, to a healthy and safe relationship. Emotional independence does not exist. It has become fashionable to talk about emotional independence to refer to all two, which is not emotional dependence. But the truth is that the opposite of emotional dependence is a healthy relationship and

in a healthy relationship, the bond that is established is interdependent. This we can find in all kinds of healthy relationships, whether of friendship, couple or family, and consists in sharing things with the other person, as well as mutual space, but also respecting the time and individual space of each of the parties. We cannot be emotionally independent, because humans are social beings and we need contact with others. In fact, as I was saying above, we

' re looking for him. We can work on ourselves and learn to manage our emotions, our thoughts and behaviors, but from there to yearn for independence or total emotional isolation from the rest of people, there is a way. Anything others do can affect us as emotionally independent as we want to be. In fact, of this idea, of the interdependence of and of what is

supposed to be given to have healthy relationships. The concept of affective responsibility is born that, although you already have it developed in detail in the book I love you. I want to remind you that it refers to everything we say, whether we do or what we don' t say if we don' t do it, it certainly has an impact on others. For this very reason, it is important that we have people around to make our lives a little easier, accompanying us, listening to us and advising us in difficult times.

Sometimes a hug or the absence of this makes the difference. I think the welfare formula includes social relationships and I think that wanting to feel good without this variable is a utopia. Nor is it about waiting for someone to come and save me from my discomfort and bring me the happiness that I have not been able to build for myself, or being unable to break a relationship even

knowing that maintaining it makes me ill because that would be emotional dependence. I ' m just saying that we' re made to bond with each other and that we can' t ignore our own nature by a fashion with an individualistic tendency. Children need to connect with adults to determine how they should feel.

This is the main reason why adults are said to be emotionally dependent. On the contrary, we don' t need to know how other adults react to feel in one way or another, because we have the ability to connect first with ourselves and then with others. But this does not mean that we can live isolated from the rest. Adults also need to be surrounded by people who accompany us or who help us feel that we are in a safe place,

especially when things are going wrong. This gives us confidence and allows us to evolve imposter syndrome. I was telling you before that Arancha ended up developing imposter syndrome. It is a psychological phenomenon which consists in the person feeling that his or her achievements are not worthwhile, that he or she is not capable enough to carry out his or her tasks. Impostor syndrome is characterized by why the affected person considers that he or she does not have the skills or experience to

do something. He feels he' s a fraud. Profile of people suffering from impostor syndrome are very demanding and perfectionist people. They try hard to get things done. They have the irrational fear that others will discover that their success is not real. They attribute success to factors such as luck, an easy situation, etcetera. They think they are unable to meet new challenges. They don' t trust themselves. They' re afraid to be judged, afraid

to let others down. They believe that the rest of the people know much more than they do, especially at work or at school. If you feel identified with most of the points you just read, point out these tips to manage impostor syndrome. Identify your impostor when he comes out, do not believe the things he tells you when he appears, because they are always based on

insecurity and fear are not rational. Make a list of your achievements to remind you of the things you' ve accomplished with your effort and thus weaken your impostor. Faced with the praise you receive, you simply thank them. Think of the positive part of your track mistakes. You can always learn from them the emotional backpack. I like to say that everything we experience throughout our life passes into our emotional backpack. This metaphor means that emotional footprints have the shape

they have will go with us everywhere and condition our experiences. What we learn during childhood will be reflected in adolescence. What we learn in childhood and adolescence will be reflected in adulthood. If you were invisible to your adults, you learned not to count on anyone. If they abused you, you learned to distrust people. If you were manipulated, you learned to manipulate and you normalized it. If you were emotionally invalidated, you learned to invalidate yourself and the

others. If you' ve always been demanded more, you' ve learned that you' re not enough. If they overprotected you, you learned that the world is a dangerous place. If they trusted you, you learned to trust yourself and others. If they let you explore safely, you learned that only you can. If they loved you in a healthy and safe way, you learned to love in a healthy way. We internalize the messages issued by our primary caregivers and grow with that perception of ourselves and the world around us.

Before I started writing this book, I felt, as you know, the need to get back to working on myself. Brackdown, as I call it, invited me to stop, understand the situation and accept it so I could release the anxiety. So I went to my parents' house one day and I started to see pictures of when it was small activity highly recommended. If you want to work and understand your story, I spent the whole afternoon between albums and memories. This allowed me to recover images, thoughts and emotions

from the past. I think I' ve had a very happy childhood. My parents have always been aware of my needs. They have supported me in difficult situations and celebrated my achievements. They' ve never gotten me into their adult problems. In short, they have been a good emotional refuge and safe hands from which to leave and to return. Still, at that time I felt that I had to go into a terrain that had been waiting for my father’ s story for a long time. My father, as I told

you in the introduction, worked many hours away from home. This was no problem, because he then tried to make up for lost time with his family. I remember weekends in the field, watching the stars, I bought a telescope to show me the moon closely and told me about the vastness of space and the secrets that night kept. I remember the mornings playing hide and seek at home or the nights watching movies in the living room. All together.

My father is a shoe designer, so I also remember when he took me to his studio, he explained to me that they consisted of his tasks and then he played music while the two of us drew once watching the Yat movie I was afraid of him, so the pary along with my mother explained to me that Gatzi was probably a doll and behind him someone would have taken a

soda tail while enjoying his creation. That made me feel calm and confident that I should or should not be afraid, because there was nothing to be afraid of. One of the things that I learned from my father and that has most positively conditioned me was to understand and explain personal problems with the help of schemes. When I had a problem, whatever it was, I knocked on the door of his office and said I can pass, I have a problem.

He listened attentively to me while I told him all my dramas of the moment. At the end, he took paper and pen and began to transform the information I had given him into various lines, circles and drawings, once the problem was represented graphically, I wondered what you think we can do with all this. Now that I' m older, I think that question was asking her to come out of my paralysis and think for myself, because today something tells me that he already knew the answer. So, he worked with

me as long as it took, made me laugh. I think because of that, I am now able to laugh at all my dramas, something that allows me to face them more safely. When I felt much calmer, I ended the session, then I was happy to leave his office and ready to eat the world. Every day. I remember this especially, because every day I explain things to my patients with graphic diagrams, just like my father did

with me. Even sometimes I think my mind just works this way. As you can see, my father was present as much as he could afford. Besides, he did very well. The time he wasn' t with me, I physically recovered him emotionally. My mother was always very present, both physically and emotionally. I would wake up in the morning, prepare breakfast,

lunch and snack. He would take me to school and pick me up, take care of me when I was sick, help me do my homework and ask me every day about the studies and the school' s novelties, later on for the high school. He also advised me, accompanied me when I

went shopping, played, danced, cooked and painted with me. He took me to the park and explained things about everyday life to me, and from time to time he bought me candy, he' s always been the first person I' ve come to when I' ve had problems, because she ' s always understood me, kept secrets from me and laughed and cried with

me. Both my father and my mother have sat with me when I have needed them, they have supported me, they have given me wings and they have told me with or without words you can come back whenever you want. This will always be your home. Each in his own way has known how to be present in my life most of the time and thanks to that I grew up with a sure attachment. I think I' ve had very good

parents. Some brawl fell from time to time. I' m not gonna lie to you, but when we' re little, we need boundaries. Setting limits does not rule out a secure attachment. However, and r a rus here was the crux of the matter. My father had always been very demanding about himself and somehow, that was what I would end up learning about life as well. After going around a lot one day, I decided to

face the dreaded truth of working. Your own story has this that you want to know, understand and find out, but at the same time, you don' t want the fear of removing painful emotions. It takes hold of you and you delay it more and more for fear that it will make you suffer what you can discover. But you have to be brave, because then you appreciate it. We were in the country, we had finished eating and we were making it a table without thinking much about it I told my father

that I wanted to talk to him alone. I think I would never have dared to utter those words if I hadn' t had to write this book, but I wanted to tell you how my emotional work had been and for

that I needed to open that box of pandora. I was afraid for everything I could discover and, at the same time, ashamed to express the conclusions that I suspected, but I have always thought that there is nothing better than working with oneself before working with others, because that gives you an excellent opportunity to understand who you have in front of you. My father got up and without hesitation came to walk with me in the country while we were chatting.

I need to know what your childhood was like, without understanding why I was asking you that question, you started telling me things that I already knew I was the oldest of five brothers who couldn' t study because his parents couldn ' t afford the studies and that he had to start working from a very young age in footwear one of the Ilisitan sectors that at the time more work outs. I had a good starting point, so I kept asking him about

the feeling of latent responsibility in his words. I felt it was my duty to take care of my brothers and my family. My parents made very little money and needed help to get us all out of it. So I did what I thought was right. He said as I gazed on the horizon to know that it broke my heart. Now I was beginning to understand a lot of things. We walked long and hard as my father reviewed his life and

told me anecdotes. Being the elder had made him feel that he must act in a certain way to fight for others, to show himself strong and to have a great sense of duty, and that, dear reader, meant being highly responsible and demanding with oneself. I, as a child, had observed my father' s impeccable behavior. He never failed, he never made a mistake. He always kept everything under control and anticipated things well in advance.

It is often said that a good tree gets a good shade sheltered and nothing more true. My shelter was the shadow of a super tree that had striven all his life to protect his loved ones and not disappoint anyone so much that

with me it turned out something about protector. You don' t need to be a superfather to be a good father, but maybe there' s someone who knows exactly how to be a good father or mother, someone who never doubts himself and makes everything always perfect, without getting over or falling short. I don' t know if I' d be a good mother, but I do know that, like thousands of fathers and mothers in this world, I' d do my best to be and I trust that' s enough.

The hypervigilance my father showed with me made me understand that perhaps the world was a dangerous place. They didn' t let me do a lot of things alone, and I think the word" careful" is the one I ' ve been told the most throughout my life and I really understand that I understand it. I came into the world as a long- awaited child and my parents couldn' t afford to lose me. I was allowed autonomy, of course. But according to my mother, I fought well for her,

saying from a small point of view the words. I just often brought character into the world pointing ways from a small point of view. I went over all the nice things I remembered from my childhood with him and I said dad, I don' t mean to throw anything in your face. On the contrary, I admire very much everything you have done for me, but I know that a person whose experiences have taught him to be demanding and responsible will

end up unintentionally reflecting this in the education of his children. And now I think maybe this has had some weight in my feeling of never being enough. He breathed deeply, nodded and with weeping eyes. He told me I just wanted to do things right without being able to avoid it. I started to cry, just like I' m doing now while I wrote these words and answered him and I just wanted you to feel proud of me and see that

I can. I think exchanging those words was like burying the axe of war after so many years, because I fought with him many times for my independence. During my adolescence I felt isolated and drowned on several occasions I felt that he wanted to protect me so much that he invalidated me hundreds of times and unconsciously moved me the fear that he had that something would happen to me, which caused many times I was afraid that something would happen to me or to

my loved ones. He often fell into catastropheism trying to avoid me problems and warning me of the possible consequences of my actions, which made me cuddle things over and over again until exhaustion. I didn' t want to see myself suffer, I didn' t want me to be wrong, but being wrong and suffering was also part of my personal development. How I would learn to face adversity alone. If not, so I won' t deny that as an adult many times I analyzed my own frustration by blaming him for everything.

I did it alone mentally, because it seemed unfair to come and let him go He' s to blame for everything that happens to me now. Actually, I felt that wasn' t quite it. So, I sensed that there was a piece of him. I thought I was missing, so I couldn' t draw conclusions in such a hasty way and more, knowing that with the past nothing can be done and the only thing that would generate in

it would be a great feeling of guilt. I had the impression that more than his job, it was my job and I wasn' t wrong. We both hugged very hard for a long time. When we separated, he answered me trying to smile already. I' m so proud of you for me. You can stop now. Hey, I laughed and told her how bad she was having a hard time those last few months. I talked about

anxiety and tiredness and confessed that I couldn' t do it anymore. To my surprise, we had in common many more things than I thought he had also suffered anxiety years ago. Therefore, as a person who has been able to give a positive sense to his experience and as a father, you are the first thing that you do not forget when I am thirty- two years old. There isn' t yet. My father continues to catastrophe from time to time, but now I understand that he does so with his best intention

and with a clear aim to protect me. So whenever I hear you predict an extremely negative result about something, I tell you it' s true Dad I' ll take into account everything you' re telling me and with that I get him to stay calm. I could give you a more terclas about fear, worry, catastrophism and anxiety. Tools and co- educational ones I ' m not lacking, but I can' t do it. He' s my father. I am not the one to teach him lessons from anything

in a family or system whose roles are well- marked. Parents act as parents and children act as children. Taking on the role of father to teach him about things in life would create an imbalance in the system uncomfortable enough for him to pass through the arc of triumph what I tell him and keep doing it himself forever. Parents have to be parents and children have to be children. The day my father needs to talk about fear, I' ll talk

to him. In the meantime, I' ll stay out of it and at most, I' ll suggest something subtly Dad I' ve read this book, very good book about anxiety, fear, etc You want me to leave it to you and keep an eye on it within these subtle suggestions. I' m allowed and allowed to joke, so sometimes I scream. The end of the world is near or I tell you it would be super good scriptwriter for the final destination movie. Other times I laugh and answer with good

vibe. Dad, I' ve been living alone for a few years and I haven' t died yet. I think I take care of myself anyway, far from getting irritated like I' d done before, I now perceive your attitude differently. I just remember why he' s acting like this. I accept your emotional backpack. I accept him and accept me to understand his story. It allowed me to understand why he behaved like he did with me and I was able to transform my thinking, my emotions and with it my

relationship with him. I firmly believe that this is the key Sometimes we sin to idealize dad and mom and when they don' t do the things we hope they do, we get angry, but we forget that they are also human, that they have their stories and emotional wounds and that they can fail or just act as they believe and not as we hope they do. Now I remember the times I witnessed moments of emotional invalidation towards my father all my

life. I heard the others telling him how exaggerated you are always and this out of empathy for him. It hurts me because, although I know that this exaggeration was part of the overprotection that I reflected in me and that it affected me so much, he never had someone to tell him. I understand that you care about your daughter, you love her very much, and you don' t want anything bad to happen to her. I never complained of invalidation towards myself, but he also lived it all his life. I told

you this wasn' t easy. I understand that there are very complicated family relationships and I do not intend to compare myself by telling my story or pretending to do what I did, but I would like to move you with this story to something that for both me and my patients, has marked a before and after the ability to know, understand and accept the emotional backpack of those around us. It is necessary to forgive others. Forgiveness is not always forgetting.

Of course, it never requires justifying or seeking an excuse for the harm they did to you. Nor does it imply reconciliation with the person who hurt you or should there be no consequences. Forgiveness is being able to leave behind what damaged you, close a door to the past and continue with a life free of emotional burdens. Forgiveness is letting go of the damage and this is

sometimes not easy. I have patients who, after trying to make it impossible to reconvert their relationship or put all kinds of limits on their family members, have decided to break ties. They understand logically and emotionally how they could feel. Their relatives know their stories, although this has allowed them to forgive them they have decided not to forget because they believe that the damage caused is too

intense to try to recover the bond. In the end, everyone owns their lives and knows what suits them and what does not I have also met people who did not want to empathize with their parents, since they felt that they could not generate any kind of harmony with them for all the damage they had received from them throughout their lives. They were victims of negligent, violent and highly manipulative parents. Not being able to empathize when you' ve been hurt

so much is normal in extreme situations. The human being is incapable of it. Doing so would put us in conflict with our values and lead us to a confrontation with one' s own being for which no one is prepared. However, these people decide to forgive and with them release to free themselves from the yoke with which they lived for so many years. He' s done me enough damage my whole life. I' m not going to let your

memory keep doing the same with my present. Alicia told me before she let go forever of the great emotional weight with which she lived so many years because of her mother. Family relationships, such as couples or friends, can also be toxic relationships. The management of these intimate ties is very complex and many times, even if a monumental work is done about it, the people affected decide that it is best to put a point and end and there is nothing

wrong with it. It is respectable and sometimes best to forgive whoever we have with that person. The kind of bond we have requires time and a lot of personal work. In the end, we talked about moving on, moving the emotions that anchor you into the past and deliberating burden into your emotional backpack. But if you' re looking for calm, you need to forgive. I think even the most intense pain can turn into nostalgia. And I remember

when we allowed ourselves to move forward and give up revenge. Don' t forget if you don' t want to, don' t act like nothing. When you come across that person, if you don' t feel like it, break ties, if there' s no other option, set definitive limits if you think it' s necessary, but forgive me, because the grudge is gradually gaining ground until it catches you completely. And when you' re trapped, the only person who gets lost is you. The wound emotion,

Emotional wounds are psychological sequelae that experiences leave in us. They are wounds without swearing that we carried in our emotional backpack and that originated when we still did not have the tools to be able to face complicated situations. Sometimes they have nothing to do with what happened objectively, but with what we interpret from

that experience or the loneliness with which we live it. To understand this, we must first know that we can divide things that happen inside and outside people into two groups. Internal factors. It refers to what we have innately our own personal characteristics, such as the biologically determined temperament and the genetic predisposition of each individual. External factors are influencing us from the outside, such as the

family, interactions with others, events, etcetera. Both have a lot of weight, but whether it affects us or not will depend on the interaction between them. I' m going to tell you a metaphor that I love because it explains how external factors and internal factors influence us. The glass of water. Imagine three glasses filled with water, each at different levels. The first one has a toe of water, the second one is in half and the

third one is practically full in the absence of a couple of drops. The glass is us in three different situations. The water in each of them symbolizes the innate factors with which we come into the world, such as the predisposition to different physical or mental illnesses and temperament. Internal factors can be a real lottery. You got what' s on you and you can' t change it. Now imagine that a jug of water appears on the scene. The

pitcher will represent external factors. Water can fall into any of the vessels in more or less quantity. However, the amount of water already in it will be an important condition to know how many boots will end up filling the glass or how long it will stay. Without overflowing in this case, that water spills would amount to triggering some kind of emotional problem, attachment, insecure, anxiety, disorder, obsessive, compulsive, depression, anorexia, schizophrenia, bipolar

disorder, etcetera. Imagine that we poured ten drops into the first glass, since the glass had only one finger of water. We' ll barely notice the difference. Now imagine that we put half a jug in the same glass that would come to be I don' t know three zero drops. Completely

random data that I just invented so you can understand the example. It has been too many external factors that the person has had to endure, which means that the vessel will end up overflowing and the person will have to live with some kind of emotional problem. This image could be a proper representation of people who have had a very hard life. Now let' s do the same thing with the second glass, the one that was half full. Let' s see you in the ten drops, just like it' s happened to

us before. With the first glass, we' ll barely notice the difference. However, in this one it will not be necessary to pour half of the pitcher so that the water overflows with just a little trickle. Two hundred drops, for example, will suffice. Which means that a number of complicated situations will trigger an emotional problem. Let' s go with the third glass, the fullest. You know what' s going to happen. With ten

drops of water or less, the glass will overflow. This means that in situations where the person is born with great predisposition the drop that fills, the vessel can be any external factor. This would also explain why there are people who never present any problem notice how interesting My little sister, even having the same parents as me and growing up practically in the same context, has a way of seeing and dealing with things completely different from mine to show a button.

When he read the introduction to this book, he was very surprised with the three situations of irrational fear and told me I didn' t even think about all this stuff you' re talking about. When I looked at the stars from the car, I felt protected. In fact, it was something that made me feel really good. I loved the new house and although I know I' ve seen them, I don' t even remember those shrine wax figures. It is a demonstration of the theory that the same situations can

affect us in different ways depending on the personal characteristics of each one. Two people can start from the same point and reach a totally different point, or start from a totally different point and reach it. Because even though what we live through is important, it is even more important how we live it.

On this same line. I want you to know that there are more and more researches that relate to having a kind of unsafe attachment and therefore emotional wounds, with anxiety disorders, obsessive compulsive disorders, depression, personality disorders, etc. The case is that complicated situations often cause a break in the psychological balance, to which the mind must respond by restoring it with the tools at its

disposal. These are not always the same for everyone or the most adaptive or suitable for the end that we pursue, for example, avoiding everything that scares you to not feel that you are in danger, to use drugs to regulate emotions or to have many sexual relationships with the aim of finding love. But after all, they are the ones we possess at that time. Depending on what kind of stressful situations. They occur when they are given and those we

are surrounded in that phase we will have some tools or others. This reminds me of the case of Daniel, a twenty- five- year- old boy who came to see me to work on a recent break- up with Christian of twenty- six. For Dianio it was very important to find out why his relationship had not worked. I needed to name things to understand it. Happened, accepted and released into sessions. My patient used to relate conflicting situations that she had lived with her partner. While he was talking, I

was analyzing the behaviors that occurred between the two of us. I always had the feeling that Christian was manipulating Daniel and that' s why he felt confused. Every time I tried to tie things up. Why I couldn' t figure out he was manipulating me. Now that you tell me, it' s so easy to see him He told me one day. Now that I know this would have taken the conversation anywhere else. Daniel, don' t

be so hard on yourself. I answered you. I just explained the situation from another point of view and now you understand why it was given to you. I have given new information and with it a new tool. That' s why you can see it so easily and look for other solutions. In the past you didn' t have this tool and you did what you could with what you knew. That' s the way it is, dear reader.

Information is also a tool. Information is power. That' s why I focus so much on always explaining things, understanding helps to tie things up. It comforts us and also allows us to move forward and improve. I told you in the previous chapter that babies and young children have mostly crying as a tool to attract the attention of the adult, with the aim of helping

them to correct their emotions or solve an uncomfortable situation. I think you' ve already realized that childhood is the most delicate stage, because that' s when we have fewer tools as we grow, we are acquiring new ones, mainly those provided by the adult and once we enter adolescence, although we still need parents or caregivers, we have more resources, so the dependence to face

the world is much lower. The same happens during youth or adulthood. Over the years we become more knowledgeable, but that does not mean that over time we are cracks and know how to face difficult situations. We are in continuous learning and I think most of the time we are not always lucky enough to have tools that allow us to solve something perfectly. That is why I like to say that we face the problems with what we know and have at that

time. The wounds derived from the highly stressful moments in the emotional sense, will be traces that will condition our quality of life. Once we become older than childhood, they will be the ones that make the most of us, since it is the most delicate stage and the brain is in full development.

