Daniel Davis, LMFT

  • Home
  • Counseling Services
    • Relationship Counseling
    • Career Counseling
    • Emotional Freedom Techniques (EFT)
    • Spiritual Transitions
    • Addiction Treatment
    • Trauma Treatment
    • Couples Counseling
    • Depression Treatment
    • Anxiety Counseling and Stress Management
    • Anger Management
    • Grief and Loss
  • Blog
  • Resources
  • About Daniel Davis
  • Client Forms
  • Contact

Self-Love and Narcissism

November 7, 2017 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Is selfishness always a bad thing? What is narcissism?  The word narcissistic is in the news a lot recently.  What does it mean?

Narcissism is an exaggerated view of your own abilities and wanting praise from others.

The Oxford English Dictionary defines narcissism as “extreme selfishness, with a grandiose view of one’s own talents and a craving for admiration.”

While most of us would recognize the problem with narcissism, I do need to be self-centered in healthy ways.  My body needs adequate sleep, healthful food, and frequent exercise.

When I neglect myself when I get too hungry, lonely, angry, or tired, and I am more likely to be self-centered.  I may try to love others, but I am too needy.  If I do not get 8 hours sleep at night, I may be so tired that my concentration is poor.  I may not listen well.  I may not be aware of myself and talk too much, too loudly, or insensitively.

Moreover, when I do not see myself and my story clearly, I relate to others from a cloudy point of view.  This is called a projection.

I need to see others as they are – no more or less.  I need to be see myself as I am.  This is an authentic relationship.  I am human which means I need real relationships.  It is important to be noticed by others.  I need to matter to myself as well as others.  I need to be treated with respect.  Others need to be treated with respect.

The golden rule is “to love thy neighbor as thy self…”.  When I treat myself well, I have the patience and resilience to nurture others.  This is being selfish in a wise way.

Psychotherapy, pastoral counseling, meditation, 12 step work, or coaching with energy psychology techniques enable me to learn to see my story more clearly.  Seeing my narrative clearly enables me to see myself as well as others with more objective eyes.

For example, if I get angry or afraid when someone mentions money, then I am unable to listen objectively on the subject of money.  When someone talks about money, I am distracted by my anger or fear, and do not hear their story.  It is like driving with a dirty windshield; it is hard to see the road ahead.  This lack of clear vision affects me when relating to others, like in marriage or raising children.

Our modern society is dominated with narcissistic and nihilistic ideas, Ken Wilber writes.   In the Oxford English Dictionary, nihilism is defined as “the belief that nothing in the world has a real existence.”  I may assume that we live in a 3 dimensional world made up of atoms.  I may assume that nothing matters, therefore, I may as well do whatever seems to feel good and avoid obvious pain.  So I may cheat to pass the exam or win the election.  I lie to destroy someone’s reputation, because I want to hurt them.

It is ironic that those who neglects their own needs are the most self-centered.  When I have a poor sense of self, I am the most narcissistic.  My neglect of my own needs creates my own obsession with myself.

When I was born, I was self-centered.  I perceived my mother and myself as one; each one of us does.  As I developed, I began to distinguish between my mother and myself.  When I cried, my mother did not always come to hold me and calm me.  I learned that the world and I are separate.

Over the course of my life, I am learning to see myself as different from others.  This learning continues until I die, if I choose to actively participate in the process of learning or not.

In addition to the normal human development of seeing myself as separate and unique, I can be wounded.  I can experience being shamed – treated like I am worthless.  I may feel unworthy of love.  This self-hatred can be an additional block to seeing myself and the world clearly.  The self-hatred can keep me frozen in self-centeredness.

The antidote to narcissism is authentic love of oneself.  The feeling of self-love is healing for us humans.  To consciously experience the sensation of self-love in my body enables me to heal physically as well as emotionally.  Please watch this video from Michelle Minero, M.A., author of “The Self Love Diet: The Only Diet You Will Ever Need,” on learning to love yourself:

Blog 65

Filed Under: Blog, Consciousness, Spirituality Tagged With: 3 dimensional world, admiration, angry, Atom, authentic love, body, concentration poor, exaggerated, exercise, food, golden rule, grandiose, hungry, ideas, Ken Wilber, lonely, Michelle Minero, Narcissism, needs, neglect, nihilistic, projection, self-centered, self-hatred, self-love, selfishness, shamed, sleep, tired, unworthy, view, worthless

What Does HALT Stand For?

February 9, 2016 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

12 step programs offer our modern world an enormous gift. Through-out the world, we can find Alcoholics Anonymous meetings, Al-anon meetings, Over-eaters Anonymous meetings, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous meetings, Debtors Anonymous meetings, and many other meetings. For many reasons, when Bill W and Dr. Bob founded Alcoholics Anonymous in 1935 in Akron, Ohio, something profound began. It was revolutionary in very positive ways. Meetings, books, sponsors, resources, and the 12 steps offer great resources to learn how to consciously live and even thrive with the thought disorder of addiction.