However, Manuel Hernández Pacheco theorized about the high probability that human beings will suffer injuries, that they will change our type of attachment to any age, and not only when we are small, since stressful events can occur at any time. Makes sense. The years pass, people grow and life continues to give rise to adolescence, youth and adulthood stages in which we continue to relate to

others and things continue to happen to us. This is why we know that attachment is not unmovable and can vary from childhood when it conformed as you were told, I love you, a person can make and grow with a totally secure attachment, but after, for example, a toxic relationship, it will change one of an anxious kind. Likewise, it may be that someone develops an anxious attachment in the relationship with their parents, but thanks to their personal

work and experiences, changes to a certain type of attachment. And it may also be that someone who conforms in childhood a secure attachment and keeps it for the rest of his life. For example, a child may grow up with a secure attachment, but at school he or she will suffer bullying and move on to any unsafe attachment. It can also happen that you come from an anxious attachment and, after a process of therapy and healthy linking experiences, change

to a secure attachment. If we know this and understand that at any time a highly stressful event can be experienced, we will understand that the rest of personal history also influences the type of attachment of adults. As I will show you now, the characteristics of attachment resulting from all things lived will be what is reflected when dealing with emotional conflicts in relationships of any kind friendship, couple, family, etcetera. The four types of attachment in adults. Let'

s see what adult attachment definitions are like. For this I will recover some of the information that you can already read in I love you, although this time you will find it enlarged and updated attachment. I' m sure it ' s easy to be loving to your partner and enjoy intimacy, without over - concerning the relationship. You feel confident and comfortable being a couple, but

you also enjoy your independence and give it to your partner. You like to share time with your partner, but you also know how to give him his space. You feel reciprocated in your relationship. It doesn' t make you uncomfortable to deal with emotional conflicts and take it easy to deal with any issues in the relationship. You can communicate your feelings and needs, as well as respond to your partner' s. You' re not afraid of abandonment.

You trust the relationship and you know that if one day things don' t go well, you' ll have to accept it. Even if it hurts you get close to others when you need support and offer yours when it is neo necessary anxious attachment. Couple relationships tend to consume much of your emotional energy. You' re doing everything you can not to be alone. You need the attention and approval of others constantly and validate your own emotions and needs and

focus on caring for others. You' re willing to do whatever it takes to feel valid and accepted. You tend to impulsiveness. You have a hard time wanting to accept and take care of yourself when you' re wrong. You' re very heavy at fault, you' re often constantly worried about your partner relationship, which makes your world dependent on it. You have very

low tolerance for frustration and uncertainty. You fear that the person you are with does not have the same expectations as you in the relationship, and that creates fear of abandonment, loneliness and rejection which makes you develop excessive attention to small details such as mood swings, gestures and behaviors. You feel very well the attitudes of others, but you usually take them personally, and that' s

something that loses you because it makes you angry easily. Also, you have a great difficulty controlling your impulses and you usually mess it up, although then you repent and feel guilty. Often you discover yourself looking for problems where there are no problems, which responds to the typical concern of anxious attachment you suffer

the paradox of fear of abandonment. Right after this section, you have explained that it is you possess a huge empathy, you have a lot of ease to intimate deeply and you are always looking for emotional intimacy, even if the other person is not yet ready for it. Sometimes this makes you think the couple doesn' t love you the way you think they should. You feel miserable when you don' t have a partner. It' s really hard to leave a relationship. You suffer a lot from a breakup. Your longing

to create close ties. Sometimes take away your suitors or couples. You rely heavily on the approval of others and often doubt your own value. You tend to idealize your partner, you usually let others mark the rhythm of the relationship during a discussion. You need to resolve the conflict immediately. You can' t lie down at night if you know that you and your partner are angry. If your partner gives you a great deal of attention, peace and security,

you put aside your worries and feel comfortable tending to codependency. Your mood depends a lot on the people you love. Evasive attachment, avoidative. He ' s usually a distant, cold person. Although you' re not afraid of buying and you like to generate intimacy with the couple. It overwhelms you to do it. That' s why you usually send her confusing messages. You find it uncomfortable to be emotionally close to or trust other people, so

you often insist on the importance of setting limits. People around you often complain that you usually put emotional or physical distance. You have a hard time expressing emotions, I want to tell you. It can become a challenge to talk about emotions, expectations thoughts or the trajectory of your intimate relationships. Whether it ' s friendship, couple or family, it' s complicated for you. You consider yourself emotionally self- sufficient, although you can become very fond of

someone. Couple isn' t usually your priority. Couple relationships don' t give you much concern. If any of them go wrong, you don' t stop to be sorry too much. It' s hard for you to generate emotional intimacy, so most of your relationships are usually superficial. If they turn you down or hurt you. You usually walk away. You tend to put yourself on the defensive, to the slightest hint of control or invasion of

what you consider your territory by the couple. You value your independence and autonomy very much. You usually idealize your mates during a discussion. You need to get away. You don' t usually understand the emotional reactions of people around you when they' re not logical for you, so you usually consider that the issue in question isn' t so much a problem when it comes to managing emotional conflicts. You feel out of place. You' d rather avoid

them and not talk about them. You get frustrated when you feel that a family partner or friend depends on you, or when you feel that you depend on someone. You find it uncomfortable to feel that you need someone' s help to handle some emotional conflict with yourself or others. Disorganized attachment. Your relationships are of love hate, Your reactions to conflicts are very explosive, even if they arise from tranquility. You have an aggressive attitude. Your relationships are

usually very conflictive and dramatic, unstable and with emotional ups and downs. You ' re so afraid that they' ll hurt you and not respect your limits, you' re afraid they' ll betray you. You' re constantly defensive in your relationships. In your relationships you stay alert and hypervigilance to avoid betrayal you relate to others. From mistrust, you try to control everything to

lessen the danger. Control will be your greatest tool in managing jealousy. Sometimes it may seem like there' s no connection between what you do and what you feel. You don' t understand the limits of others. On the one hand, you may be afraid of being abandoned, but on the other hand, you find it hard to be intimate. What is the paradox of fear of abandonment? The paradox of fear of abandonment occurs when behavior is conditioned

by an obsessive idea. When someone is afraid of abandonment, he sets in motion behaviors that seek to prevent the person with whom he or she maintains the bond from leaving it. These are ways of proceeding that aim to control and check everything the other does. On many occasions, harassment is the case, for example, by conducting accusatory interrogations, obsessively checking their social networks, or

by snooping their computer and mobile phone. According to a study carried out by the Reina Sofía Center on Adolescence and Youth, sixty- two, coma nine percent of young people aged fourteen and nineteen, meet girls who check their boyfriend

' s mobile phone and fifty- eight coma six percent. Meet guys who check their girlfriends' cell phone this same study picks up that most often it ' s the guys who tell their girlfriends who they can talk to and who they don' t talk to the other person in the relationship, whether it ' s a couple or friendship. Although this happens more frequently in couple relationships, this behavior causes him distress so he ends up abandoning the relationship, thus

increasing the fear of abandonment in a kind of self- fulfilling prophecy. On other occasions, breaking the relationship is a very recurring defense mechanism. This is an unconscious reaction to an emotionally difficult situation, that is, to the lack

of control of the environment. These people prevent catastrophic links and prefer to venture to break the relationship before trusting the other side and facing their fear, for example, as a measure of prevention against the suffering and emotional pain that can occur from a possible abandonment. I make the decision to abandon this person. I first and before my partner stops loving me and goes away with someone else,

I break the relationship and thus eliminate the likelihood of suffering. And this happens without any indication other than the very suspicion that it is born of emotional wounds or irrational beliefs about love or friendship. I grew up with a certain attachment. In spite of all the past, the relationship with my parents was safe. However, the consequences of overprotective brushstrokes were kept within my subconscious.

So, when I had my first couple relationship, I responded to my ex ' s evasive behaviors with the only tools I had at the time to give everything for others, just as my father did and as I had learned myself. This wouldn' t have been a problem if my partner back then hadn ' t had an evasive attachment, but as if I had it, my behavior ended up overwhelming him. In fact, he was telling me that I was a very dependent person. It' s funny, because I hadn'

t had any dependent relationship until that moment when everything exploded my interest. He woke up in him an evasive behavior that in turn made me even more worried about him, which made him more distant from me and thus to infinity. Actually, it' s not that I was a dependent person, it' s that your lack of emotional responsibility and evasive behavior awakened my attachment system.

There are people with evasive attachment who throw the balls of responsibility out blaming others for emotional dependence, when it is they who are not able to assume their share of affective responsibility in the relationship. I was a dependent person. Yeah, but only after that relationship and not before. Perhaps that same behavior toward a person with sure attachment would not have been so overwhelming. The thing is, for me this situation with my ex- partner was the drop that filled

the glass. From that catastrophic relationship. I would suffer for many years all the consequences of an anxious attachment system and for that and for all the beliefs about love that I had dragged for years, I would end up experiencing so many dependent relationships. What is emotional trauma? It' s the first time the word trauma has appeared with all its lyrics, but I want you to know that I' ve already told you about it. I know it'

s a little scary to read it. We usually associate with very serious events, such as rape, accidents, natural disasters, sexual abuse or physical abuse. But the truth is that this word can be used to define any experience of high emotional intensity that we have not been able to integrate into memory as a learning, that is, as something that has made us wiser and stronger, but as an event that has marked us and, therefore, will negatively

condition our life. The word trauma comes from the Greek etherus, which means hurt, because that' s what an emotional wound is. You see how I' ve already told you about this concept. That' s the amount of deepening it. Some carry emotional injuries all their lives. You' re still bleeding as long as it happens and as many good things happen to you. Let' s look at a couple of metaphors to understand well what this

is about trauma and how it affects the infected cut. Imagine that you are cutting a tomato to make a salad and that in an oversight this slips and you cut yourself in a finger with the knife. The wound looks deep, but you decide to heal yourself at home instead of going to the hospital with a kitchen cloth. You manage to stop the bleeding and put on a little bandage you had at home after a few days. The wound hurts a lot and you realize I' m infected, but you still think you don'

t need to go to the hospital. The wound is getting worse and it hurts more and more, but you continue to insist on doing things for yourself. The days pass, although your wound is getting worse and worse, you pass Olympicly from it and try to make your life as usual, though with clear pain. One day you notice that the wound prevents you from leading a normal life. You' re afraid to meet the person you like in case it starts to hurt, it gives you palover because they don' t know

you have an infected and very bad wound. Sometimes it also hurts a lot at work and you can' t think clearly. There are even times when you can' t feel anything other than the pain the wound causes you Actually, I think no one would get to this end when they see that the wound is infected, we would go to the hospital. It would be very painful to live with something like that. It turns out that traumas work the same way. These highly stressful episodes are wounds to our memory that our brain

has not been able to heal on its own. And you know that the pain of an emotional wound can become even more intense than it is from a physical wound. But as you can' t see, it doesn' t seem to exist. It is known that not necessarily, all people who have gone through highly stressful situations will be traumatized. Remember the subject of each one ' s predisposition and tools, but in one way or another, we all have emotional wounds. What varies in each of us is the intensity of trauma.

Some people can' t remember their traumas. Oblivion, in this case, is a brain defense mechanism to protect you from pain. And there are also those who cannot stop recreating them in their minds. But in any case, all people with emotional injuries always perceive these situations as painful and unpleasant. There are no traumas of positive experiences, because although it is true that these leave us with very good memories, unfortunately they do not mark us as much

as traumas. This is for survival reasons. The brain needs much more to remember the situations that put it in danger, in order to avoid them that those who like trauma victims can be people who have witnessed them or a loved

one, a violent or tragic act, or who have suffered. The death of a loved one, animal or person, the bite of an animal, long hospitalizations or long seasons in the incubator, a rape, a very large personal failure, a robbery, a traffic accident, an abortion, a toxic relationship, times with serious economic problems, instability or harassment at work, a period of very high stress at work, as happened to many of the health - care providers who had to deal day and night with 19 patients, as

well as people living with incapacitating diseases, who have been victims of a natural disaster, who feel betrayed by someone whom they loved a lot of infidelity, for example, who face removal, who are separated from friendships, who suffer from occasional episodes of bullying, as well as children who have suffered neglect, sexual abuse, physical and emotional abuse repeatedly by their primary caregivers or other family

members, or who have witnessed domestic violence, but also adults who have experienced domestic violence for a long time, people who have suffered serious bullying or have lived in a refugee camp, etc. Victims of chronic or repeated traumas over time have no room to regain the emotional balance between events, which leads them to live in a state of hypervigilance and constant concern, devoting to the energy they could use, in other things, to defense and survival. A trauma

is considered more complex and therefore serious, the smaller the victim. Remember that children have fewer resources and tools to deal with different situations. That' s why everything affects them more. Evidently, the consequences of having experienced trauma always

have some impact on the individual. I tell you this because many evidences have been found that the person responsible for the type of attachment changes is always a trauma, especially if it is related to the links situations that change our type of attachment. What situations in childhood can be so traumatic as to develop a different attachment to secure attachment Here are some examples of children who are not heard

or are emotionally invalidated. This implies an emotional abandonment in a real or felt way. Consequences learn to inhibit their emotional discomfort because they feel that by expressing themselves they are a burden or discomfort, so they simply do what is expected of them. This leads them to generate a need to control the environment. If I look at what my parents want and do, they get happy and

I avoid discomfort. This works for me, because I don' t need to express anything, because if I express it, they invalidate me or ignore me and that makes me feel bad. They will learn to relate superficially for fear of another abandonment. The message they receive unconsciously is you have to regulate yourself, even if you tell me what you think or feel. I don ' t care what you feel. It' s not right. There'

s something wrong with you Your opinion doesn' t count. I don' t care about children who are physically or emotionally abused or who are victims of rape or sexual abuse consequences. They learn not to trust anyone, even if at the same time they want to trust them they usually feel for their most intimate ties a mixture of love you and at the same time I do not love you in case you hurt me. They learn to submit to figures of

authority and understand that to be accepted they have to suffer. They assume that not feeling valid is normal. That is why it is very difficult for them to perceive themselves in a minimally positive way. They generate a lot of anger and disgust towards themselves emotions that their abusers, rapists or abusers project on them, do not identify well their own limits or those of the other people they relate to. They often have a lot of trouble connecting with others throughout their

lives. They take extreme patterns of behavior or show themselves very close and dependent, or are very cold, evasive and emotionally remote. There is no organized and coherent attitude. The message they receive unconsciously is you' re insignificant, you' re worthless, you don' t deserve to be loved. Don

' t trust anyone. Compadre children who are very demanding of themselves or their children, learn that they are only valid and successful in their tasks, so their feeling of sufficiency goes hand in hand with that of productivity or success and, since neither one or the other never has adult limits, they can be very demanding and develop dependence, work addiction, anxiety, frustration and low self

- esteem. The message they receive unconsciously is never enough. Overprotected children, learn that they are people who depend on others, feel that they cannot face the world alone, and that their ogre capacity is low. The message they receive unconsciously is you alone cannot be insufficient. Although the intentions of the adult are good and the intention is to remove the child from the emotional discomfort caused by failure, what is really done is to prevent him from learning to face

alone the challenges and complicated situations through control. Children who have excessively fearful parents learn that everything is dangerous, that they need to be very careful and very careful about the environment and behavior of others to avoid serious problems and situations. They feel that the probability of bad things happening is mons and high, so they usually generate quite anxiety and a high need for control. They usually ruminate

a lot and worry about everything too much. The message they receive unconsciously is the world is a dangerous place. You just can' t be vulnerable kids who barely see their parents because they travel, work a lot, or are hospitalized for a long time. Consequences learn that they cannot count on anyone to cope with them in life and that they must self- regulate emotionally are adults before time. The message they receive unconsciously is that you have to be self

- sufficient. Unwanted children in the family. Consequences learn that they are neither valid nor dear. They grow up with very poor self- esteem, as they assume that they are a burden or a nuisance. The message they receive unconsciously is that they do not belong to this place. You can' t connect with us. There is something wrong with you compadre children who untiringly argue and lack respect or who live in a traumatic way the separation from their parents.

Consequences learn that anything can happen at any time, so you should be alert and alert to the relationship and emotions of your parents. They are children who end up taking responsibility for things that do not belong to them. They ' re adults early. The unconscious message they receive is your fault. Children who experience gender- based violence consequences, learn to read expressions and be constantly alert to any stimuli, noises, gestures, tones of voice, etc,

that may mean a change of emotion in those around them. On many occasions they end up repeating the patterns of their parents, being future abusers or victims. The unconscious message he gets is your fault. Don' t relax, you' re never worth children who are victims of fatophobia in the family environment consequences develop a bad relationship with food and with their own body and personal worth. The message they receive unconsciously is your body is wrong you are a disgrace.

If you are not thin, you are not worth children whose parents have some psychological disorder or addiction consequences they usually learn and depending on the illness one or both parents suffer, who must protect and cheer their parents, as well as improve their quality of life, become involved and responsible for many of their parents' problems. They acquire high responsibility ahead of time. The unconscious message they receive is power with everything. Your mission is to save others so that

your family loves you. Everyone has to be happy. That' s how they' ll thank you with love. Children who have a totally unbalanced relationship with their parents, for example, parents who victimize themselves, have no skills to cope with complicated situations, family triangulations, etc. Consequences learn that they must assume the role of adult and end up playing parents and parents of children. In these cases there is an inverted attachment relationship to which we technically call

parenting. The unconscious message they receive cannot be weak. Children who had to take care of their younger brothers as if they were their children, learn to take responsibility for something that does not come up against them. They carry their emotional backpack with concerns that are not age- specific. Instead of spending that time on what it really should be like to play and worry about everything that doesn' t involve doing the chole' s homework or thinking about whether you

like yellow or green more. The conscious message they receive is you are not important. Some messages are repeated because the damage to the attachment system is similar, although the situation of origin is different. All these situations generate a high level of stress that is difficult to manage in a healthy way and, in the vast majority of cases, the consequences will end up dragging to adulthood.

I propose an exercise to apply this knowledge. The exercise of the plasticine ball takes a ball of plasticine, make it as round as you can work its surface to make it very smooth. Now I want you to imagine that you are twelve years old and you have to live a particularly difficult situation, like, for example, changing schools, leaving your old friends behind and having to get used to a place. I don' t do with people you don ' t know, but you have to deal with if you want to have

new friends. Make a mark with your fingernail on the plasticine ball. Wow, it' s not so perfect anymore, but if you turn it around, you can barely see now imagine you' re living another highly stressful situation, like bullying at school. For example, Goa are already two marks on the plasticine ball, but nothing happens. Life goes on. Imagine your father has been emotionally absent. Most of the time. He works hard because he

has to bring money home. Your mother is very tired because at night she has difficulty falling asleep due to the stress of taking care of your grandmother, who has a chronic incapacitating illness for several years now because of the economic instability of the country. Your father gets fired because of an ere in his company, he' s wrecked. Neither one of you has time for you so you live the bullying in silence, hoping your parents won' t find out,

because that could cause them one more problem. If you don' t want them to feel sadder, it' s even better not to be a hindrance, so you focus on your studies and try to get very good grades so that they get happy and feel proud of you mark with a nail the ball of plasticine three times more by your father' s emotional absence, by your mother' s emotional absence and by living the school harassment in silence in the first grade in your new institute, you get an outstanding in all subjects.

You show your parents the notes and they get very happy. Congratulations on the lack of an adult to help you create security regarding IT and the environment. You found a shelter in your studies. This isn' t going to help you be happy, but at least you feel valid. How cool to make another mark with your fingernail on the plasticine ball. Sometimes your parents argue out loud at home and listen to them, but you have noticed that if

you interrupt and call their attention somehow. S s s are the one that gets into you and stop arguing great you just discovered that if you take responsibility for your parents' emotions, everything goes well and for that nothing better than constantly being aware of them, their gestures, their tone of voice, especially what they say. You need to know if it' s time to intervene or not to stay alert. It' s a great tool that you' ll always set in motion. From now on, make another mark on the

plasticine. Your grandmother dies, make another mark. That' s how the years pass. Your father. Finally find a job, although it is much more precarious than the previous one. The economic crisis is wreaking havoc, but it seems that better times or at least not so bad ones are coming. Your demanding student routine. He has added a strict diet and a lot of sport. You are very responsible and a person worthy to admire. S or so the others say, because you feel quite mediocre. Weaknesses, a few

kilitos, and you earn some muscle. People applaud you and the likes in your ens that cram increase. So far you' ve never had friends because everyone was messing with you in high school, but in college it seems like everything' s going to change, because you get very positive reviews from the people around you. It looks like you' re finally starting to fit in. You' ve found another refuge from your discomfort. The acceptance of others you need to feel good. Okay, but what' s the difference?

Make another mark on the plasticine. It looks like you' ve met someone you like how well you can finally be happy. That' s not really what happens in the movies. Ah no your partner leaves you because he says you' ve burdened her a lot with your interrogations. You don' t understand what happened. If you just wanted to know if I was really gonna be with you. You were forever afraid that I would disappear or abandon you, as your parents did exactly. Make another mark on the plasticine ball,

you find work. It' s nothing of the other world, but it allows you to earn a salary congratulations uff The breakup has been horrible. He needs to raise your morale. You hang a sexy photo on social media. Five hundred liikes, what a triumph. You' ve met someone else who fills you. This is really gonna be the ultimate, but you don'

t know why you feel like shit? You don' t understand. If everything goes well, the studies, the work, the friends, the couple above you are more fit than ever, why you feel without wanting anything, you don' t feel like seeing anyone healthy gan overwhelms you no longer enjoy the things that previously motivated you and made you feel good, Sometimes you feel sad and so you also feel some pressure on the chest, but good must

be normal, because you have felt it since you were little. Triangulation. Triangulation is a form of emotional abuse in which a third person is used to manipulate someone. Triangulation in the family. Nacho is a 17- year- old boy and one day his mother tells him she has a problem with her father However, time goes by, the problem is not solved and her mother

keeps telling her son how badly she treats her father. In the triangle, the mother is using Nacho to somehow confront the father without speaking directly to him. The problem with this dynamic occurring in the family is that the mother places the child in a situation that does not belong to her. The mother is placing in Nacho a responsibility that neither does nor does come to her, and without realizing it, she is giving her a power within the family system that

may be too great for her. The power it gives him would fall to the father as a couple of the mother he is, and not the son. This role change, which may seem harmless, is capable of altering Nacho ' s type of attachment. Suddenly, the son is burdened with the father ' s responsibility. The logical thing would be for the mother to talk to the father and manage among them without having to put her son in. Another day, Nacho and his grandmother agreed not to tell their mother anything about a

family secret. Grandma says we' re not going to tell your mother, that if she finds out celia, then Nacho is above her mother in the family system. The problem here is that that is not the logical order, but that the mother must be above the child and the child dedicate themselves to his or her things without having to assume burdens that do not correspond to his

or her role This may also be to send the type of attachment. Nacho ' s parents finally split up and the father tells his son that his mother goes on vacation with her new boyfriend without you nacho, because surely your mother doesn' t love you as much as I do your father. This case of triangulation is repeated in many families with separated parents. Trying to put the child against the other parent is again to give the child an emotional burden that

does not touch triangulation in the couple. Couple triangulation also exists, especially in couples with toxic ties or abusive relationships. Isabel is a 23- year- old girl and has a couple relationship with Alfonso. She sees that he shows up very affectionately with another girl at the disco and asks her about the situation. Alfonso quickly comments that it is the other girl who has approached him and that he harasses him because she is obsessed with him, making him see that

the other girl is the bad girl. Alfonso manages to attract Elizabeth more to him together against the world. On the other hand, by yielding to manipulation, she is more trapped in the relationship that is already seen from afar, which is not very healthy and if these kinds of situations are repeated, she can often come to think that everyone is bad except Alfonso. This continuous manipulation by the couple can also cause a change in the type of attachment triangulation in

friendship. Imagine that Clara, Nuria and Almudena are friends one day, the last two become angry and Noria starts to speak ill of Almudena to Clara so that she joins her and distance herself from Almudena. This type of manipulation can also cause a change in the type of almudena attachment is the triangulation that is

usually given in bullying. As you can see, in all cases, the third person is only a figure alien to the objective of the person who manipulates, but his or her existence allows him or her to feel that he or she controls the situation. How can we differentiate a triangulation manipulation from a vent. It' ll be manipulation when whoever' s telling you something about a problem with a third party doesn' t do anything to solve it and just

dedicates himself to telling you how bad a person he is. It will also be manipulation when you feel that the person is using a third party to make you feel guilty about something. Fear and stress. I need to talk to you about fear and stress, because they are and will be the ultimate protagonists of many of your cognitive, emotional and behavioral physiological responses. Fear is the emotional response to stress, which is the physiological response that triggers the body when

we process a dangerous stimulus, real or imagined. That physiological response corresponds to the activation of our sympathetic branch, the nervous system. So, when we ' re calm, our nervous system activates the branch' s responses for nice and when we' re comfortable with the sympathetic ones. In principle, both

responses are adaptive and functional. Example, of a lion. Imagine that you are calmly in your home, studying, reviewing, e- mails, preparing the food, that I know you are in your sauce, your breathing is calm and your heart beats normally. Suddenly a lion comes into the room looking like he' s really hungry. Let' s look at two different answers to this situation, functional and functional dysfunctional. At that moment you open your

eyes well. Your pupils are dilated to better observe the threat and ignore everything irrelevant in the eye field and you realize the danger your life is in, you get to say, you get in a state of hyperactivation and your body prepares for two types of response, the struggle or the escape. Appreciating the situation quickly, your instinct helps you understand that fighting is not a viable response,

so you decide to run away. Your pulse is accelerating, your breathing is shaking, your body is activating the sympathetic system and it' s getting ready to run as if there isn' t a morning you shoot out and you manage to get safe. Since you see that the friendly system is activated in the face of dangerous situations is not a problem. On the contrary, we find it very useful dysfunctional at that time. Instead of activating the sympathetic

system, keep your parasympathetic system active and quietly recite Chinese proverbs. The one who says the most is not smarter, but the one who shuts the most. Your will must be more powerful than your desires. The worst enemy is the one who doesn' t go straight. It' s okay. If you go slowly but don' t stop yourself, it seems that Leon doesn ' t like your proverbs because he has pounced his prayer on you and ate you. Why, if fear and stress are so good, we suffer so

much when we feel it in principle. This suffering is the way the brain has to tell us to move and act. The problem comes when these States generalize situations that do not pose a real danger, given that irrational fear is generated. We' ll talk about this later, or when that fear is so but so intense that it becomes something much worse, in panic. In

this chapter we will focus on this emotion, not emotion. In the example we have seen that the best option to face a danger is that your brain automatically activates, the sympathetic system and with it your instinct chooses the answers of struggle or flight. Right Well, there' s a third answer. Blocking or osok something that has a lot to do with trauma and emotional wounds dissociation. What if before Leon you were so afraid, you couldn' t react

and you could only tremble and pee on yourself. In that case, dear reader, we would be talking about panic. Fear moves us and panic blocks us. Let' s imagine that, despite the paralysis, he survives Leon ' s attack. What happened to your brain in the face of such danger? Your mind has generated a state of overactivation at a very high level, so much so that it has not been able to withstand and appetize until later.

Mari Carmen your Brain, who no longer wants to know anything about the matter in which you are involved, has disconnected and has turned off the control tower eyes that do not see heart, that do not feel and dissociation that you take like this is you just dissociated. I' m going to dramatize the steps your mind has taken so you know exactly what happened. Your brain, lol go lion. This is dangerous. I' m not going to activate the friendly system. You' ve got a lot of eggplant we'

ve gotten ourselves into. Bro Brain, I have a bit of a must. You' re okay, you, shut up, I think it gives me something. This is very dangerous. Holy shit and so much, in fact I think we' re going to die You, so give me a fucking hand. Brain, I' m trying, but I don' t know what else to do. You, I don' t know what to do, but do it now. Brain, ha ha ha doesn' t work what I' m doing. Save me who can as long as he walks away. You, I think I pissed myself. Brain, you,

cele brain. Brain. You' re there now for real. Your brain has processed a danger for which it has activated the four behavioral, emotional, physiological and cognitive response systems, and has generated so much, but so much fear that it has transformed into panic and the mind has not been able to withstand it. Why I say panic is an emotion, not emotion, because all emotions are useful and functional. Except for this one. Panic is nothing,

emptiness. It' s the non- emotional emotion that triggers. One of the most powerful defense mechanisms in our body to survive highly stressful situations. Dissociation. Traumas disfigure the brain. When we talk about dissociation, in this

context, we talk about a brain that hides and closes the chiringuito. But where it goes, then, to organize its content in two parts, the seemingly functional part of the nuno, recognized by its acronym PAN, and the emotional part with the acronym P. We can also call them dissociated or conscious parts PAN and unconscious P. The case is that, from the moment a dissociation occurs, the person will have his PAN and his P parts that make

up what psychologists call primary structural dissociation. PAN is visible to others. It ' s the part of your personality that works, studies, stays with friends, partying, etc. In short, the one with which you are in contact every day forms the traits with which you would define others. For example, I am a cheerful extroverted, hardworking and sociable person. P is the part where you keep emotional wounds. It is not visible to others, but

it is what the person who possesses the emotional wounds feels. It' s the part of your personality that suffers and cries, that remembers painful things. She misses family, friends, or couples. It' s what you carry inside and you don' t usually show others unless you have a lot of confidence with them. Imagine you' re cooking in your house and you' ve got the ceramic hob, the smoke extractor, the oven and the microwave

on. At the same time you' re preparing a lot of dishes At the same time you' re all very hot, so you turn on the air conditioning and by the way put a washing machine and a dryer. Your electrical installation can' t last that long, so before the pete system and your house burn down, skip the automatic so there' s no disaster. You look for the picture of lights in the middle of the darkness so you can activate it again. When you manage to slide the tab that restores it.

You realize that magically, your house is neat and clean, well, more or less. The pan is placed in the fridge, the microwave is open, the oven has the door broken, the washing machine has thrown, the water out and the clothes have come out dirty. What happened here. If your home were your mind and the automatic defense mechanism, we could say that your Brain has been organizing the catastrophic content as well as it could. Those things that are so out of place in places that they don' t

touch will be emotional wounds. The treatment of all of them will consist in organizing the house, fixing the relevant appliances and placing the utensils in place. Let us recapitulate the order of things with a clarifying image. In the lion ' s example I have described a rather traumatic situation, but I have reduced a little bit to absurdity to make it an emotionally neutral example for everyone.

And so you can understand in a very eight easier way. It is quite unworkable and unlikely for a lion to appear in your home unless he lives near the jungle or a sun, but remember the situations he described earlier as very stressful for a child. Those are the typical ones that trigger an emotional wound. Powerful enough to condition an entire life. For example, an adult can think of something as if my parents pass on to me, for nothing.

I make my life and do not process the situation as a trauma, either depending on the coping tools I possess. But it' s very likely that a child will perceive it as my parents are going to pass on to me, what I do. If they are my reference in this world, I without them do not know what to do, because I am a dependent being. I' m so scared. I don' t understand what' s going on. Thus, it is not necessary to go through a life or

death situation in order to have an emotional trauma or injury. It is enough to experience any situation with great fear or loneliness. And this is any age. In the most serious cases, dissociated parts may also be re- dissociated. For example, in so- called secondary structural dissociation, P can in

turn dissociate itself. This occurs in early, prolonged or repeated traumas over time, such as those that cause complex trauma, and in the most extreme cases, not only does the P divide into several parts, but also does the NAP, establishing what we call tertiary structural dissociation and resulting in the dissociative disorder commonly called multiple personality disorder. To answer this question, Anzigo' s doctor

created a very interesting concept, the stress tolerance window. According to this theory, the tolerance window is a small margin in which the tools and skills we possess are sufficient to address a stressful situation and manage our resulting emotions which are what they are. We all have our own, because we can all endure a certain amount of stress. For example, most people can endure the stress of a change in last- minute plans, go out of time to catch

the bus, or take an oral exam. I can easily handle my emotions when I' m in front of thousands of people, because it' s something I' ve trained many times. Over time I have increased my tools and confidence in myself and, therefore, widening my window of tolerance. But the first time I got on a stage, I was shaking to the DN, which means that my tolerance window was stuck in front of that situation.

When the stress tolerance window becomes small, when we cross its thresholds and face an emotional kidnapping, that is, when emotions take over our being, our logical part disconnects and we do not have enough tools to address a stressful situation, such as being a victim of infidelity. The tolerance window can be worked, but there are things that we will never be prepared for. For example,

no one is prepared for the death of a loved one. True, the fact that my first experience as a couple was a toxic relationship overcame my stress tolerance window. I have always been a person who has handled stress very well, but the uncertainty that that relationship implied me exhausted all my resources. Maybe someone else wouldn' t have done so much emotional damage. But, as I say, everyone has their tools, their history and their window of

tolerance. That' s why neither I nor anyone can define that it' s for you something highly stressful you' re going to fipar. But there is evidence of people who have stayed inside their stress tolerance window, being in hallucinating Nazi concentration camps. For a child, the tolerance window is always smaller than for an adult, and for a person with secure attachment, it will always be greater than for someone with an unsafe attachment. Even so, this

ce window may be shrinking or widening, depending on our environment. If we surround ourselves with people who do not provide us with security, the window will become smaller and smaller. And if we surround ourselves with people who bring us peace of mind, the window will grow bigger and bigger. A large tolerance window is like a well- knocked mattress that protects us from pain. In this book, as you have already seen, there are many examples of stressful

situations with which you can feel identified or not. But part of the self - knowledge work I' d like you to do is precisely this to identify what were the situations that caused you high stress throughout your life. If there were situations that you lived as highly stressful, then they were. We have three brains. Yeah, yeah, as you read n n n three, well, three in one according to Paul mcne' s theory, emotional and

rational reptilian. I know these names are a little weird and it looks like he' s talking about aliens on the Max Channel, but Makan decided that these were going to be the names with which he would baptize every part of the brain that we all possess according to their function. The truth is that these brain divisions help to better understand the differences between the conscious and the unconscious. The three parts are connected to each other, but each is responsible for

a different objective and for processing reality in a different way. Reptilian is the most instinctive and primitive part of our brain and is responsible for regulating aspects related to survival, such as breathing, temperature, digestion, and attachment reflexes in terms of survival, it does not have a very intermediate. It reacts with we' re going to die. It' s all or not. Reason that takes care of another part of the brain appears when we' re still

in our mother' s belly. Brain stem anatomy, unconscious part. Emotional is the part of our brain that allows us to feel emotions like disgust, fear, anger, sadness, surprise or happiness. It appears between the last months of pregnancy and the first two years of life. Limbic system anatomy. The most important thing about the emotional brain is its control tower. The tonsil,

closely related to fear and attachment. It has several functions, but the main one is to activate the sympathetic system and pass the information on to his colleague, the hippocampus about dangerous situations, in order, between the two, to remember everything that has been a risk in the past and thus to be able to face together the possible threats of the future. Rational unconscious part is the most evolved part of our brain. He takes care of tasks such as

speech, thought, understanding, reading, reflection, logic. He' s kind of like the father of the previous brains. It appears about two or three years of life and does not form completely until after adolescence anatomy Neocortex conscious part. There' s a couple more facts that are interesting. The brain is developing throughout our entire life, from being a fetus to adulthood and going

through the same stages that our evolution has been going through. As a species, the reptilian brain develops first, then the emotional and, finally, the

rational brain. That the rational brain does not begin to develop until the age of two, means that all the learning that we get those first months of life is purely emotional, that is, unconscious and a couple of notes regarding the theory that deserve to be mentioned to avoid confusion, the brain is composed of a multitude of organs, each with a different function, but related to each other. This theory is used to talk about the different functions of the

brain in a simple way. It does not mean that each function is perfectly delimited to any of the three areas, but there are parts of the brain that deal with specific functions that coincide with the activation of the areas mentioned. Obviously, people only have one brain, the human brain. Speaking of reptilian brain doesn' t mean we have a reptilian brain as I say, it ' s just part of the nomenclature that' s used to better understand theory.

Now let' s see how these parts of the brain relate to each other. You' ll see the party they' re having. The emotional brain is the one that almost always led her. The tonsil has a very strong temperament and usually reacts impulsively to things. However, the hippocampus is quieter and likes to have gone too far. One of its functions is to activate the parasympathetic system. When the tonsil perceives it in danger, it becomes defensive

by activating the sympathetic system. But the hippocampus, which knows it well, intervenes by activating the parasympathetic system and regulates it by telling and guiding you are passing. Don' t get so nervous that I remember perfectly that this isn ' t as dangerous as you think. Then the tonsil calms down and doesn ' t overactivate. However, when the hippocampus does not intervene in that reaction, the amygdala comes very high and over- active the sympathetic system and,

as we saw in the previous chapter, trauma occurs. The friend reacts with ease, although it can be said that in some people more than in others, but in any case, each time it is activated it reduces more the stress tolerance window of the person in question. This, in turn, makes the migda gain more sensitivity and reactions more exaggerated to situations that would not have to activate it. When the amygdala is continuously activated, these are the consequences.

Difficulty in controlling impulses, inability to delay gratification, difficulties in making decisions, emotional overflow in adverse situations, lack of concentration, difficulties in thinking clearly, lack of empathy or capacity for social interaction, problems in becoming assertive. Therefore, an active tonsil is the reason why you cannot ask an angry person to calm down and reason for a certain situation. So sn N s NS same in his anger with his friend the atope and will not attend to reasons

nor be able to empathize. Until she calms down how she will be able to empathize a person with the pain of others, when she also feels pain, when she stops feeling pain, she will be able to empathize. That is why it is sometimes necessary to leave important conversations for another time. The rational brain or the father of the other two, only intervenes in the movements of the tonsil and hippocampus when it has not allied it to the maximum.

When the hippocampus does not intervene and the tonsil has come up, it starts to scream and the rational brain cannot think clearly. Come on, when the amygdala is activated to the fullest, we suffer the emotional kidnapping that I was talking about in the previous chapter and our rational brain goes out. The reptilian

brain. He is the older brother of the Migdalai. Every time she listens to me because her sister' s out of her mind, she goes through her room and says lon and she' s moved, but she didn' t urinate. It' s time to find out what' s going on. So even though he hears bells, he doesn' t know where they come from, he has no idea what' s going on, but he knows that something very strong happens at home and that he has to keep it in mind. That' s why your best tool is to change the type

of attachment. But this doesn' t. Every time there is a highly stressful situation, remember that you can' t change the type of attachment intermittently, but change it safely and insecurely or any of the other three. And it stays there forever, unless a job of integration is done later, which we will see later explain to you all this brain movement. It helps me to understand that sometimes highly stressful situations cause this chaos between the different parts.

So, during dissociation, the part of the brain that organizes the information could say that it is the mother cannot work clearly and ends up placing the pan in the fridge in situations where there is no real danger, but yes sense is that n or c is also given. In my past. My tonsil

had been activated many times in the fear of not being enough. By understanding my story and that of my father, I could understand that somehow he had pierced his cause to me and that had caused my brain to organize such a thing. He did what he could with what he had and I too the mind remembers. Neurons are the largest cells in our body. They are formed by a nucleus and a series of extensions that serve to connect with each other

forming a neural tissue or network. We have about 100 billion neurons. It ' s all right if we lose one on a crazy night of alcohol and unbridledness, but we don' t miss it either if the communication between them all looks like patio radio. They love to know and store information and then draw their own conclusions. They keep everything in huge filing cabinets. Some have them in the conscious part of the brain and others in the unconscious part.

They catalog the information into memory types according to their importance and you know which one is the most important. Just the archiver in the amitala room is, as we know, storing information related to survival and it doesn' t matter if the dangers it has recorded are real or imaginary. The fact is that there are files that have a special interest for the whole brain, those that contain information about suffering and emotional wounds or trauma. In gram is the term

to designate the neural networks that keep the information of the emotional wound. The brain understands what the engram contains as dangers that we must avoid in order to continue with our existence, but it is completely amenable to the disorder that involves having that stored only in the emotional brain without integrating it with the other parts. Although on the outside things happen that a priori have no direct connection to

the emotional wound. If the migda finds it a small similarity between that and the information the neurons keep about it, neither hippocampus nor anything goes wrong. The amygdala is activated as it was activated at the exact time of the trauma and puts the emotional part into operation. A single stimulus is enough to reactivate the whole system, relive trauma, and remove old emotional wounds. Why this is happening. The brain brings out the memory of trauma, but it doesn

' t differentiate between past and present. In fact, this part of the brain where the engram resides, does not understand of any time more than of the present. So every time he processes a minimally similar stimulus, he deduces that everything bad that happened a while ago is happening again now. Sometimes this triggers symptoms like feeling upset without apparently coming to account, which we end up paying with those around us, because we don' t know how to manage

nightmares or flashbacks a move. The body always remembers this feeling of discomfort without apparently coming to account. It happened to me the other day. You remember the traumita of the wax figures that I saw in a shrine that I told

you about in the introduction. For attention to this coming now I went so quietly walking through a village I had gone on a field trip with my partner, when suddenly we saw a very nice candle shop and decided to enter it knew it in many colors, sizes and shapes, and they were all beautiful. As a result of the work of a craftsman whose workshop was inside the shop. The smell of wax permeated the entire space. Suddenly I started to

feel bad, feeling nauseous and a tremendous anxiety in my chest. At the time I didn' t know what it was about, but I looked at Alberto and told her very overwhelmed. I' m going out on the street. I feel bad. My partner got scared and accompanied me outside what' s wrong with you. He asked worried. I don' t know. I think the store has given me a hard time. I said walking aimlessly and staring down on the ground. I was pretty nervous, but everything was

nice. I don' t understand. Alberto put his hands on my shoulders and looked into my eyes to see for a second. That gesture brought me back a little bit to reality. I don' t know what part of my head was in, but a moment later I knew exactly what had happened to me. My body had reacted to the smell of wax that carried my mind to that altar of my childhood with wax figures, the pain of those

people, sickness, death. Instants later it all went online. My conscious mind took a little longer to figure out what was going on, but my body knew everything from the first second how strong truth. In relation to this I will now tell you the case of Carolina, a 30- year- old girl who came to me for lack of sexual desire and vaginal pain during intimate relationships with penetration. You will see sometimes in sexual intercourse there is lack

of desire, genital pain, problems with excitement or orgasm, etcetera. I, in any case, always like to know how my patient has lived his sexual encounters from the first to the last. It is not necessary to give many details or to relate to relationship, of course, but I am interested that in his account he stops to observe the changes and evolution that the experience of his sexual encounters has had throughout his life. And so did I with

Carolina. She had had a couple of partner relationships before she met her current life partner. In the account of the first relationship I did not notice anything remarkable, but when we went into what was his second relationship I found what was supposed to me to be a very unpleasant sexual experience. My patient spent two years dating a guy who made her feel terrible. He was messing with

his physique and his way of having sex. I' d manipulate her to have sex, I' d tell her if you didn' t do it with me, I' d go with someone else, and on top of that, it' d be your fault. She compared it to other girlfriends she had and in case this was too small, she controlled what she ate and the clothes she wore. It was a full- fledged ill- treatment relationship. At that time, Carolina was nineteen and he was twenty- four.

For more sinri the aforementioned forced her to have sexual encounters on more than one occasion. He never hit it or physically forced it, but he didn ' t need it with a scream either. It was enough to generate a paralyzing fear in Carolina. My patient normalized having sex feeling unwell, and that would remind his body forever. Every time her current partner started a rapprochement, she ran away and when she didn' t run away, the muscles of

the pelvic floor were so thought that any posture hurt her. At no time did he feel forced with his current partner. Moreover, on occasion he told me that he felt excitement, but as soon as the physical contact began, he was overwhelmed in consultation he was very sad and sorry because he wanted to have a more intimate and fluid connection with his partner. However, frustration came when every time he tried, his body reacted without counting on it. His

body was talking to him. Carolina just had to listen to him. After hard interdisciplinary work in gynaecology, physiotherapy and psychology, and no patient, he began to slowly improve and gradually expose himself to sexual contact, first alone and then as a couple. It should be said that your partner showed himself during the whole process very respectful of her. They had not been in relationships for a long time, and although it was something he wanted, he understood that

she needed time and space to work on her sexuality. He supported her in everything. She attended therapy with her in several sessions. He listened to her, accompanied her and waited. What it took until Carolina felt comfortable enough to have a more intimate approach. This helped the treatment a lot. After a time in therapy, Carolina managed to integrate all parts of her brain and body,

her mind and her heart knew the most friendly perspective of sex. This shows that emotional wounds are also stored in body memory, implicit memory, and that body and mind go hand in hand. There are always people who, after a traumatic event, do not have to be automatically. Then it can be after some time. They tell to feel other symptoms related to the dissociative

picture, such as depersonalization and derealization, both passing phenomena. Depersonalization is a phenomenon by which people can feel an alteration in the way they perceive their body. They say they feel different, rare or out of the body as a mere spectator of life, as their way of feeling their body has become completely different from the usual way. However, derealization is an alteration of the perception

of the outside world. People who have ever suffered it feel that what surrounds them becomes strange or unreal, as if they were in a dream causing them to suddenly feel disoriented and lose their spontaneity. Curious fact. When a person experiences these sensations and is aware of it, that is, he knows that what happens is not normal and that it is the fruit of his head the psychotic outbreak is discarded. Why I always end up with the same kind of

person. Let' s get into a situation you know a seemingly wonderful person. Looks like that' s what you were looking for Someone attentive, kind, loving and intelligent. You feel like you could be talking hours and hours. You' ve been sleeping at 1, 000 for a couple of weeks because you can' t get away from your cell phone. You say good night and good morning by message. You tell each other all the things that happen to you, You send audios of voice and every time you see an

incoming message it turns your heart upside down. You' ve never felt anything like that before. That' s why you think maybe this is the ultimate person, you' ve already had some failed relationship, and you' re tired of the same old stereotypes. You looked at that person precisely because he seemed to behave very differently than the others, so you decide to put all the meat in the grill. The weeks go by and everything' s still going great. You don' t speak as loudly as at first, but

it' s normal. Relationships tend to get used to and the energy of the beginning is lost over time. You are August and you decide to go a step further formalizing the relationship as time goes by, conflicts begin to arise and you realize something. This person' s behavior starts to look a lot like that of your mates. It resolves conflicts by disappearing, does not express its emotions and seems to prefer not to talk things out unless you insist.

Why do you behave if you now, if you so far appear to be a person incapable of harming you who only wanted to become unlived for You. It used to be entirely available to You, why now you prefer to go out with your friends, even if you are wrong, why it seems to bother you to cry, why suddenly you seem to be with one of your

mates. Why do you always have the same thing going on in affective sex relationships, why do you end up with the same type of person every time, people who don' t seem to get too involved in the relationship, that you find it absorbing, that stops loving you, that controls you, that casually always has some commitment in prison or with other people who distrust you

or that makes you gosting. Any pattern is welcome in this case, and repeating patterns is the law of life, at least until personal work helps you otherwise, there are several reasons why we usually repeat patterns, such as the idea we have about relationships and love permeated mostly by myths of romantic love or learned stereotypes. But what most makes us repeat patterns is our own pattern of behavior, that is, those things we learned in childhood and adolescence about how

we bond with ourselves and others. Although he remembers that it is also important to take into account the experiences of adulthood, because they can also condition us. For all this, our type of attachment will command over the dynamics of those relationships that we are establishing. Remember that our brain has both conscious and unconscious parts. The first one is responsible for consciously processing never better said all the things that are happening, or that Guay has given me a box of

chocolates. However, ignore those patterns that ring a bell, because this is what the other part of the brain takes care of. But, as he is unconscious, we do not pay much attention to him either, because the conscious part has a lot of voice at that time. In addition, substances that are segregated during falling in love are able to blind those clues even more than otherwise if we could perceive through sensations. What you can do to identify.

My first advice is that you study your story, your type of attachment, and your patterns of behavior thoroughly. Then answer the following questions and write all the conclusions in a notebook. What your previous relationships have been like. What problems you' ve often had, how you' ve reacted to conflicts in what kind of people you usually look at, what kind of behaviors people tend to have. You could describe what your ideal pair prototype looks like.

Beyond physics, you don' t need to focus on formal relationships alone. They also tell the fuck friends to discriminate. The idea is that every time you meet someone, you can determine whether they bring together in their way of behaving and linking the characteristics you prefer to avoid. For the moment, falling in love and its substances will complicate your task because they will blind you at

first. So the idea is to find a balance between getting carried away and staying alert if you jump into the head pool and in the air you realize

it' s empty, you stick it really hard. The idea is to launch yourself having first checked that there is water where you are going to fall and look this is not to know if something is going to go well ahead of time that sometimes we want to protect ourselves so much that we want to go with everything known, we anticipate and we end up pifiando because of the

fear that we have generated. The idea is to get carried away while you ' re really getting to know each other and not to stay with the first person to show affection to any part of your brain. He likes to say no to love, but my advice is to check that you' re not getting into the wolf' s mouth in exchange for a little love doing your

part of the job. Yes, the idea is not only that you discriminate against those you don' t want to have at your side, but that things about you You can work to change your way of interacting with others. You have your share of responsibility, too. In this chapter I will teach you how we tend to face the things that happen to us today according to what we learned in the past, what tools worked for us in their time but no longer serve us today, and what new tools we can learn to

use to heal the present. When the wound of the past is activated in the present. Louis was the eldest of three brothers and had had a relatively quiet life. He grew up surrounded by a lot of love. His parents had always given him freedom and had shown him that they trusted him during his adolescence. Late. He experienced some disappointments with several friendships, but, according

to him, nothing transcendental. In fact, one day her parents discovered that the younger sister, Paula, had been flirting with marijuana for a while. He had started smoking at seventeen years old and gradually ended up developing dependency, with all the problems that that entails failure, school bad companies, days without appearing at home, physical health problems and a toxic relationship with his partner.

As Luis told me, Paula stopped being herself. He looked like someone else, he didn' t talk, he didn' t laugh, he just wanted to smoke and get over life. The parents decided that the best thing for her was to start treating her addiction with a team of professionals. From the time Paula started treatment until she finished it. Pa, Pa, Pa spent three years, three long and hard years for the whole family, but especially for Luis, who lived that time with a sense of responsibility, impotence

and enormous frustration. That kept him in a constant and high state of physical and mental alertness. During those three years. She felt responsible for being the older brother and although he wanted to save her, it was impossible for Paula to listen to no reason. Finally, her sister was hospitalized for a long time and ended up recovering. He rejoined his studies and managed to continue his life as best he could. Luis, for his part, didn' t

come out unscathed. He had suffered a major emotional injury He never felt enough. In addition, at the time he had just become independent with his girlfriend and, as at any beginning, he had to get used to many new things, including organizing his income and expenses, which made it difficult for him

to reach the end of the month. His parents had no problem in helping his son financially, but he knew that the center where he was admitted to his sister was very expensive, because he listened to his parents talk about loans and debts and did not want them to have an additional financial burden. For this reason, Luis did not accept the money offered him. If he did, he felt distressed and bad about himself for not being able to get through

on his own in a situation like that. All this vital experience deeply affected his perception of personal worth. Also, until his financial problems were solved, Luis had the feeling of being one more burden on the family. It is likely that the boy grew up with a secure attachment and that, after his sister' s illness, he would surely change to an anxious type. The day Luis came to see me for a consultation, he showed nervousness, insomnia,

Christine and agonizing for the future. We were working on his story so that he could understand the origin of his evil, which was neither in childhood nor adolescence, but in four years ago, at the time Luis understood everything, he burst into tears of relief. He finally understood himself. The people who come to my office come to work I knew and my mission is to accompany them through the depths of their unconsciousness and help them connect that part with

their bread. After those sessions, Luis began to feel better. At last he had the reason for all his present problems. One day, however, he appeared in the consultation with an anxiety crisis. A series of floating spots had been noticed in the vision and had done the worst thing you can do in these situations to look on the Internet. I' m afraid of glaucoma. I read that spots can be a symptom of glaucoma and my grandfather had glaucoma. It' s possible I inherited him. He told me worried,

but Luis, the spots on the eye can be for many reasons. You know that many times our brain activates defense mechanisms that make us get at the worst just by being prepared if the worst happens, but that it can happen doesn' t mean it' s going to happen. And this is so. We spend part of our lives spending energy, suffering for things that are never going to happen. This phenomenon is called catastropheism. We will look closely at this later. I know, but I don' t know. I

' m worried. I made an appointment at the ophthalmologist. All right, done, you better look at it and that' s how you make sure. Yeah, I' ve also noticed my skin itches a lot. It may be because of the humidity of the environment. In summer, it' s possible I answered and hesitated for a moment. It is sinto s or s to be related to attention and stress. So I began to suspect that what Luis related could be the fruit of something more emotional. We could be

talking about psychosomatic symptoms resulting from any injuries from the past. Hey, tell me what you' ve done these days, because studying for oppositions and little more and how you' re doing well I' m going to answer by fixing a sad look at a point on the ground. I feel like I ' m never gonna get the square. I' m thirty- three years old and I haven' t paid anything in social security. The thing was taking shape. We were finally beginning to delve into the possible cause of their

discomfort. I feel like I don' t belong anywhere. He also told me that, since his Bride was the only one working, he felt that he continued to carry a burden on an economic level and that, although it was something that had been discussed and negotiated a thousand times by mutual agreement, he was distressed that he could not contribute to the day- to- day expenses. The couple had plenty of money, but still, he felt that

he had to do something interesting. Years ago, Luis had a feeling that he should do something useful, and today it was the same as if that conduct had not been completed and he had not left. He knew in the story of Luis and knew perfectly well that his wound was related to the low perception of his personal worth, as well as to the feeling of being a burden. If he related what he was telling me to what he already knew.

That led me to a very powerful conclusion. I had just confessed that I felt a burden and that I did not belong anywhere just what I felt in those traumatic years. It is possible that Luis would have activated his emotional wound without realizing it. The life of an opponent is hard. He spends years and years trying to get a place that, in addition to providing a

means with which to earn money, gives the opportunity to feel useful. To those who perform their duties the work also gives in some way an identity. Feeling useful gives meaning to life, and that was something Luis needed to be able to mitigate the damage to his wound. Frustration of not being seen enough to help his sister and Luis rather felt the opposite. He hadn' t found his place in the world yet. His day to day was kind of

limbo. The boy had lived with his latent emotional wound for a while, but now that wound was beginning to appear through symptoms that did not seem to have a direct connection to the problem. Luis activated his sympathetic system after having been spinning the subject of spots in the vision, and this led him to fear. That localized fear triggered other fears, such as not getting the square

out. This never happens how typical you start scratching at one thing and you end up scratching at everything, and in turn he thought that if he didn ' t get out of the square, it would always be useless. The friend woke her up and warned the hippocampus that she said this about not feeling useful. It rings a bell. The neural networks pulled the files from my patient' s emotional wound, activated the emotions associated with memory and puom anxiety

crisis for Luis. Even if his sister was already well and the boy had a quiet life, the current situation had evoked emotions capable of activating his emotional wound. Luis didn' t know how or why he felt that way. His Mind did not show him a direct relationship between memory as such and his current symptoms. This is normal, since the wounds are stored in the unconscious and sometimes we are only aware of the emotions associated with memory, but not

to the memory itself. That' s why, even if this one stays. We are not able to relate the pain of the present to it of the past. It' s as if the mind within its chaos in in rn. The certain information to the bread from the p in a discreet way, I explained to Luis my conclusion and his eyes began to moisten. This is witchcraft. He told me between laughter and tears. You know what I

like to create an atmosphere of trust between laughter and jokes in therapy. Patients thank me because they feel that humor allows them to fit things much better. The young man knew what his wound meant and how it had been activated. It was precisely that which motivated him to wonder how he could heal his wound and after several minutes exchanging ideas, we decided that the path he could take was to schedule a routine in which to do things that would make him feel

useful and valid in his day- to- day life. The satisfaction of having taken advantage of an afternoon of study was something that, for example, made him feel good. Obviously, the work was not left alone in that, but at least it was a small start. As we already saw in the second chapter, you make it through our lives. People are acquiring tools

to deal with different situations. Sometimes we learn them consciously, for example, in therapy, as we saw in Daniel' s case, for which information was an important tool, and other times they appear naturally and on the fly. According to what is happening to us in life, these tools are established the so- called patterns of behavior constant ways of thinking, feeling, reacting physically and acting in certain situations. A pattern of conduct will always lead you

to act the same way. It is enough for a tool to work only once to continue using it throughout life in any complicated situation. Even if we don' t do well in the future, the brain will continue to hold on to it because the person doesn' t know other tools. There are those who serve at a specific time, but who eventually cease to be useful every day. I see patients who maintain patterns of behavior that once worked, but have ceased to use them. Te. I' ll give you an

example. Imagine that a child sees that his parents argue has often learned to be aware of the emotions of their reference adults to intervene to regulate them and thus manage their own discomfort. This child acquires a lifelong pattern of hypervigilance behavior until he reaches his adult stage, in which he will maintain this hypervigilance towards his partner, friends, etcetera. The injury of the adult person is related to the survival strategy that he performed as a child. Here are some tools

I' ve observed in my patients. High self- exigency. People usually use it to feel valid, get results, get reinforcement and approval from others is a tool that allows them to gain self- esteem when people who have been self- demanding are not doing anything productive. For example, they are resting are usually discomfort because unconsciously they associate fulfilling their self- demands with procrastination well- being leaving things for later is usually used to avoid feelings of discomfort

and possible failures. People who put it into practice often set aside tasks that put a certain mental or emotional burden on them and focus on activities the result of which they know are pleasant to them. This cognitive mechanism leads people to think obsessively, turning the same things over and over again without reaching a clear

conclusion. It is used with the aim of finding a solution to a problem that generates discomfort, so that people can end it with high responsibility, with a high sense of responsibility base their pattern of behavior on the underlying belief of themselves. I get things right, everyone will be proud of me and I will finally be wanted by an out- of- the- box responsibility consumes the person who ends up taking care of emotional backpacks that are not his and

that therefore do not correspond to hypervigilance. Maintaining a state of alertness to danger in life or death situations can save our lives, but keeping it in everyday situations in relation to the environment, the gestures or tone of voice of others generates unnecessary and disadaptative anxiety. People with anxious attachment, for example, are

experts in interpreting imperceptible expressions on the face of others. They do so in order to diagnose a danger, for example, that their partner is lying to them. What happens is that their mental hyperactivity, impulsiveness and insecurity prevent them from reaching certain conclusions. If they learned to handle this skill from the quiet,

they would be cracks interpreting people' s nonverbal behaviors. For their part, people with evasive attachment also launch this tool, in such a way that they observe others to be able to evaluate how they should feel and thus avoid a conflict check behaviors check again and again that everything is well used to mitigate discomfort. A check- up behavior may be, for example, to search the Internet for symptoms of possible illnesses or the social media stalling of friends,

family and partner or is a couple bursting with anger. Angry anger or anger is an emotion that, well managed, can be a very useful tool. It allows us to express that it bothers us and set limits. People who learned how to use IRA as a tool to prevent emotional pain tend to be adults with a lot of impulsiveness and poor management of anger, which leads them

to have problems in establishing links with others. All these tools are a double - edged weapon, sometimes silbni and sometimes are the source of the problem. It' s paradoxical, but it' s so sometimes. The discomfort comes from the very tools that the brain uses in the past to solve a problem and according to the discomfort that it posed. For example, people with anxiety, knock depression etc. They suffer a lot from their high self- exigency,

procrastination, hypersurveillance, checking behaviors and so on. But these are tools that the brain continues to use because they served him in his day. The objective of all the above tools is the same control. This allows us to

have everything supervised and organized, which gives us peace of mind. Having a feeling of important controls for everyone, but trying to have absolute control of our environment, which is what is intended most of the times that these tools are used in order to obtain emotional tranquility, is almost impossible, which makes, paradoxically, we generate more discomfort. The three types of unsure, anxious, evasive, and disorganized attachment can show any of these features Now let' s

see an exercise on the tools we' ve been talking about. Exercise think about your story and reflect on what you did in the highly stressful situations you lived to solve them. If you have difficulty identifying the tools you used, you can start with the present. Think about what you' re doing today to solve a problem, even if you notice the results you' re waiting for or if you' re upset because of one of the tools you use

and reflect on whether that behavior or thought ever happened successfully in therapy. My patients ask me a lot how to manage emotional wounds. They also ask about how to change the type of attachment and although the answer is easy to work with, it' s not as much as you know. Emotional wounds are closely related to the activation of the attachment system and the change from a secure attachment to an insecure one. Therefore, those who normally come to therapy to

work their emotional wounds have an interest in maintaining healthy bonds. I get myself and the people around this question, because I always answer the same thing. You need to do two things personal therapy and live a positive experience related to that fear or that pain and show you that you are in a safe place.

Healing an emotional wound is not anything. The goal that we therapists who engage in this are to generate harmony between the three brains so that, instead of processing each on its own, they all work with the same information. Imagine that you' re doing a group job with other colleagues and you decide that everyone will do their part and then you' ll put it all together.

What usually happens in these cases, that the result is a disaster writing different different fonts, repeated content, one part with images and others without one part has a total of three pages and the other fifty- six, etc. Well, this is what the brain usually does when each of its steps has a different understanding of things. In a person whose emotional wounds remain open,

this happens. The rational brain says your partner isn' t going to cheat on you, because every day it shows you that he loves you. The emotional brain says your partner' s gonna cheat on you because he raised his eyebrow when you asked him if you wanted to have salad. Just like your ex did at the time you found out he was with someone else, he' s starting to get tired of you. History repeats itself. I think the best thing you could do is snoop through all the social media to

stay calm. The reptilian brain says we' re going to die in a person whose emotional wounds have been healed. This is another one. The rational brain says your partner isn' t going to cheat on you, because every day it shows you that he loves you. The emotional brain says I' m here. The reptilian brain says it' s all ok. But how did we get to this? Although there are very complex and special techniques for these cases, such as lia envio, amugment, distance pfastation in RIP pssasen.

It is always highly recommended to use them along with other more common tools, such as behavioral cognitive work focused on trauma, which are the ones I

will refer to on a larger scale in this book. As small pills of knowledge, handling jealousy from the theory of emotional wound, I want you to see with me the case of Lourdes, a twenty- eight- year- old girl with problems handling jealousy in her current relationship and whose emotional wound is related to the humiliation that she was forced to experience an infidelity on the part of her partner. Your story will help me to develop all the steps I

consider essential when working an emotional wound that presents symptoms today. Lourdes shook me for two years. She had been with her partner Manuel for four years,

and jealousy had begun to wreak havoc on both the relationship and herself. He had become obsessed with him to the point of interrogating him with stalking, counting the condoms, controlling the connection time of the Whatsapp, observing the times he appeared online, checking his email and social networks, or again and again ruminating conversations they had had in the past. My patient felt like she was going

crazy. He had realized that he spent all his time thinking and controlling his partner, who had already told him and proved on many occasions that he loved him and that he had nothing with anyone else. She had been living a healthy couple' s bond, which means she had an important factor in closing that emotional wound, the positive experience. The problem was that he lacked the

other part, personal work. Jealousy had been taking over her life for a while and if we did not act soon, the link between her and her partner could become toxic and make her emotional wound even bigger, something that in a hypothetical future case in which Lourdes was no longer with manuel Le, would also harm her relationships. His personal work lasted more than a year, time

we devoted to the next steps one understand the story itself. For me it is indispensable to realize a line of life or chronological axis with personal events, as it returns to our conscious mind situations that we thought forgotten. It can be done with the help of photographs. Personally, it' s a tool that I' ve dared many times when I want to find meaning to something that happens to me. Today I go to my parents' house and review all the photos, no matter how many times I' ve seen them before.

That brings back memories and thoughts that help me keep pulling the thread. And it' s funny because, although I always go with them, they ' re about to have discovered everything, every time I do the exercise a new memory appears. Observe my past and determine how it affected and conditioned me. It' s something that I find very useful. Before meeting her current partner, Lourdes had a toxic relationship in which her ex cheated on her over

and over again, thus generating an emotional wound in her. In those situations of the past, my patient learned to control his partner. It avoided a worse discomfort to be humiliated by infidelity. Lourdes did the same thing she was doing at this point in her life, controlling, checking and stamping. I had learned to be a ruminant person. I was spinning things over and over all the time. That prepared her to tie up and find any gaps in

history, which in turn helped her discover one infidelity after another. These tools were useful to her at that particular stage of her life and now Lourdes was using them again without more reason than suspicion enough to activate her emotional wound. As with our past, it is especially important to know those with whom we have close ties. It can help if the person tells you his story. In my case, seeing pictures of my parents or partner being with them has

given rise to magical moments in which they tell their stories. While I listen carefully and have a cup of tea, a coffee or a hot chocolate. That has allowed me to see with compassionate eyes the things they do today, even though those things influence me too to understand the story of Lourdes was key for Manuel when it comes to accompanying her in managing her jealousy. There were times when she was angry from her own thoughts and then paid for it with

him, which clearly responded to the defensive. She was greatly helped to understand how her partner could feel every time he turned to him aggressively, if he faced an emotional wound or injury. We know the mechanisms that are activated, in what way, when and why we will understand many of the symptoms with which we live to pass from yet I do not know what happens to me within an hour. I get it. I may not solve the whole problem,

but it relieves you a lot and makes you feel less. Weird bug is a start and my hope is that this book is helping you to analyze everyday situations like this. Urdes was very helpful in understanding that jealousy is simply an emotion, that it is neither good nor bad, that it is born from a mixture of fear and goes to emotions that have to do with the activation of the attachment system and that play with our mind. And this allowed him to make some peace. With her pain she did not feel mad,

but understood that she remained tremendously alert. When the suspicion was lit, he observed that stimulus had normally activated it. It was anything related to Manuel' s evening departures, with his friends, incoming messages, people who were guided or stopped following on social networks, hours of arrival at home and discussions between them and unsolved that had little to do with third people, but rather with

problems of coexistence. Although Manuel wasn' t a saint and he didn' t do everything perfectly, he didn' t do anything out of the ordinary either. But of course, those things that bothered Urdes instead of talking to his partner, she took them to the extreme because of the pain caused by his emotional wound. That is why every discussion ended up being an odyssey in which Manuel felt attacked and lords offended and misunderstood to understand how the mind works

in these situations. My patient followed these steps, analyzing how her body responded, thinking, behavior, emotion, and physical symptoms. He remembered the metaphor of the triangle and the confirmatory bias that you' ve already read in I love you I want the tendency to favor, seek me out the RNS and remember the information that confirms your own previous beliefs, obviating other alternatives. Then he remembered how much the brain likes to relive the past and react to it

as if it was happening at this very moment. Now you know why it happens. This fell into the account of the ravages caused by the phenomenon of him catastrophism concept that I explain to you later on and in the end, I saw the ease with which we strengthen behaviors and thoughts that make the cycle of the checkup go to more becoming addicted to it. This is usually done with the help of a therapist who links the symptoms you have with your own

story. In the case of Lourdes, she had developed an anxious attachment after her past toxic relationship and had learned to be hypervigilating by the fear of being abandoned, rejected and humiliated. Again, the same tools he used. He then continued to use it in his relationship with Manuel so that this hypothetical abandonment would not happen. The problem was that he was now using them for a situation that was not threatening at all, so they gave him more pain and

suffering. It was like he was trying to kill the hunger with the desire to eat. Although at first the formula works and generates calm, over time, the cycle is reinforced, the discomfort increases and the tool learned this alqueo tastes little, it is like an addiction. The person needs another tool, almost always related to control to be able to generate well- being quickly. People who perform the cycle of the checkup add up to another malaise consider that

they are morally not doing well. It' s not right. Don' t trust the couple and gossip their stuff without them knowing The idea is to determine exactly what tools you have to do. In this way, Lourdes realized that she had to abandon her check- up behavior once and for all. He found it very difficult, because it' s something that, as you

know, we end up developing addiction. But he got it every time he wanted to control, something resorted to the technique of dead time, that is, he completely evaded that situation and began to do anything else incompatible with the checkup. For example, he went to the gym, started cooking, went to his mother' s house, etcetera. To make it easier for herself. He turned off his cell phone and left it in another room. Six learn to live in the present. Our mind tends to project us into the

past or the future. When it transports us into the past, we tend to ruminate things that might have been and were not things related to responsibility, guilt, failure. We repeat these situations in our head over and over again and keep us in a time that will no longer return, preventing us from living and enjoying the present when the mind transports us to the future. Instead, we imagine possible runs situations that give us fear, but that probably never

happen. The present moment is the only one that we can truly control to return to it. When his head decided to travel, Lourdes set in motion the next point seven, practicing physical relaxation seems silly, but eye because it can make a difference. Conscious breathing greatly helped Lourdes in her personal work. It allowed him to connect with the present and regulate his state of hypervigilance. As he breathed rhythmically, his nervous system relaxed and his emotions and thoughts lost

intensity. Lourdes followed the instructions of several breathing techniques that I detail in the box or conscious breath of chapter five, so that you too can put them into practice when you need it. Lourdes had to restructure many of her beliefs about love and couple relationships. Remember that this information you have in me I love you But beyond that, you had to learn to recognize that thoughts had an irrational basis and could not be argued in a logical way in order to

be able to exchange them for rational thoughts. He tended to compare himself to other girls. Your coworker' s got a bigger chest than me. I ' m sure he likes more rational thinking. Your partner is with you because he loves you and values you for something more than your physique. Remember all the things he always tells you he likes about you and if he' s

never asked you questions. Having large breasts can be attractive, but it doesn ' t define a person much less, it determines someone' s feelings for her. He made many arbitrary inferences, i e he jumped to negative conclusions without having any empirical evidence that could support his thoughts. Come on, he was making the movie of his life. He' s talking a lot about this. Friend, I' m sure you have something else with her rational

thinking. People can have friends while in a couple relationship. They are not exclusive links to each other. Also, talking to someone does not imply wanting to have a sexual or partner relationship with that person. Never upload photos with me to social media. That' s because he doesn' t want me

to think rationally. Social networks are not real life and love is shown in many other more important and relevant ways than posting a photo on an Internet profile that doesn' t show you on their social networks is not enough reason to

think that your partner doesn' t love you. I was disqualifying the good things I had I consider myself an intelligent person, but that' s not worth anything, because then my boyfriend talks to other girls and I' m sure it' s because they' re more interesting than me rational thinking you ' re smart and you have to value all the times you have to be, because that' s a good thing you' re going to have. Whenever your partner talks to other women doesn' t mean he wants to have

them as a couple. If he' s with you, it' s because he wants to be. If I didn' t want to have you as a couple, I wouldn' t be with you. I guessed his boy' s intentions. He tells me to go out to the movies and have dinner, but I' m sure it' s because I got mad at him this morning and he does it to please me, not because he should be something you value in a positive way, since it is a way really wants rational thinking, even if he does it to please you. It

of showing interest in you and the relationship. If you want to stick to everything, you can do it. It' s easy. You just have to attribute bad intentions to every gesture. But why would I have bad intentions with you to someone who loves you and is proving it to you. I think you can just enjoy and it' s already over generalizing situations related to your own emotional state. Today I have fallen back on checking behaviors I will

always be so I will never get better rational thinking. Just because you' ve fallen back today doesn' t mean you' re always gonna be wrong. We can all have a bad day, fall back or make a mistake. It' s okay. It' s human. When it happens, it' s time to get up and go on. In the end you ' ll get it, you can' t give up that easily. You need perseverance and dedication. For this it is not important to have a broad knowledge of the world of emotions in general, but a broad knowledge of your

emotions for it. Lourdes, if I work to answer the following questions, when do those emotions appear that are unpleasant to you. Lourdes' s response when I feel that my partner may be hiding something from me which notes Lourdes ' s response upset what name you would name them, if you' re not clear about it, you could say what emotions it usually relates to. That you notice Lourdes' s response jealousy will be afraid. Where Lourdes'

s response notes on the chest. Feeling these emotions in the chest tells us that Lourdes has overactivated the sympathetic system and that it is generating stress. Chest pain is a typical symptom of anxiety. Remember that the body generates three, because the head interprets that there is a danger from which we have to escape or against which we have to fight. This reaction has many senses and we

take into account that Lourdes' emotions are related to fear. In addition, it is known that by inertia, fear activates brain areas capable of activating. In turn, the brain area of the IRA, like a desk pendulum, is the area of the body in which you feel bad about being in Lourdes ' s answer if you know what those emotions are for and what they are doing the moment Lourdes' s response appears, fear serves to alert me to a danger that I think is happening in this case, that my partner abandons

me and anger is there to defend me from that danger. Since when Lourdes ' s response notes, since I think my partner cheats on me, how you think Lourdes' s response is affecting you, condition me to face my partner by feeling jealous. My brain relates what happens at that time to what I lived in the past, my emotional wound, and how it was very painful for me. Now he' s trying to defend me from that danger through emotions. My brain considers my partner my source of distress ergo my enemy.

That' s why I have aggressive behavior with him. You can find some way to weld the situation without letting yourself be carried away by emotions. Lourdes' s answer. When I identify these emotions, I have to calm them before acting How you can regulate their intensity. Lourdes' s answer.

I can cry and download what I' m sorry for going out and going around writing what I think and I feel to see it with another perspective, practicing breathing four I saw four script eight you' re going to find out what' s in a couple of pages, commenting with my partner what' s happening to me. All of that will help me better than to face him impulsively or repeat checking behaviors. Evidently, Lourdes gave these answers after having

been working on several sessions and co- educational emotions. At this point we try to learn new patterns of behavior in the situations in which we feel most

vulnerable. Lourdes learned to calm down before starting a discussion with her partner, to express her or mons without fear of feeling that she was doing anything wrong and without fear of feeling judged by her partner or herself, not to perceive herself as a toxic person, since she understood that the problem was not her, but what she had learned in the past, exposing her concerns assertively,

without attacking her partner eleven to enhance self- esteem. With all these points that we worked previously, Lourdes gained a lot of confidence in herself, but she still had the most important thing to do with compassion, something that we will see in the last chapter, the most magical of the book not the traps and she continues to read in order. You' ll see that it

all makes a lot more sense. Right now, Lourdes is feeling much better and we see each other from time to time in follow- up consultations, in which we talk about the situations that occur in the relationship and review some important aspects. So far, she remains happily paired with Manuel, who was of great help throughout Lourdes' s personal work ponto, as he did his best to understand her and bring her the peace and confidence she needed, without

acting defensively or invalidating her emotional state. Conscious breathing, this is something that brings us back a lot to the present. We already know that breathing is a technique that helps us to relax physically, but it also helps to relax our mind. When we breathe consciously, we can stop those thoughts that torment us, evade them, and think about what is happening right now, not in my head, but at this moment, when we are aware of our

breathing, our body, and the things around us. We anchor to the present like when we get home after a night of partying and unbridled. We lay down in bed and everything turns around, but then we put a foot on the floor and it looks like we stabilized a little bit. I' m in my room. There' s absolutely nothing wrong with it. I am not in danger, with which in front of me there is nothing to face. It' s all in my head. In the next section.

I' ll explain a little more about how to work those thoughts that torment you. But now let' s see how to practice breathing. Conscious of the technique of the four script, four script eight. Here are the steps to carry out this simple technique. Step one, take air from your nose slowly until you fill your lungs. You can count four seconds during the process, don' t lift your chest, expand your abdomen outwards. Step two, hold the air for four seconds. Keep your abdomen swollen. Step three,

slowly eject the air through the mouth. You can count eight seconds while you do it during the process of zincha the abdos trick to perfect. The technique performs the lying place hands above the abdomen to notice how it goes up and down. An interesting variation of this technique is to place a candle lit in front of you at an equivalent distance along your arm. Exercise is to prevent the flame from turning off. This allows you to better control the inlet

and exit of the air. The magic word can also associate the state of relaxation with a word choose a magic word that will help you decrease anxiety. I usually use the English word relax. Then follow the next steps. One sit down and try to relax two. Take a deep breath, keep the air in your lungs and slowly eject three as you breathe out. Imagine in

detail how your body and muscles are relaxing completely. Four, re- inspire deeply and in the next aspiration say very slowly for your insides the word relax. Five, when you get to x, you must have gone all over your body mentally relaxing it. Six, repeat the exercise every time you get a chance. You will see that, little by little your magic word becomes more effective so that it serves in emotions, so that, as lords,

you can train in the handling of your emotions. I' m going to leave you here an essential knowledge the goal of each of the basic emotions in my book Love Your Sex You have a wheel where each and every secondary emotion such as jealousy, frustration, humiliation, guilt, etcetera, appears related to their primary or basic emotions. If you decide to feel, for example, guilt with the wheel, you will realize that guilt is related to shame and,

at the same time, to the primary emotion of fear. If you know what the relationship between the two is for, you' ll always be able to determine quite more accurately what that guilt does to your body at that time. Fear warns you of a danger allows you to run away anger. It activates you in the face of danger, it helps you fight it. It helps you set limits sadness, allows you to perform introspection. It helps you, in times of mourning, to reposition yourself and look for your place

in the disgusting world. It allows you, to turn away from those things that generate physical or emotional rejection. Surprise can be positive or negative depending on the events. It allows you to prepare for unexpected events. Happiness reinforces those things that make you feel good so that you repeat them again by catastrophism. One of the things that Lourde Wax told me. I don' t want

to get home early in case she' s with someone else. She took it for granted that her partner was with someone else and that any day she was going to catch them was, as if she knew Manuel was cheating on her and her mission was to discover them. But at the same time I would not want for the suffering that that could cause him. With that phrase, my patient made it clear that his mind had activated a more common tool

than you believe in catastrophism. Catastrophic thoughts appear as a defense mechanism. They anticipate what is to come in a magnified and apocalyptic way, that is, that the brain tends to imagine the worst possible situation. Thus, we try to find explanations for something that happens to us, prevent situations and visualize possible and catastrophic futures. Most likely not half of what you imagine will happen, but as it is in your mind, you live it without dye before as

if it were something real. With this, the body tends to respond with the typical symptoms of anxiety. And this happens because the brain wants to prepare us for the worst and be ready for when all that we imagine comes, although objectively it may never come the way we think. Therefore, this strategy does not serve us much more than to develop anxiety for things that may not

actually happen. Your brain doesn' t like you to suffer and be anxious, but from the moment you think the worst is up until you know what ' s really going on, it prefers to be prepared and alert to what it thinks is coming. Thus our mind takes advantage of anxiety as an activation tool for the analysis of dangerous situations and the search for solutions. My brain does this many times. I' ve already given him a degree in Catastrophology

and the sciences of misfortune, honor tuition. I have this pattern of thought.

It is very typical in people who suffer anxiety and phobias and is not necessarily given out of fear of infidelities, but also for other fears, such as fear of death, of being locked up somewhere, of something happening in a public place with many people and not being able to receive medical help easily, of having a car accident, of suspending exams, of a dismissal from work, of having a terminal illness, we spend half our life suffering for

things that are probably not going to happen. I don' t want to

get home early in case she' s with someone else. It is a catastrophic thought, because in her mind, Lourdes is living the worst possible situation that can imagine her partner being unfaithful to her in her own home, a territory that she considers a refuge and notice that for more sinri reacts by delaying her return home, so the thought not only remains in something ethereal of the mind, but also conditions her behavior to work these catastrophic thoughts PS first the

i n Stins, we explained and then we tried to look for alternatives and less catastrophic more rational, as we did in step eight with all the thoughts that we analyzed. Some of the questions that helped him to work on his catastrophe were as follows. What evidence do I have that this is going to happen that I fear Lourdes' answer is none? What evidence do I have that what I want isn' t really Lourdes' s answer? My partner

loves me and proves it to me every day. If this thing that I fear happened, what would be the answer of lords would leave my partner even if I had a bad time, but I would try to redo my life and there is already the paradox of fear. Whenever these catastrophic thoughts appeared, he answered these questions and realized that he had no solid evidence to support his fear. Another thing that helped her a lot was a phrase that I always

say in a rather black mood. The truth is, if I have to die, then I die and that' s it and we took it figuratively. Of course, no one cares about dying, but it' s something that if it has to happen, it will happen and no one will be able to avoid it. Evidently, you' re not going. Over there, playing with death. Huy look, I' m tied up on the train tracks, but what I mean is that whatever care you have, however much you want to avoid death at all costs. When the time comes for

you, it' ll come to you. You can' t be all the time avoiding dangers, just because life is full of dangers. In the end, living means taking risks. We have to live without doing crazy things, but we have to live and we have to do it without thinking about all the bad things that can happen to us at every step we take, because if fear kidnaps our mind, then we will not be living. Even staying at home has some risks. That' s why if I have to

die, then I' m dying. This is very paradoxical to take the car thinking I hope I don' t have an accident. I don' t want to die. It usually makes us alert and, therefore, more clumsy behind the wheel. Fear conditions, however, to think good if I have to die, because I die, gives you as more freedom, because somehow it frees you from fear. As I say, obviously, this thought will not condition you in doing the opposite, which would be very crazy on

the road, but it serves to free the mental burden from suffering. Your responsibility in this case is to seek, follow the rules of movement and be a good citizen. As long as you do that, nothing has to happen. Urdes was very funny about this phrase and applied it to his fear, so every time he noticed that anxiety took hold of it he said if I have to die, for I die, that is, if my partner cheats on me, then I put them on. If it has to happen,

it will pass. I can' t help it. My only responsibility is to take care of my relationship. As much as I control what my partner does or stops doing. This behavior is not going to rid me of an infidelity and if it happens I will stop and stop and seriously. This applies to virtually any fear of intrusive thoughts. Intrusive thoughts are unpleasant, unwanted and involuntary ideas or images that appear in the mind spontaneously and are unrelated to other

thoughts and activities. Sometimes they are even contrary to their own principles. People who suffer from it, who are many, often feel a lot of fear and anguish and relate that such thoughts are frightening, obsessive, or disturbing and that they can do nothing to avoid what or what they may control. Often these people have the feeling of becoming crazy, given the level of physiological, behavioral, emotional and cognitive activation that introsive thinking provokes them, but nothing further

from reality. Precisely being aware of that state is an indicator of good prognosis. Some intrusive thoughts are related to attacks on a loved one, sexual behavior or crimes. These are things that you know perfectly well that you would never do, but whose idea appears spontaneously and just thinking about it causes a lot of discomfort. Another case of jealousy on this retrospective occasion is that of Jesus, a forty- two- year- old boy married to Sonia of forty.

He had been 17 years, practically from the beginning of the relationship, feeling the retrospectives of an ex of his partner, because one day he told her he reminded him a little bit. Since then, Jesus’ head has not stopped spinning. He researched Alex saw pictures of him and began to feel that this person was prettier, smarter and more interesting than him. My patient told me that although their current relationship was very good and Sonia was a love,

he felt quite insecure when these thoughts appeared. When I feel that jealousy for no reason, I show myself distant, I tell myself about it. Sonia realizes and tells me again the same thing she always tells me to calm me down, but at that moment it doesn' t help me. Although Sonia was being great the accompaniment Jesus did not feel calm. That was because he had never done personal work, which was the piece of puzzle he lacked.

When I start to think, horrible images come to my head that I wish I didn' t have how I asked how I imagine them in bed and when those thoughts come to you, they just do it, or there ' s some stimulus that shoots them come alone. He fell apart, had been struggling with those thoughts for years and no longer knew what to do so that his head wouldn' t show them to him anymore. It was recomposed as it could and continued, although I must confess that they were not always

spontaneous. It all started with comparisons and whole afternoons consciously feedback this whole move. Well, that' s where we had the key. This seemed to be a complicated case, bearing in mind that rumination was something that had been going on for a long time, so it probably took the stripe at first and turned around it was a habit that had been generated over the years,

giving rise to a mechanism more than automated intruding thoughts. Jesus and I were working many of the techniques you' ve already seen, but as far as intrusive thoughts were concerned, there was a tool that served him a lot or or or prayed them without realizing it. Every time I paid attention to them, we were strengthened to worry about intrusive thoughts and thus to try to control or prevent them. It was worse because it was giving the phenomenon more importance

than it had. Those thoughts lacked logical content. They didn' t serve him at all in real life. The more he listened to them, the worse he felt and the stronger they appeared later. Jesus should stop paying attention to them, not without first working on the emotional burden with which he had associated them. His emotional wound. In his case, this had to do with the control he learned to exercise over himself throughout his life. He always

felt little and though he had never experienced a breakup or infidelity before. As Lourdes grew up with very demanding parents, they wanted their son to be someone of benefit, so, with all the love in the world and thinking they were doing him a favor, they tightened his nuts more than once. Indeed, Jesus went to a man of profit. He ended up working as a

surgeon in a very prestigious hospital, but not without paying a price. The obsession with controlling their environment resorted to this tool in order to be meticulous in their studies. He considered that controlling everything was part of his professional success. So, well, it wasn' t that bad either. The problem was that I was using the same mechanism to generate mental tranquility, something that never came because, as you can imagine, that tool was no longer useful,

because it is not the same to handle emotions as surgical instruments. His Mind was trying to control all the information at all times and when things didn' t go as he hoped, it would fall apart. If his mind did not shut up when he wanted it or his anxiety could be very upset. This in psychology is called the discomfort of discomfort, that is, you no longer feel bad about what happens to you, but for not knowing how to manage what happens to you. Jesus, these thoughts have the weight you want

to give them. He looked at me with a skeptical face and I laughed at him. I know you' re wrong, and it' s normal to be wrong after everything you' ve told me about. But you' ve come to feel good and be able to handle these situations. No, you have to listen to me in your head. There' s one thing that' s real right now and it' s whatever you' re thinking I don' t understand you. He managed to say yes, the brain does not distinguish between reality and fiction. So, he thinks all the moves

you get in your head are real. You' ve ever had a hard time watching a scary movie. Yes, he responded attentively with a look that gave up waiting to see where he wanted to go with that conversation. Well, that' s because your mind thinks what' s happening on the screen is real. But not only that. I' m going to explain what your head does in these situations with a metaphor Vale got into his chair, leaned his elbows on the table and stared at the folio in which I clumsily

started drawing a car. Imagine that your mind is a highway through which thousands of cars pass a day. These cars are actually thoughts. You know how many go through the day on our highway twenty- six thousand, but we only look at two or three. Why you' ll see we have a kind of barrier like on highways, it really filters that cars are more or less important. If you fix your attention on a particular car, for example,

the blue one, the rest will give you the same. Imagine that you are on the journey, attentive to the cars that pass and cross the blue car for the first time. It is a very nice color and, as you like it very much, you decide to stop it by lowering the barrier and you start to observe all the details of the car. You turn around and think oh leather seats and white body. I love it. You

' ve got six gears. What happened when you think you' re done reviewing it, you climb up the barrier and let it go a lot of cars of all colors, orange, red, green, white. But those guys don' t break down the barrier,' cause you like blue. When you see a blue car approaching the toll again, you prepare and lower the barrier again to stop it. You seemed to have seen it all before,

but apparently you still have some more details left to analyze. Once you ' ve gone over it again from top to bottom, you climb up the barrier and let the car continue its path. This process can be repeated so foolishly. As you wish, the car is just a car, but you, every time you stop it, are giving it a different sense, which makes every time you see it coming you feel the need to lower the barrier.

Remember that the blue car is the thought you' ve given emotional content to, but you decide and lower the barrier or not, so I have to stop lowering the barrier. Exactly. The more times you stop that empty thought and the more turns you give it, the more emotional burden it will bring and the more times it will be repeated. You think the brain would stop to look at a thought that' s not relevant to him. No,

there you go. After more than a year working very hard and with the help of medication at the beginning of therapy, Jesus managed to get rid of those blessed thoughts, enjoy more of his relationship and be able to feel at peace with himself. It is true that even today he confesses to me that from time to time he still smells the blue car in the distance and that, although on some occasion he has lowered the barrier, most of the

times he lets it pass without interacting with him as a professional. I have to say that I am very proud of Jesus the emotional wound of the other. Let' s see now the case of a couple of camila girls and I decided twenty- six and twenty- eight years respectively, who came to my office. In this case it looks great how some tools save you at some point in your life, but over time and in other very different circumstances

they end up becoming a problem in themselves. They both came to my office to discuss their relationship as a couple, so I was able to analyze they handled their discussions very badly, whatever the issue would trigger their anger. Neither managed to understand the other. Each was obsessing in their own opinions and loved acting defensively. When I treated them separately, I could learn their respective pre

- relationship stories. Camila had had a toxic and dependent relationship years before she had made her develop an evasive attachment and I will say she was a person charged with a lot of insecurity and fears due to the anxious attachment she had developed since childhood because of the ambivalent relationship she had with her parents before she met I would say she had learned to distrust everyone and Camila to be defensive

about anything that could hurt her one day, I witnessed one of her discussions and came to a conclusion that she undoubtedly marked even before and after in the couple. Activating her emotional wounds every time they argued was what separated her. More and more I will say exposed in a session an insecurity that Camila generated unconsciously. Every time she got angry with her, she stopped talking to her for a few hours, and that made me decide to be afraid because it

made her think Camila was thinking of leaving the relationship. In this way, the wound of decision would wake up and his brain would throw away imagination that his partner would remain silent for so many hours. He had the warning system activated for possible abandonment. It gave the emotional inconsistency of the parents I had grown up with. Saying, I' d learned that people who love you one day can be there and the next day they won' t. After

the account of Camila decided, he became angry. I just need that time to calm down. I do it with the best intention, and he takes it that way. Camila undoubtedly felt attacked during the years of toxic relationship with her partner. He had learned to protect himself emotionally, fleeing conflict situations. Her ex manipulated her and carried in her all the problems that arose in the relationship that they said. I didn' t understand I needed that space.

It made him feel responsible for something that he could not control in any other way and, therefore, also activate his emotional wound and get defensive, showing weariness for the situation. This, in turn, further fed the idea of saying that it could be abandoned. And so to infinity I transferred my conclusion to them. Girls, you realize that you activate each other the emotional wounds of the past. They both shut up instantly and looked at me seriously.

Every time you argue, you do it from your pain, without understanding the pain of those facing a reflective silence reigned for several seconds. You know the past of the other, but do not understand how it is influencing you in the present. I continued Every time you argue, look at only your own navel and forget that you have someone in front of you who has also suffered not without consequences. With your behavior you activate your deepest fears and react to

the present conflict as if it were that of the past. The same emotions, s s s ns, the same defense mechanisms. I will say your partner is not your parents, Camila, your partner is not your ex both kept quiet after a while of sirea, felt and whispered. How I can react otherwise is not up to you alone. Camila has to do her part. They bowed to me attentively and I began to talk to them about the importance of empathy in a relationship, whatever kind it may be without the ability

to understand each other' s pain. We can' t have healthy relationships. Camila had the right to take her time of reflection after a discussion that she didn' t want to get worse with her strong temper, but knowing that that caused fear in her partner, it was her responsibility to communicate what she was going to do so that she decided not to think the worst as

long as she stayed away. By communicating it, it would generate the sense of stability in the relationship I decided to need and over time it would understand that an angry Camila didn' t have to mean the end of the relationship. The solution was easy and difficult at the same time because both had learned to protect themselves from emotional suffering, each with different tools, say, putting in place hypersurveillance and adopting alert and camilla behaviors, getting defensive and having bursts

of anger but surely functional at some point in their life. The problem was that those tools had ceased to serve and only gave even more feedback on the pain. His main task now was not to perceive himself as enemies. The importance of empathy in cases where we activate the emotional wounds of the people around us, in addition to knowing their history, is very, very important to practice empathy. Empathy is the ability to put oneself in the other person'

s place and understand what he may be feeling in a given situation. This, this, this, this, this. It has nothing to do with guessing or reading thought, but it has more to do with intuiting what may be happening to a person, whether good or bad. Empathy can be applied in any relationship, but I think it' s even more logical for us

to consider putting it into action with people we love. That' s why I' m going to give you the keys so you can start working on it You' ll see how different your discussions are, whether as a couple with friends or with a relative. One listens attentively without interrupting or judging two. While listening, try to imagine that you would feel in a situation similar to the one that the person is describing to you. Don' t give yourself away. In your opinion, try to understand other points of view.

For you, it' s very important for you, I know, but for the person who' s bringing you his vision of things. Their perception is also very important. Four, remember that there are as many realities of the same fact as two people. Five expresses that you understand what the other

person is moving you. This is essential for communication, as it is not the same to understand and not to say what to understand and transmit that understanding seems a minor detail, but remember that the other person cannot guess what you are thinking. You can prove your understanding. So it' s normal for you to be angry if you saw it this way, this is what you ' re going through, it seems very stressful. It had to be really hard on you. You must feel very sad. I understand your point of

view. I, in your place, would be angry, too. It ' s terrible. You' re right. I' m sorry you had to go through this giving a hug, exchanging understanding looks. Empathy will allow us to recognize and embrace the vulnerability of those in front of us and show it to others will give us the opportunity to create a climate of calm and serenity that is perfect to advance in any relationship. It is the ideal tool to feel that we play in the same team. I know it' s

hard to practice understanding when we' re part of the conflict. It' s hard to get out of our pain to understand someone else' s, but believe me it' s in these cases that we have to use empathy the most. When someone understands the pain we feel, it loses intensity and that makes us see things more clearly. The keys to healthy communication, healthy

communication is accurate and effective communication. To practice it is necessary to take into account your own emotions and opinions, as well as the emotions and opinions of the other person. The goal is to generate a space that invites expression and understanding, one in which neither side feels threatened. To make yourself comfortable in

the relationship. To do this, we need to negotiate, express our wishes, set limits, feel supported and supported, talk confidently about issues that concern us, not just feel that whoever we have next door is not our enemy. To have healthy relationships, we need to have uncomfortable conversations. Discussing isn ' t bad, as you' ve thought all your life, it' s no longer worth saying we' re fine because we don' t argue.

We have finally understood that generating spaces for dialogue is something necessary to continue to grow in all relationships. We need to talk about feelings of the future, of the past, of longings, of things that hurt and things that make us happy. Discussions are opportunities to express discomfort, recognize mistakes, ask forgiveness and find solutions. The discussions that are generated within the same team always go well for all parties. The ones generated between rival teams never go well

and only feed the selfishness of one of the parties. But what' s the point of having a relationship, then how I was called one of my team' s psychologists. You can imagine Bensema playing against Amos wines. They are Real Madrid players, but it would be absurd if they tried to face each other in the same game, because they would never be able to score a goal. However, if masters are perceived as part of a team that pursues the same goal and plays together, the chances of winning will be greater.

Well, in interpersonal relationships, the same thing happens. The mutual goal is supposed to be together. Right. In addition, understanding the discussions as a space for struggle and self- profit generates much more problems than benefits. When we understand conflicts in terms of winning or losing, we learn that having a serious conversation is unpleasant. It gave the lack of empathy and assertiveness that

often occurs in this context. We prefer not to talk about emotions or important issues so we don' t have to face something we don' t like. The problems become entrenched and, when they burst out, they may seem bigger than they really are. If after this have increased your desire to learn to discuss in a healthy way. I' ll leave you with some guidelines that I consider essential. One looks for a better time in person, in

a quiet environment and without haste. Expressing anger or talking about important things by Whatsapp or similar platforms is never a good option. Two respects word shifts and listens. Not to stop talking to the other person is a way to invalidate his speech and his way of seeing things don' t comets. The error of making one' s own speech without letting the other speak, because it will give the impression that you are not even interested in their problem, and

that will cause a defensive posture on their part. Three, focus on your needs and make the ss understand the other person. Remember that to communicate correctly you must take into account the well- being of the other when making the request. The feeling of being a team must always be present. Four, be specific in your requests, focus on the problem, don' t go

through the branches or chain some topics with each other. If you do, the other person can get overwhelmed and have the feeling that you raise many issues, which can lead to thinking that the situation is intractable and even respond only to part of the conversation, ignoring the part that is important to you something that can offend you five criticizes behaviors, not the person, do not use. This formula you' re an X and it makes me feel this way

of saying things directly attacks the other person. On the one hand, it makes him feel that he has no solution, because we allude to a way of being quite difficult to change, so we risk being answered. That' s who I am. So, on the other hand, we are transferring responsibility for our emotions. What the other person can do with our emotions we

risk being told. That' s up to you when we get attacked, we get angry, and when we get angry, it decreases the probability of empathizing with each other, so we usually respond by attacking, you also better use this when you do X. I feel and with this formula we take responsibility for our own emotions and make the other person understand that part of responsibility

has about their behavior, and the behavior is always easier to change. Attacking the other person will only drive you further away from the problem, an apology, a change and a possible solution. Six, practice sincerity, not syncericide. Not by saying what you think as you think. You' re doing things. Well, your truth is not absolute. Seven accept. The other person has his own emotional backpack and that will make a difference about you and

your way of looking at things. Eight don' t attribute intentionality when they hurt us. We tend to attribute to other negative intentions. But the truth is that many times people who have done something that has hurt us didn' t have the slightest intention of harming us nine. Don' t let your anger talk for you To argue is not to scream, or ironize, or use sarcasm. All this can cause a defensive attitude in the other person and what he intended to make a safe space can become a hostile space. Ten

think of the bond that unites you to discuss. Being a team, you have to remember that you are. After all, you have a person you love very much in front of you. Don' t perceive her as your enemy eleven and don' t generalize. It is very easy to fall into generalizations. Expressions like you never do anything right or you' re always the same are very harmful. We usually say them when we' re angry,

and that' s just the problem. Imagine that the other person is trying, with all his good intentions, to carry out one of the requests you made to him days ago. Changes take time, so there will be times when I can actually act on that change and times when I don' t. If you tell him, you' re always the same, you'

re ruining all the small advances he could have made in consultation. It is very typical to hear this and I always try to correct it, because the reaction of the person who receives that comment is always common, because I don ' t know what I try to do. Then I step twelve reinforces. We always forget this. We focus on criticism and don' t think about what the other person does right. A criticism or request for change is always

more effective when inserted with a reinforcement. For example, Mom, I really like that you worry about our wedding and advise us, but we would also like to consider other options to see which one convinces us the most. I ' m so grateful you made the effort of him. I don' t reinforce him, because that must be the case. It' s a real thing, too, everyone. We like to be recognized for the things we do well and that is also mental health. Thirteen do self- criticism and

apologize for pride. We have to put it aside. Some examples. Excuse me. I didn' t know what I said could hurt you. It wasn' t on purpose or thanks, I misinterpreted the situation. Forgive me fourteen and Greek too, especially don' t forget empathy. Affective responsibility is also to understand that, although I can say what I think or feel, I must take into account how the other person can feel with my words.

Emotional validation before entering into matter you need to know the following. Validating an emotion does not mean agreeing with the thought or conduct that accompanies it. Remember what thought, emotion and behavior are different dimensions in a person and that sometimes there is no harmony between them. All emotions are nourished by some cause, known or unknown. That' s why it' s important to validate them, because you never know what can be behind them. You never know what

emotional injuries other people carry. Although we can' t avoid emotions if we can regulate them, but think of something we can' t avoid. First of all, asking indirectly that the other person quickly get rid of them with phrases like you shouldn' t feel like that is unfair, since he can

' t do anything about it at the time. Also, while some possibility of decreasing the intensity of emotion or of making some immediate thought change by saying that phrase, we would be reducing the chances that that person will be able to make it, since we would only generate frustration So, phrases like you that we saw in I love you don' t work for so much seriously either. You' re crying. That' s why you' re so overreacted, you little shit. You' re always worried the same way you

' re upset about everything, you' re so whiny. You don' t have to be like that. Validation and empathy allow us to heal bonds. Here are some phrases that will help you validate others' emotions. I understand you can feel that way. The weird thing would be that what you just told me didn' t affect you. You have a right to feel that way. But mine does understand what you feel. I' m sorry you feel that way. There' s something I can do to help you. I' m here for whatever you need. You want a hug,

if you need to cry, cry, it' s okay. I know I can' t do or say anything now to make you feel better, but I want you to know that you can count on me. Whatever you need. It' s okay to feel what you' re feeling. I can' t imagine how hard it has to be to be going through this. I may not agree with your point of view, but I' m sorry I hurt you. I' m so glad you' re happy, but I want to tell you that this thing that has led you to be

happy. He hurt me by x. I respect that you feel that, although I don' t share it, because my opinion is X and I feel and understand your annoyance and anger. I think the other day we didn ' t manage it well and I wanted to argue about it. I understand that you feel that way, even if I don' t agree with your point of view, we can talk about it when we' re both calmer. I' m listening. I don' t know if I can understand how you feel, because it' s something that' s never happened to

me. But I want you to know that I' m here for whatever you need to tell me. Thank you for explaining to me where your anger comes from. Now I can better understand myself I would also like to tell you what hurt me about this discussion. I understand that, perceiving the situation as you describe it, you were angry, but I want you to know that I don' t see him nodding at the other person' s hand. You may not feel the same about the problem, but it' s

also true that we don' t have to feel the same way. I ' m here to hear that point of view you have. It' s very valid. You let me explain mine now, give your emotions space. For me, this isn' t a problem, but I understand that for you it is, so you just told me how you think we can solve it. If I were in your place, I don' t know how I' d feel, but I guess it must be hard. We are two different people and it is normal to feel and think different things. I

didn' t mean to hurt you. I' m so sorry. I sensed the situation in this other way and it explains the revenge in the couple does not work. I know how hard they' ll have you. Emotional injury is the weak point of any person. We can now seem to be strong and intelligent that when they remove it, we fall apart. The emotional wound is our achille heel. What happens when a injured animal is touched by the wound so that it can be cured. He' s attacking you.

It' s normal because your answer is to defend yourself against the pain caused by that manipulation, even if your intention is to heal it in people. The same thing happens when someone does or says something that pinks our wound, we react to the defensive. This is so in any type of relationship,

but it is especially relevant in partner relationships. I' ve seen couples who, after removing each other' s emotional wounds, have thrown their messes over their heads, couples in whom, when one makes some Eastern comment, the other reacts vengefully with hints or painful comments. They' re not supposed to want why they do that. This reaction is typical for those who carry insecurities. These people remain on alert all the time as if they were waiting for

a danger to appear. At any time they analyze the behavior of their partner to detail. They tend to interpret things in a threatening way. That' s why they respond to the defensive. This may be due to fears learned in the past or fears that have been generated within the same relationship. Their reaction is to harm the other person as well, thus seeking justice. If you do something that hurts me I attack you too to see what it feels

like. This attitude is very selfish and makes no sense, since in the long run it generates a loop that causes the link to become toxic. How you can act in a healthy way so as not to fall into vindictive behavior If you are the one who behaves like this. Sometimes we' re not aware that there are things that can hurt each other So, the best thing we can do is ask you to tell us how it makes you feel about

our way of treating you and talking to you. Example, I can say things that, without my intention, hurt you because I don' t know how they can sit you down. That' s why I' m asking you if there' s anything I can change about it, you tell me because I' d like to know. If it' s you who gets that behavior, don' t be angry with the person who' s angry

with what he said. I know there are times when people behave like this on purpose, like revenge, like I just told you, but two don ' t argue if you don' t want to, so I recommend that if you identify it even and pass on to the other person what you just perceived. Example that happened. You' re okay, I' ve done something wrong I can' t bother you. Something' s happened to make you like this. Say what' s bothering you. Don' t be

afraid, but say it from love and in a kind way. Remember that in this type of behavior speaks the person' s wound, not the person himself. Talking about it is a way to set limits. Example, it hurt me a lot that you make me this kind of comment. The other day, a patient would tell me and it can' t be that she gets tired of me because I' m setting a lot of limits. Oh, honey, I better get tired of you,' cause you' re setting a lot of limits that don' t put any and cancel out as

a person. It is not better to set limits and if you do not respect or bother, get out of there as soon as possible, I ask and well, I think it is obvious, but I remind you that sometimes it takes time to calm down before starting a conversation. It' s something you must also take into account. Now, if not with these, the thing goes well, and this behavior is something that one of the two parts

or both repeats over and over again. I' m so sorry, but you must know it' s toxic behavior that can destroy the relationship in a matter of time. Ask yourself if that' s really where you want to be. Remember that in a couple we have to perceive how to look at a team that plays for the same purpose a healthy relationship and not as two rivals that pursue opposite goals, because for that it is better not to have

a couple relationship. Throughout the book he has witnessed the different types of attachment that we people possess. We have talked about secure attachment and unsafe attachment. We' ve seen the good part and the not so good part of each of them. And while it is true that an insecure attachment will pose more difficulties in relating to oneself and others, it cannot be considered a disease or

a problem in itself. However, even though it is not a disease or a characteristic that makes good or bad people who possess it, it is advisable to work in unsafe attachment in order to establish healthy bonds and become a refuge for ourselves and for others. So, to start getting into the end of this painful but hopeful personal journey, I' m going to show you the difference between the shelter people and the absent people so you see the important thing

is that they are the first people absent. They are people who, even though they are physically, are not emotionally available, as they are often too busy with their jobs and problems or too tired to pay attention to your things. They may be emotionally unstable, although sometimes they may be present emotionally, sometimes not, which makes you unclear when you can turn to them and when

they don' t usually generate a certain ambivalence. I don' t know if the relationship is going well or they don' t have a hard time giving recognition. By excess or default, they never get to connect well with others. There are people who are absent who sometimes react disproportionately and others who may seem insensitive. Example, I guess you fall down and make yourself a

wound. You' re bleeding quite a lot and they probably have to give you stitches, but it' s not serious that a gauze some pressure and a quick visit to the doctor. Do not fix how an absent person would react disproportionately. Oh, my God, help me call an ambulance. You ' re okay, no, no, you haven' t had a wound, how much blood can' t be. This is a mess. He ' s gonna die, he' s gonna cry, he' s in

the grip of nervousness. The person with this pattern of behavior obviously cares about you, but the situation is not so serious as to make that scandal. The problem with this is that you can catch his attitude and believe that what happens to you is life or death. How an absent person would react insensitively

is nothing. Perhaps the person who tells you this doesn' t want you to be afraid of what' s going on, but with his attitude he ' s having an absent behavior, because he' s not attending to the possible emotional needs you have at that time. You may want to cry or be frightened, but with your reaction you are not creating the space for you to express your emotions and you may feel that you cannot share with this person what you really think or feel. As we have seen in this last example.

Sometimes people who are absent, no matter how well they intend, do not know how to reach them because they do not know the way. They have their own emotional backpack as a conditioning pack. For this last reason you should know that if you feel identified in some aspect as an absent person and your intention is good, but you don' t know how to transmit it,

there is a chance to change. So far you have been able to read some guidelines to start with that change in your way of seeing relationships, of with or tirs and of perceiving and that others perceive you. But in the next section you will find several exercises that will help you more. You ' re not alone yet. It is important to note that there are people who are absent for reasons that completely escape their will, such as long hospitalizations,

mental illnesses that prevent them from being emotionally available enough. They already have their own addictions to drugs or gambling, journeys thousands of miles away for a long time, etcetera. Shelter people are people you feel safe with. You can always count on them no matter what you tell them. They' re always trying to understand you. They show you their support when they think you ' ve made a mistake, accompany you to observe the consequences, and help

you make amends if necessary. They' re people who never invalidate your emotions when they don' t know what to say. They just show you they ' re there supporting you. They know how to respect your space, allow your personal development, give space to your emotions. Example, let' s go back to before you fall down and get hurt. How I' d respond to a shelter person and what happened to you. You' re okay, we' re gonna stop the bleeding It' s worth how you find

yourself You need something else. With this pattern of behavior, the person makes it clear that he cares about you, leaves room for you to express how you are and is available for anything you need. At that moment it accompanies you in your emotions, but it does not condition you how I can make the relationship a safe place. Having the kind of attachment you have you can

work your relationships out your way of bonding and responding to intimacy. At this point, I imagine you' ve already come up with an idea of what makes a relationship of any kind a safe place. Now is the time to get to work questions and exercises. I' m going to ask you some questions so you can reflect and start practicing. What makes you feel good in relationships. Think about safe relationships you have with other people, even animals,

and answer what situations used to hurt you in your previous relationships. Make a list of things that usually open up your emotional wounds. If you don' t know what they are right now, you can look at past relationships. I insist not only on a couple how you usually react when emotional wounds open up. What would you like to do instead of using the same tools.

Always when someone or something opens your wounds, what are the things that open the wounds of your environment family are, friends, what can you do to start being a shelter for others. Next, I leave you one of the most powerful exercises I know to work emotional bonds. You can apply it in any kind of relationship. All it takes is good intent and an empathetic attitude. If the relationship in question goes through a delicate moment, I recommend doing

so in the presence of a professional. It answers the following questions that I would like to change from the relationship. Here you can put those things you want to change the relationship, not the person' s eye. The recommendation is that you allude to specific behaviors. Look at this example. Don' t say, I' d like you to be more affectionate if you look.

This is too general. There are people who receive these instructions and do not finish understanding them because they consider that they are already being affectionate in their own way and do not know exactly what to do to be affectionate to the other person better I would like you to give me more hugs. This request

is much clearer than the previous one. If you say you want more hugs, the person knows exactly what you' re asking if I don' t need to be guessing what it' s like to be more affectionate for you. Anyway, of course, we all have the same communication skills. If you fall into this trap, you can always ask the other person for clarification what you mean. When you say you want me to spend more time, with you I can change. I here can put that stuff. You can

change to improve the link in question. Don' t put anything you think you can' t fulfill, because that would cause both you and the other person to generate very high expectations around your behavior, which in turn could be the cause of a feeling of mutual frustration that I like about the relationship.

This section can be dedicated to remembering certain aspects of the relationship, such as, for example, I love when you look me closely in the eyes while I tell you the things that are important to me, or I like them very much when you hug me unexpectedly. A very frequent mistake here is to start reporting that you like to end up focusing on what you don' t like and throw a review. For example, I like to spend time together, although this would be easier if you didn' t work so hard.

This space is to take into account the positive things, those by which the bond is preserved. The space for criticism and requests for change is a little higher. The intention of this step is to reinforce the aspects that make you feel good so that they continue to be repeated. When we try to make the relationship a safe space, not only do we have to focus on changing

the bad things, but we also have to applaud the good ones. This gives us strength and motivation to grow together that I like about the other person. This section is as nice as the previous one. After all the change requests we' ve made, he comes to remember that you have a lot of good things look and you want me to tell you go up to a lot. Self- esteem and I' m a big fan of raising people ' s self- esteem. Here you can put things like I like the

interest you always put in being a better person. I admire your ability to learn or make a delicious coffee. I' ll give you two tips to carry out this exercise. How can I be a shelter person? You can change an unsafe type of attachment to a secure one on a voluntary basis. Yeah, it' s not complicated, but it' s not impossible. Attachment can change, but it takes a lot of personal work and experiences to strengthen it and to help our brain convince itself that it doesn' t have

to interpret things as it has been doing. It is known that the average time for change between some things is four years. I know it seems a lot, but believe me when you go into the world of mind time flies by, because whatever happens to you in life gives you to work and deepen yourself, which makes you more entertaining. There' s one thing you won ' t be able to change and it' s your temper, as it ' s a biological part of your personality. You' re born with a

temper and you die with the same temper. It' s innate. This means that if you usually react to things very intensely, you should learn to live with it. All this, I think there' s nothing wrong with being intense. This is intense number one talking to you. I think that people who live it all in a very intense way, we have the luxury of getting excited with anything, a song, a story, a look we

also suffer a lot. That' s true. We are more sensitive and the least we can be emotionally unbalanced, but learning to live with the intensity of temperament allows us to handle those situations so that they do not overwhelm or overwhelm us every time they occur to us. Anyway, if there' s a part of you that can work and it' s through learning, so let' s do it, things that are going to make you a shelter

person for your partner, friends and family. Staying available if you' re a mother or a father, staying available and being available whenever your children need it is very important. The smaller ones depend on the older ones. However, for the rest of adults you have to remember that you have your own life. Staying available does not mean serving everyone 24 hours a day or meeting the needs of others. The millisecond is, being available b SNS means showing

you' re there. If you' re not going to attend to the other person directly, promise you' ll be there for her in a specific period of time. For example, I can' t right now, but as soon as I get out of work at three o' clock in the afternoon, I' ll call you that, yes, at three o' clock in the afternoon, you call the person. Of course I forgot about Lai. It' s not safe person behavior. It' s not worth the time span being too long, either, so I' ll call you

next month and we' ll talk. Nor is it worth supporting the other person a few kind words, a hug, a kiss, a caress in the hand a look all worth that does watch. Don' t get too deep into other people' s problems that we sometimes start by holding hands, holding hands and offering to the head. It is one thing to give a few words of encouragement and another very different, to make the problem of others your problem and look dear. We' re not here to solve anyone'

s life than ours. We' ve got enough to communicate with you in a healthy way. You know how to do this. You have all the information. In the sixth chapter he will not resort to games or revenge. It' s not worth putting in place stupid love guru tactics of the guy. After meeting him, I' m not going to write him until the second day so he doesn' t think I' m desperate or I don ' t answer him for a while to scratch or to die of wanting to talk to me. Or hurt me. He' s gonna find out now

I' m gonna make him jealous of other people. These behaviors only fuel toxicity in relationships to have affective responsibility in the relationship. Affective responsibility is based on empathy and allows to care for the well- being of the other person. Remember, what you want is to be okay. If both parties work for the welfare of the other, you will gain by caring for the other

person' s discomfort before it becomes too intense. It' s never happened to you that you put your movies on your head, but when you talk to the other person about it, you realize that there really wasn' t any problem to worry about. Or that you' ve banged yourself for a whole week spinning a topic that you' ll then settle in two minutes. This is what I call the snowball phenomenon. I' m sure you remember

this name forever. This phenomenon consists of starting by thinking about something more or less worrying and ending up with a lot of very worrying problems in the head. This activates your sympathetic system and sets in motion all your defense mechanisms. You remember when I explained and loved you, I love you what happened in the interaction in couples made up of a person with anxious attachment and a person

with evasive attachment. The latter tended to resolve the conflict by running away from the stressful situation and the first, by not being able to talk to the other, kept turning and turning everything around. When the evasive returned calmer, the anxious one was ready to explode and roll the brown. Well, then, this rumination, which made the problems bigger in the mind of the anxious,

is the result of the snowball phenomenon. Sometimes we lock ourselves in our own mind, we turn things around, we poison ourselves with our thoughts and when we want to realize it, we' re messing with the other person a pyphostium that you hallucinate. She doesn' t even know where the cakes come from, but that' s where she' s holding the rain. This must be tackled first in order to avoid it and, therefore, to avoid conflicts beyond our control. The best thing is to attend to each other

' s requests as soon as possible. If the other person has trouble showing their emotions. You can always ask, but look if you' re one of those people who answer nothing, when really things do happen. If you answer anything, don' t pretend the other person guesses. Magically your discomfort. If you answer, you will know, don' t pretend that the

other person guesses where your discomfort comes from. If you hang up the phone waiting for me to call you back and not call you, you can be angry if you want, but understand that you would have been better off not hanging up and that if you don' t get the call back, it does well, because it will be respecting your limits. If you leave,

don' t pretend the other person' s after you. If you set a limit, don' t do it with the intention of others exceeding it, because then you are never lost, no one will respect your limits think and if you have really put it with the intention of not respecting it, I don' t know how you see it. You can' t do one thing and expect another completely to shoot what you don' t say doesn ' t exist. If you have any of these behaviors, without no,

you don' t get attention when your desire is to receive it. Don ' t complain. Healthy communication consists of expressing oneself clearly. These protest behaviors make sense in children because they know no other way to express themselves, but remember that in adults they are no longer worth it. We want healthy relationships, but we keep doing the same things we' ve always done. Yeah, you' ve probably normalized these kinds of actions. We' ve seen

it many times in the movies. The girl leaves and the boy chases her because he loves her. But the reality of those typical scenes is that she sets a limit and he passes it through the lining and the thing doesn' t look so pretty anymore than it doesn' t. This is what happens when we romanticize bullying resilience, the ability to overcome difficulties. Personal working time to me. In this respect, I flew away, but it was also

very hard. I' m not gonna lie to you. I cried a lot because I recognized myself and some loved ones in many things that I didn ' t like, but I' ve always been clear that not everything is black or white, that no one is perfect, that the intention is what counts and that, after all, I own my own life. That' s why I never gave up trying to understand and understand the emotional backpacks of others, as well as my own. And for that I was tying up

the lines of everything I was learning in clinical psychology manuals. When I started working on me there was no book that would explain to me with easy words that was attachment. Almost everyone spoke in terms that even I had difficulty understanding and sometimes explained things that had nothing to do with me. But even with the emotional and technical difficulties, I cling to science. I tried to deal with everything with resilience, all that process, no matter how painful it was.

I wasn' t gonna make it come down on me. On the contrary, I was going to give myself even more strength to go out and change my life, just as I wanted. That information was so powerful that, just as he was able to save me, he could have destroyed me, too. But I wasn' t willing to live in discomfort forever. That' s why I put my batteries on and went my way stronger than ever. The information went from being something hurtful to being my best tool,

resilience. That' s what I want you to work on, because it ' ll keep you afloat when you feel like everything' s going wrong. That' s why remember to stay optimistic. Yeah, I know this can ' t be done There' s always moments and moments, but you know what I mean You can have your bad days when you feel bad and you don' t want to know anything about anyone. It' s okay. Tomorrow will be another day. It' s his thing that you don'

t lock yourself in that malaise. If you' re wrong today, take care of yourself, but tomorrow or the day after pulls forward like the one who tries the most to see the good side of things. Trust me, everything has a good side. Acceptance, yes, resignation, does not look at the differences in the following table. Take your share of responsibility. It ' s very comfortable to say my parents diagonal bar, my former diagonal bar. My friends are to blame for everything. You' re throwing balls out

diarrhea. But although in the past some figures or events may have marked you causing an emotional wound, you are the owner of your life and you decide what you' re going to do with your backpack, keep carrying it, while you blame others it will only turn you off a little bit more. Remember the importance of acceptance and ask yourself what I can do with this problem. Trust your abilities. Thanks to them. You' re where you are and you have what you have the tree of self- esteem. I'

m going to propose an exercise. I call it the tree of anger self - esteem. To do this he draws a tree and divides it into three parts, the cup, the trunk and the roots. In the cup you will write each and every one of your successes, as if they were the leaves of the tree, no matter what they are. You don' t have to have a Nobel Prize to consider that you have some success, if you have it congratulations put it clearly, it' s a triumph. What I mean is that any reward can be a success. You don' t

have to have great things to consider success. Sometimes getting up in the mornings and making coffee is already an achievement. You have a career, put it on. You got a job, put it on. You know how to drive, put it on. You' ve managed to take the step of going to therapy. Put it on. Write anything. I want the top of this tree to have a lot of leaves on the trunk. It' s up to you to write those abilities and abilities that have enabled you to

achieve those achievements. Do the same as before. Fill the trunk with all the skills you consider you' ve developed throughout your life. Skills are non - innate things, all those you have learned over time, for example, communicating, drawing, dancing, writing, studying, etc. In the roots you will reflect the personal qualities that have allowed you to develop the skills necessary to achieve your successes. That is, it is time to place in the

drawing the characteristics that form part of your personality. Here are several examples. Brave, persevering, fighting, etcetera. Look at the result you like. That tree reflects how necessary your abilities have been to be able to accomplish all the good things you have today. That' s why he trusts them. Trust you, you have a lot of good things. Be persistent without obsessing.

The results of your efforts do not come overnight and along the way You may fall many times, but always, always get up and go on and if what you pursue never comes, you can quit. It' s okay. The world does not end life goes on and you can look for other things to devote all your energy to, that the fear to which they will say is not an obstacle. He tells a persevering person that he has had to leave several times in his life and I have had a hard time.

Yes, and I' ve been frustrated and unhappy, but I haven' t died here. I' m here, I' m still fighting for those other things that fill me up. Learn from your mistakes. Whoever could make mistakes to learn from them said no one is ever sad. But that ' s right. We' ve learned that making mistakes is bad and we ' ve stayed there. Today, life looks like an exam. If you ' re wrong, you' re suspended forever. Does anyone come to this

world with all that they have learned? Perhaps there is a special being who makes things perfect at first wrong is wise, for it is the wise who, thanks to the mistakes they make, end up perfecting their knowledge more than anyone else. We have given great importance to mistakes, too much, at least to generate that fear that prevents us from trying to fulfill our dreams. And this also has its origin in childhood. I remember how in school teachers

gave more importance to failures than to successes. When you did a lack of spelling, they made you copy the same well- written word a hundred times. That at best, I have had teachers who have taken advantage of the ruling to ridicule the student in front of the others. Not only the teachers but the adults in general punished the mistakes and ignored the correct ones. Under the excuse of this, you should know less about changing times and learning and

parenting methodologies. Just like I' ve been wrong a thousand times in my life. But how nice it is to give you one more chance to be able to improve truth. Through my mistakes, I learned that I must be assertive with people because, otherwise, I can do a lot of damage, no matter how happy I am to stay by letting go of what I think. Through my mistakes, I learned that I don' t want to be

in places or relationships where I feel uncomfortable and anxious constantly. Through my mistakes, I learned that manipulating people to love me or to feel wanted is not right and is not normal. Even though they' d done it to me some time before through my mistakes, I' m going to turn it on and I have to keep setting limits. I' m sorry I' m sorry. Through my mistakes, I learned that I can forgive, but I ' m not obliged to do it if I don' t want to.

Through my mistakes, I learned that, although I do not forgive certain people from my past, I cannot live with resentment either because that makes me settle in anger, something that prevents me from being happy in the present. Through my mistakes, I also learned one of the most important things than life. He has taught me, that I must forgive myself. If I want to feel a safe place for myself to forgive oneself, how hard is it to

forgive yourself? True, when you are flooded with guilt, the charge of conscience and why not shame. It is also difficult to make peace internally. You want to live free of all that burden, but you don' t know where to start. You may look over and over again at the things you mentally review every one of these that you screwed up or hurt someone and even blame yourself for thinking I was stupid or how I could do something like that or let them do this to me. Why the mind does that and,

most importantly, why it seems to crush you. Maybe these questions can mark the exit box. The answers to our pain are almost always in ourselves. All we have to do is ask ourselves the right questions We can become our worst chatters. You' ve ever watched how you treat yourself and talk to yourself. Often our internal dialogue is very negative. Then you have some of the most typical phrases and expressions. What a fool you are You' re a mess. How you didn' t notice. You should have said

this another one. You' re worthless. Now you' re holding on because of you. This didn' t go well. They ring a bell. You may have ever told yourself to listen to them in the background of your head. I once surprised myself by speaking to myself in such an aggressive manner. I didn' t know exactly how long I' ve been treating myself like this, but judging by the ease and automatism with which those thoughts came out to me it seemed that all my life how strong not the one

that the brain is capable of messing with without even realizing it. From that very moment on, I promised myself that I would pay much more attention to my thoughts and well, although I did, it took me a lot to start changing the way I was treated in consultation. I have noticed that people with low self- esteem, as a rule, have a very negative internal dialogue. I had one more laughing patient that was fatal. She didn' t realize it, but her story in each session allowed him to glimpse how

you' ve been doing The week I asked her one day. Well that answer sounded typical, well we all say by custom automatically. Well, I raised an eyebrow, I knew Marisa, and I sensed that that one was hiding a good story. I' ve had a lot of trouble, because we' re having a lot of income and they' re all very serious. I knew it. Marisa was a nurse in a hospital in the area and had to live each and every wave of covid nineteen on the front line.

The situation at that time was very stressful for everyone, but especially for health personnel. We' re doing everything we can, but I feel it ' s not enough. The other day I was on guard, the r ended it, and I stayed a little longer in the hospital to check that all my patients were well cared for. Still, I didn' t go home quietly and I was on the phone all weekend. You' re a great nurse. Marisa' s worth of a professional is largely measured by his

human quality and you have a lot of that. It' s possible he stopped to catch air, but I feel like I can do more. You ' re not doing everything you can now. I leaned down by sticking my elbows on the table with the intention of showing interest. I wanted to go deeper into that part of the story, because I was very afraid that his expression of sadness concealed some pressure and anxiety. Yeah, I do, but I don' t know. I have a feeling it' s not enough.

If I' m not constantly controlling everything. I feel like something' s going to go wrong. Of course I said lying back in my chair, I already knew where the thing was going. We' re talking about critical patients, so it' s important to control the environment and anything that can happen, but when you finish your shift, you disconnect, I can ' t cost a lot. He glanced down on the ground and continued without raising his gaze. When I' m home, I' m turning everything

around. I mentally review what things I' ve done during the day that mistakes. I' ve been able to commit or how I could have done better, and Maria feels like shit. My patient had ended up in a spiral of self- exigency and feeling shit was just the beginning. Maybe she ' s being pretty tough. With you myself I suggested how I won' t do it. I have to be demanding work with people. Those people

' s lives are partly up to me. You' re right, they depend on you in part, at least as long as it' s your turn, but I guess you can' t do every turn in the world. He didn' t show. Sometimes I doubt and I think this profession is not for me, that maybe I should devote myself to something else. There are colleagues who do things much better than I do and, besides, faster. The well- known impostor syndrome was punctuating the paw. You need

to disconnect. I kept trusting your partners, and don' t crush yourself so much, you' re way past the scanner. The scanner is an expression that I use in a colloquial way to refer to when we look with magnifying glass or examine in detail our performance and execution of things. Check yourself out or pass the typical scanners of very self- demanding people. Yeah, I always have. I' m a perfectionist. I smile slightly showing compassion.

I understood Marisa perfectly as reflected in her and knew how hard it was to mistreat herself emotionally. That way, I caught air preparing to share with her the conclusion I had reached. You need to control everything, because you have imposed yourself to meet too demanding expectations. But Marisa, the more you demand, the more it will cost you to disconnect and this in turn will make you feel more insecurity in your professional performance and less confidence in yourself.

That' ll make your job worse and somehow you' ll need to control everything even more. It' s a vicious circle. He understood it at first, maybe in some corner of his mind. She knew perfectly well the damage she was doing to herself. I don' t say forget everything and relax while you' re at work, because the situation requires a certain state of alert. It wouldn' t be logical to pose such a thing, but I think the key to surrender as you wish is to take care of

yourself. And that' s exactly what you' re doing the least. How am I going to take care of myself if I have to take care of others. How you' re gonna take care of each other if you ' re not okay. I dared to confront you, Maria. I can ' t leave hairdressing. I don' t have time. Marisa said blanking her eyes and who said taking care of herself is that. Maybe there' s another way. Yeah, I stared at her. There' s a way. We usually make the mistake of believing that self- care is just

physical pampering or material whims. These forms of self- care, although they come very well from time to time and are very valid, do not require emotional work or repair in depth our being We must go much further. So the first thing we had to work on self- care was its definition. We talk about self- care or personal care when we carry out the action or set of actions that allow us to improve our physical and emotional health on

a voluntary basis and on our own initiative. The second thing we did was remember some real examples of self- care surrounding yourself with people that make you feel good, maintaining healthy links with your environment, respecting your own limits, practicing compassion with yourself, having a positive internal language, not being so self - critical, not going through self- exercise, not pleasing others, without

thinking first about your needs, paying attention to your needs, trusting your abilities, strengthening anyone you may have as small as it is, not putting so much emphasis on mistakes, not basing personal worth on the opinion of other people, not comparing yourself to others, accepting yourself as you are And one of the most important things we had to address in this self- care work was internal language, because I think that every part of it remembers that, as

you learn to relate to yourself, you will relate to others. My patient had placed herself in the background and placed the others in the first. She had abandoned herself and unconsciously decided to punish herself in order to be able to better care for her neighbor. It was time, so I proposed an exercise that I had learned from a great child psychologist namedÁlvaro Bilbao. To this

exercise so cool that he applies in the field of children. I gave him my personal touch to be able to do it with adults and if it works, Marisa during these two weeks we won' t see you have to do an exercise. For this you need a wooden board, a few nails and a hammer. My patient, as he always began to point out in his notebook all the instructions he was giving him as a good perfectionist, wanted to do the exercise correctly and not forget anything. I sensed that being so methodical

also in session. I was. In order not to disappoint me, I want you to observe your inner language every day in the face of adversity. Every time you identify yourself treating yourself badly, you' re going to nail a nail into the wooden board. Next time you come to the session, I' d like you to bring her in to see how she' s doing with nails. All right, she nodded a little incredulous, but, as expected, she did everything to the letter n n n n n s

o s or neo moment. I didn' t want to tell you what the goal I was pursuing with exercise was, as that was saving it for me later. Two weeks later he appeared in my office with his wooden board full of nails. Hello Mary came through the door with a nervous laugh. I think it' s a little weird that he went into the clinic asking about the psychology office with a wooden board in his hand. The receptionist looked

at me strangely. Don' t worry, I said between laughs. Me too, if you say you' re going to Maria' s office, it' s not so weird that you' re wearing a wooden board. I always do weird things. Okay, here you go. Marisa sat in front of me and placed the wood with the nails on the table in my office. Ah well, I said looking at that piece of wood. I see you' ve done your homework. You always know how you' ve been nailing your nails. Tell me what you' ve been like. Maris

was telling me that just like I asked him two weeks ago. Every time he got caught treating himself badly, he nailed a nail. In total, the wood had fourteen nails. That' s seven nails a week, that ' s one a day. I looked for my cell phone calculator. If you nail a nail a day after a year, you could have perfectly three

hundred sixty- five nails. The half- life expectancy in a woman is eighty- three years and considering that you are thirty- one, then I hawked as I introduced the figures oh Wow, you still have to nail on the wooden board eighteen thousand nine hundred and eighty nails. My patient opened my eyes a lot. I think you' re missing board and nails. I don' t have that many nails. I' d need a truck after a thoughtful and necessary silence. I went on, hey. Why do you

think I asked you to do this exercise? I think you did it to download my energy by nailing nails. The truth is, it' s helped me a lot. When I was angry, I was doing very well, I took the hammer and Isasca said while imitating the gesture. It might be a conclusion, but I don' t think it' s very functional to manage anger by hitting nails with the hammer. What would you do when you got angry anywhere where you didn' t have the hammer, the board,

and the nails. Oh, that' s not true. I don' t see it then it was no longer said as he sighed and denied with his head look. This is a metaphor for the wooden board. It' s you. I swung my eyes trying to understand what the thing was about. Yeah, the board is you and the nails symbolize all those times you hurt yourself. Every time you' ve treated yourself badly, you' ve nailed a nail. Each of these nails is metaphorically speaking. The emotional pain

your soul can feel when you mistreat after my words. Another still longer reflective silence than the previous one reigned in the consultation. Marisa felt slightly with her head, without taking her gaze off the board. Let' s try and pull out the nails. I went on with the help of a hammer. My patient showed me his DIY skills and one by one was pulling every piece

of metal embedded in the wood. Ready said proud when it was finished great notice I told you pointing out the holes that had remained engraved in the wood. These marks are what' s left when you repent, which means what ' s done is done. It' s very hard to erase those marks. Then, even if you repent, your brain has already processed that information and when you learn to treat yourself like that, you do it even unconsciously. Then I can' t cure the wounds of all the nails I'

ve nailed myself in the past. You can take them off, but you ' ll still have the marks. You can cure them over time. When you learn not to nail more nails, it' s easier to nail them than to cure them. I know it always costs more to repair the wood than to damage it. Then the solution is to not nail me any more nails. That' s hard. It' s very difficult, especially since

you' ve been doing the opposite for years. I explained to him that the key was to continue to identify this negative dialogue and, once identified, to radically change the form and content of the dialogue. So I' d have a somewhat more accurate phrase for which I wouldn' t have to nail more nails. Marisa and I drew a table on a folio and wrote on the left the phrases that used to be said by custom and, on the

right hand side completely different ones, issued from affection and compassion. The result was something like that. From that moment on, Marisa' s challenge consisted of not nailing more nails into her wooden board, contrary to what she had done the previous weeks. He had to avoid further harm by treating himself with as much affection as he treated his patients. The results were not expected. After several months of hard work, both professional and personal, Marisa' s

demanding levels remained at bay. She kept giving up every day, as was her custom. The difference was that he felt calmer r ners that he was starting to take care of himself like he had never done before and was beginning to make peace with himself. The road didn' t end here, but it was a start. Marisa' s personal work was not easy because there

were phrases that seemed inherent to her. For many years, as we saw in previous sessions when we studied his personal history, he had learned to mistreat with contempt and invalidity. Now he had to learn to consider himself in a completely different way. And to understand that being a good professional had nothing to do with getting to the limit and that he could even do his job much

better if he understood that caring was necessary for the power of compassion. I told you that to treat with affection is necessary, but to be more concrete, to treat with compassion the essentials. I like to say compassion is like an emotional hug. I explain myself to understand, accept unconditionally and validate without

judgment or pressure. Compassion is like a cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, like a dip in the pool when the street is over forty degrees, or like a long, strong hug when you need it most. That' s compassion, something that can radically change the way you feel and see the world. I think we know very well how to deal with others with compassion. However, when it comes to applying that perspective to oneself,

the thing changes. If your best friend tells you about a problem he' s had because of a mistake he' s made, you' d tell him it' s a disaster and that he should have realized the mistake before he messed it up. Probably not, why. So, if you say all that to yourself, we are more compassionate to others than to ourselves. We understand and validate better the emotions of those around us. We are able

to tell each other nothing happens while we crush ourselves constantly. We can offer an emotional mattress to the rest, but we can tan ourselves in hell itself. Is this hypocrisy? I wish it were so easy, it turns out it' s our brain and the way we have to perceive each other I remember that while I was writing I love you miles of painful scenes with previous

couple relationships and even friendships, walking freely and fleetingly through my head. Many times they managed to impose themselves on logic, and that caused me to be inundated with guilt. Like Marisa, I had learned to demand a lot in life, something that without realizing, I moved into my way of living and perceiving the bonds. I felt that if someone had responsibility for those outcomes,

that someone was me, and nothing else is worth me. Surely I was no saint you know that the emotional backpack conditions very much what you think, feel and do, but from there to having full responsibility for painful situations, I think there is a way. The point is, I carried that burden

for a long time in the past. Phrases like those that she said to herself, my patient kept repeating them to me again and again and again in the framework of relationships Arthur made you gohsting golley of the ice you would do something. I' m sure that guy found out how unbearable and intense you are. Why did you keep believing Mario if for practically the whole relationship happened

to you and he treated you like shit. How foolish you were, how you could stand so long with your first boyfriend if he constantly humiliated you, you weren' t the standard- bearer of self- esteem. So much, you wouldn' t want to why you emotionally manipulated this person. If you knew very well how to give that that could provoke you. You played with her and you know that you deserve something very bad to happen to you. This, as you know, is meaningless when you understand how relationships work

and you know how much responsibility each of their parts can have. But still. I used to cuddle this kind of comment over and over again. It was as if an idea had rooted in my mind and this one did not want to let go. I know I did my best with the information I

had at the time. In my case, I did things that I' m proud of and also things that I' m ashamed of, but I think neither I nor anyone else has an obligation to assume their share of responsibility as if it were some sort of divine punishment, but we need to accept the mistakes of the past as a learning, because I' m sure that

' s the same thing that allows us to evolve as people. So, every time I realized that my head took me along the paths of the very same to see him I stopped and remembered all the under- staffed treatment I had been doing for several years now. I believe that when people suffer, we do not suffer as adults in a logical and rational way, but suffer from the depths of our emotion, just as a child would. In fact, talking about the inner child hidden in the depths of our being is used

as a metaphor to refer to the engram. Remember, this is the neural network that keeps the information from the emotional wound. Mary remembers your story. You' re telling yourself this because you' ve learned to be so demanding about yourself that you tend to bear the responsibility for all of this that you tell yourself. Now you' re also telling that girl that one day you were firm and responsible. You realize I was acting like my father to myself.

He treated himself the magic of attachment. I love these times when you start tying up, because they' re revealing, as I tell you. Faced with that behavior I thought of that child that I was one day and whose essence still remains within me. If that little girl were thinking and feeling the same thing as me right now, she' d be scared to death. He wouldn' t understand anything, he' d look small and vulnerable. I' d look for an adult to feel protected with, but what

things. The closest adult was me and I was treating her like shit. So, every time this happened, I used one of the most powerful self - regulation tools I know to take a picture of when I was little, look at it and wonder what I would like to say to that four- year- old girl who at the time was carrying a guilt that was largely wrong with her. And then my speech changed in a radical way. As if I were the reference adult of that child, my goal now was to

give me what I would want her to have at such a time. Or what could I do to generate a safe attachment between the girl and me? What I could do so that I could perceive myself as a safe place and as we saw in the theory of the safety circle, arms to trust and to return to seek understanding and support. For starters, I' d never think of talking to a child the way I was talking to myself. Never,

no matter what his mistake would have been. But this was my inner child and I, if I knew her story and how she might have felt when I was afraid, so I was able to understand better than anyone how she was at the time and so, with more reason I had to try to treat myself well. Every time I visualize that little girl something breaks inside me. That girl was very happy, but she also lived things throughout the years that marked her forever. I was the only person in the world who

knew what he had left to live. I was the only person who could really understand how he felt at every moment and yearned for. I was the only one who could give him everything that no one else gave him when he needed it most. I was the only person who could give me what I needed at the time. I was the only one who could save her and,

therefore, save me. Working on your emotional wound you' re going to let me, in what' s left of the chapter speak in feminine, the personal work I' ve done has been with a girl, so I identify myself more by saying girl than boy. You can put the genre you want to look for a photo of when you were little or the time you identified that your emotional wound was generated I always work with a little girl ' s sclapes, because, as you' ve seen so far, almost

everything always happens in childhood. Choose a photo in which you are very happy and that you like it very much place it in view because it will accompany your reading From now on, together the girl you went and you will finish reading the last pages of this book. Your inner child, the adult you are today, is a reflection of what happened in your childhood. The girl who was told she was getting very expensive every time she asked for something she

needed. She is the adult who feels guilty today when she spends the money on something that is not tremendously necessary. The girl who had to be responsible early, taking care of her mother, father or younger siblings. She' s the adult who' s looking out for everyone today, except herself.

The girl who was emotionally invalidated, is the adult who today thinks it bothers when she speaks, the girl who heard a referent figure complain about her loneliness and agreed to accompany her instead of going to do children' s things, is the adult who today does not ask for help because she feels that there

are people with worse problems. The girl who was told not to be so believed, is the adult who today has difficulty recognizing her virtues, the girl who took refuge in the studies when she had a bad emotional time I am the adult addicted to work, the girl who heard her parents talk about debts constantly, is the adult who today gives great importance to money. The girl they didn' t respect her limits, she' s the adult who'

s on the defensive today. The girl who learned to stand out and do everything perfect to gain recognition of her referents, is the adult who today lives with imposter syndrome. The girl who learned to ignore her needs to cover them from her reference figures, is the adult who today feels guilty when others do

something for her. The girl who tried to transfer to her reference figures the fear she had for an exam and they responded with a come to study without attending her, is the adult who today carries her emotions, the girl who learned to draw attention in a drastic way so that her references would heed her. She is the adult who has erratic behavior today, the girl who grew up surrounded by fatophobic comments. She' s the adult who can' t

look in the mirror today because she doesn' t like her. The girl who suffered bullying at school or high school. She' s the adult who has a hard time trusting people today. The girl they betrayed, she' s the adult who has a hard time maintaining healthy relationships today. The adult ' s emotional wound reflects the girl' s survival strategy. Your inner child is the girl you were the one who tried to do what she could with what she had. Your inner child is the one who keeps your emotional wound,

regardless of the age at which it was generated. It can be you with six, sixteen or twenty- six years. It' s a reflection of that past where it all started. Those needs that were generated at the time or time of the trauma, are still there waiting to be met, as if you had left something pending. Remember this paragraph of chapter five on the story of Pons Luis how interesting years ago, Luis had left the feeling

that he should do something useful. And today it was the same, as if that behavior hadn' t been over and he hadn' t come out of it, that is, over and over again you unconsciously experience the emotions of your traumatic experience, because it didn' t end up being properly processed. Your mind is like a scratched disk went into automatic mode and your three brains couldn' t integrate, but it' s time to start changing this.

My intention in the previous chapters was to prepare you for this final chapter. If you understand your story, you understand your emotional backpack and that of your emotional guides. If you manage to feel comfortable with your thoughts and emotions and learn to create healthy relationships, you will be rubbing the door of your safe place with your fingertips. You just need to take care of your inner child and give her what she needs, a balm to help heal your emotional

wounds. The white forest in this section and the next halo of light you will find exercises that I would like you to read in a row, without making long pauses, because they have a lot of relationship between them. One will remove you a little bit and the other will help you calm down. That' s why my recommendation is to make them one after the other. Let' s go with the first one. Walk with me in the white forest, a place where things never happen, because there' s always a

reason. This is a guided imagination exercise that I recommend you to do from the tranquility of your home. You can read it and imagine it quietly or scan the code, put on some headphones and come with me to the white forest. Anyway, let' s take the white forest, make yourself comfortable and close your eyes. Take a deep breath. Notice the air coming in and out of your lungs. See if there is any area of your body in tension, if there is, try to relax it feels like your body

weighs more and more and relaxes. Legs, arms, neck. Right now there' s nothing but this voice you' re listening to focus on. Let' s take a trip inside you, to your memories. Imagine that everything around you begins to disappear little by little. The furniture, the paintings, instead, begin to appear green leaves, earth birds singing a stream. Suddenly, you' re not home anymore, you' re in a forest. The vegetation surrounds you with fresh air, pink your cheeks and the sunset

sun is more beautiful than in r ever. You walk between very tall and leafy trees. You are calm and relaxed looking at the surroundings, when suddenly, in the distance, you seem to see someone with a heart, something accelerated. It gets close to you if you can see that you' re the one with you when you' re little. You' re in front of the girl you were one day She' s playing between the flowers. Unconcerned, typical of a girl. You approach slowly without taking your gaze away

from her. A chill runs through your body when you' re a few inches from it. The girl suddenly looks up and stares at you. While smiling something very special. It unites you for a lifetime. I was waiting for you, she tells you without wiping the smile of the gesture. That girl had nothing wrong with her. What happened wasn' t his fault. Some things may have been missing in the past, but now you' re here to provide them. You' re an adult now. You lacked trust,

understanding, respect, validation whatever it was. Now you can give it to him. You think then you' d treat that little girl like you sometimes treat your grown- up. What did you think? I know. I cry every time I do this exercise, too. Look back at the picture of when you were little like you I have it in front of me right now and I smile every time I question myself I look at it and I think how she would feel right now, how you would treat her if

she came running to ask me for help and then acted accordingly. Finally, I understand that my mission today is not to abandon myself or punish myself when I feel that I can no longer listen to myself without judging or pressuring myself. I understand myself and forgive myself for not being able to deal with the situation just as I would with that child I was one day I have learned to be compassionate to myself and to embrace myself when I need it most.

I have learned to offer myself the cup of hot chocolate on a cold winter day, to take a dip in the pool in summer, to understand myself and accept me unconditionally. And for that I had to make peace with my past and myself. I' ve learned to forgive myself the halo of light. Now I' m going to teach you, to relax. The halo of light is a very powerful technique of relaxation and emotional regulation. This is also a guided imagination exercise that, like the previous one, I recommend you

do from the tranquility of your home. Here are the instructions to be able to exercise correctly. Find a quiet place where you can sit or lie down in a comfortable position. Exercise consists of imagining how a halo of light surrounds you and you go up your body from your feet to your head. Don ' t judge values. What you observe, just contemplate your body and accept what is in each part. See if there is any area of your body in tension, if there is, try to relax it while the halo of

light passes through that area during exercise. Imagine that your mind is a scanner that has to go through all the parts of the body. If in the middle of relaxation you notice that your mind is not in exercise, nothing happens, focus again. It doesn' t matter how many times you get distracted. The important thing is that you realize and be able to come back. Don' t judge yourself. It' s normal for it to happen if

you detect feelings of impatience, urge boredom, don' t worry. It is part of the practice to learn to be with them, to give space to those thoughts, to observe them, and to pay attention to see whether they change, change, or not to change. Go back to exercise, don' t worry if you don' t feel anything. The important thing is to look at what is here and now you can read it and imagine it quietly or scan the code cuer place some headphones and concentrate on my words.

Be that as it may, let the idea go is that you connect with your body and be aware of the qui and now the halo of light. I' m here with you. It' s all right. Right now, give me your hand. Now let' s do together a relaxation exercise focus on your breathing. Watch the air come in and out of your lungs. You can imagine that the air you breathe in is one color and the air you exhale from another. I like to imagine that the one coming

in is white and the one coming out is gray or black. I feel like that comes out of me what I don' t like and makes me feel bad and I renew inside look at the sensations that the contact of your feet with the ground conveys to you move it, if necessary to feel present. You' re here now. The adult. Observe the weight of your arms, tender, torso head and back and as they are placed, see the differences if there are any between the areas. The halo of light begins

on your feet and ends in your head. The idea is that it' s going up little by little. All over your body running around every area as if it were a scanner. Start the scan by your feet and toes. Transferring your finger to your finger, look at the sensations you perceive from each of them. They pay attention to the separation and space they occupy. While scanning try to be open to sensations of the type that are thermal of touch, humidity, itching, tingling etc. From your toes, take your

attention to their soles and go back to your heels. Observe the curvature and shape of the soles of your feet, scan the heels, and follow the pawn area to the top of your feet. From the beginning little by little, it takes attention to the ankles, observes how they are, if they are supported, if they are flected, etc. Continue the scan through the legs, climb up and pay attention to the pimples and then to the twins. Keep going up to your knees. Imagine their bone area see if they

are stretched or flected. From the knees. S Continues to pass the scanner until you reach your thighs, touring your entire front face and your back face. Scan the glutes and see how they are supported. Transfer your attention to the hips, pay attention to the lumbar area. Breathe deeply and see how this area moves and the changes that occur. See if there is a lack

of sensations or if there is tension oppression. When you breathe. If there is tension in the area, try to relax it From the lumbar area ascends along the back, imagining how you go up vertebra to vertebra throughout the spine, until you reach the dorsal area, pay attention to how you perceive this part of the body. From the dorsal area it continues to ascend to the cervical area. The top of the back looks as you raise the homoplates,

left and right. When you get to the cervical region, head to the shoulders and nothing smooth with attention as they are right now. Now look at the front area of the trunk and climb back up from the pubis. Go up the abdomen and watch the breathing and the movements and sensations of your abdomen. Climb through the diaphragm and climb through the rib rib box to the rib until you reach your chest. From there he goes on to visualize the clavicle.

Now travel with your scanner to the periphery of your arms and focus on your fingers and nails. Observe the sensations that can wake up, tingling itching, humidity, temperature, etc. Go through all your thumb index heart, ring and pinky. Observe the separation and space they occupy and not values differences. Walk through the palm of your hands and then the back continues to climb up the wrists, forearms and elbows, until you reach back or back to

the shoulders. Go up your neck, go through your throat and get to your head and stop at your chin and see how your lower and upper jaw is. See if there' s tension, since it' s an area where it usually accumulates. If there is relaxation, keep climbing through the cheekbones, ears, nostrils, eyes, eyebrows, and forehead up to the top

of your head, the highest point of your body. Now get ready to breathe, imagining how renewed air comes in when you inspire and run through your whole body, from your feet to your head, and how then the worn air comes out, when you exhale and pass through your whole body again, from your head to your feet. How are you? You liked the experience. You can open your eyes. How you feel after this exercise. It helps me a lot to connect with the present moment. When I feel very

overwhelmed, I lie down and exercise. If I can give you time and if I don' t have a lot of time because I' m working on the street or with more people, I do it in a quick version, which would be doing the same thing, but without stopping too much in each area. I imagine how the beam of light passes through my body in

a matter of seconds. To be able to do the quick version you need to have practiced the slow one several times, because thus the feeling of relaxation is already associated with exercise and it is easier to reach the state of calm in the short version. If you haven' t been able to relax, you can try again another time. Your safe place. Now we' re going to build inside you a safe place, a place you can go to whenever you need it. You can take your inner child to that place whenever

you notice that you need safe senses and calm instructions. If you sit down and make yourself comfortable with this exercise, you can do it with your eyes closed or open. You can read the first and then do it with your eyes closed or do it directly with your eyes open. Evocate a place where you feel safe and calm. It can be a beach, a country, a forest, a park, your parents' house, your grandmother' s house, your little room. It' s about going mentally to a place

where you feel at ease. It' s always not worth any trouble at some point. For example, it is not advisable to evoke your parents' house and relate it to screaming arguments and you felt bad there once you have it answers these questions. Why that place is safe for you what you do while you' re in that place you' re imagining or remembering, Notice in detail how that chosen place looks at everything around you is day or night. It' s an outdoor place, hot or cold. There' s

something you can hear. Invade by the feeling of feeling safe. Imagine that you keep the sense of security in your chest. You can put your hands in that area of your body. The warmth that feels great. Let a word come to you that represents that place. You can be home, home flowers sun beach. This word will anchor the sense of security. Whenever you need to feel safe, close your eyes, place your hands on your chest and evoke that place. Next to the word associated your compass so you never

get lost. You' ve ever felt lost in life. Don' t worry. It' s very common. Good because something' s over. Good because you have to start over, good because you have an impressive mental cocoa. Good because your rational brain and your emotional brain. They fight, you get lost they tell you. You have to think x, feel X and do X and you go and think and feel h and you do w of course. It' s amazing because for many tools you have to manage

yourself. It can happen to you anyway. There comes a day when you don' t know which way to choose what to do in those moments of vital blockade. It' s good to jump into the pool. I have to think about it a little bit more. First remember what I said in I love you about intuition and reason. Then do this exercise. Draw a compass with its four cardinal points. You can do it with all the details

you want. Think of four values that represent you. These will correspond to the four cardinal points North, South, East and o. This compass is a magical object because you will not always point to the north, but the values that will guide you at a certain time. Place each of the four values at one cardinal point remember that none is more important than another. From now on, as long as you have to choose a path and don' t know which one you think. If I go this way, I will

be able to fulfill one of my four most important values in life. For example, if I choose this job, I will be faithful to my honesty, if not. Then think about it myself, when I find no harmony between what I do, what I think and what I feel, I look at my compass and act according to what it indicates. So, whatever happens. I' ll be able to sleep quietly at night, because I'

ll know that I' ve acted according to my values. If you always act according to your values, you will never regret what you do This exercise can also be done with your partner, friend or family member. What I recommend if it is done with other people, is to decide and put together the four values that most represent the relationship. In this way, whatever you do, you will always go in favor of those four values that most identify

your tools. In this book you have acquired a series of tools that can help you understand your past and heal your present. My recommendation is that you put them all together in a kind of kid to wear it whenever you need it. You can write them on paper and keep it in a box, a boat, a chest. You can also dedicate a notebook to your personal work or use your imagination and save your new tools in the way you like

most. In the end, what we seek with this is to materialize them and dedicate a space where we always have them available, because in delicate moments in which the tonsil is activated, trying to figure out how to get out of the discomfort becomes a rather complicated task. If we don' t have something to stop us and give us back. At the present time, your tools don' t have to be specific psychotherapeutic techniques, but they can also

be activities that work for you at a given time. I, for example, find it great to walk or practice any kind of sport on a light or moderate level, because so I release tension and am distracted if you can think of nothing. I also remind you that in love your sex you had a list of over fifty activities to take care of yourself that can inspire you. If you like this content, I invite you to subscribe to this podcast for more content like this. This was Lil' s secret.