Part of the tradition of 12 step work, includes a great deal of folk wisdom in the form of slogans. This is found in the conference approved literature and can he heard at many meetings.

“One day at a time.”

“Cultivate an attitude of gratitude.”

“Your worth should never depend on another person’s opinion.”

The phrase HALT reminds us to: “Never get too hungry, angry, lonely, or tired.”

When we take the time to do the simple things to take care of ourselves, we strengthen our individual will. We are more mindful and careful in our choices. When I get 8-10 hours of sleep, my physical brain is healthier. You can see this on a brain scan. When I eat a healthy diet of natural fresh food – including fruits, vegetables, and proteins – I further strengthen my brain. When I get aerobic exercise, I produce endorphins and eliminate adrenaline. My body is calmer and my brain is healthier with exercise. When I take the time to talk with friends who are accepting and empathic, I feel better. These are the practices that support sobriety as well as general mental health.

Psychotherapy can also be a terrific asset for those dedicated to working a 12 step program. It is very helpful to seek out a professional aware of the differences between general psychotherapy and chemical dependency counseling. A counselor, social worker, psychologist, or psychiatrist with training in chemical dependency treatment can help the client hold themselves accountable and navigate the world of recovery. Addressing the problems with emotional self-regulation can greatly help with the recovery process. Alcoholism and drug addiction is an attempt to control one’s thoughts and feelings with chemicals. Learning how to calm oneself down without doing anything self-destructive is critical for all of us, if we haven’t learned already.

People who are physically and/or sexually abused in childhood are more likely to abuse drugs. Those who abuse substances use alcohol, nicotine or other drugs to change their emotions that we began regulating poorly due to trauma or adversity in childhood. First, the drug abuser uses the substance to calm overwhelming emotions. Second, the substance enables the person to vicariously re-experience their unresolved emotions from childhood abuse or adversity. Usually, these emotions are associated with memories of traumatic events that are yet to be resolved.

The abuse of alcohol and other drugs interferes with maturation. When a teen drinks regularly from age fourteen to eighteen, he tends to act as if he is fourteen or fifteen many years later; this is called delayed adolescence. When someone smokes marijuana regularly from sixteen to twenty one, she is likely to act as if she is sixteen or seventeen later in life. Taking care of our basic needs of life for sleep, healthy food, social support, and exercise is part of being a mature adult. We take over care of these basic needs from our parents as we grow up, if we are healthy.

Addiction is also known as the sacred disease. Carl Jung wrote that “perhaps it was no accident that we traditionally referred to alcoholic drinks as spirits, and that alcoholics were people who had a greater thirst for spirit than others, and that perhaps alcoholism was a spiritual disorder, or better yet, a spiritual condition”.

People who become slaves to alcohol and other drugs long to go back to paradise, reach Heaven, reach home – more than most. Addicts desperately yearn to regain that lost warm, fuzzy sense of oneness. There are two ways of looking at this longing to go home. One is yearning to return to infancy, not only to go back to paradise but to crawl back into the womb.

M. Scott Peck writes: “The other way to look at it is as a potentially progressive kind of phenomenon; that in this yearning to go home, addicts are people who have a more powerful calling than most to the spirit, to God, but they simply have the directions of the journey mixed up. Many contemporary men and women are cut off from their own life source. . . (They) are undermined by the loss of connection to their own energy in their own body. . . . In infancy, ‘I desire” is indistinguishable from ‘I need.’ As adults, they look at other people who seem to love life and wonder why they themselves do not. They pretend, even as children, to be reaching out from their own desire. Their place of desire is false; their desiring is not coming from natural instincts; therefore, those instincts cannot be satisfied. Because their bodies are not expressing desires that come from natural desires, they fall into unnatural desires, driven desires that overwhelm them with stupor and manifest as addictions. They crave food that brings them no nurturance, drink that brings them no spirit, sex that brings them no union. Because their culture worships matter and minimizes soul, they concretize metaphor and minimize life. Their hunger is for food – Soul food; they are starving for sweetness – Mother Food that will reconnect them to who whey were born to be. Their thirst is for spirit; their longing is for union. They yearn for connection to their own ‘I desire'”.

We all suffer from addictions, in a sense. It is human to struggle with self-destructive patterns. Ultimately, alcoholism is a blessing because it is a disease that visibly breaks people. Those who are alcoholic are no more broken than normal drinkers. We all experience terror and shame. One may not be aware of their pain, but they certainly experience it. We are all broken people, but because of their struggle with drinking alcoholics cannot hide their brokenness. The rest of us normal drinkers can hide behind our masks of composure. Yet we do not have the gift of talking with each other about the things that are most important to us. The disease of alcoholism put one into an obvious crisis. Out of the crisis of alcoholism, the alcoholic has the unique privilege of experiencing the profoundly healing community of Alcoholics Anonymous.

Please watch this video by Elizabeth Schindler on HALT:

Blog 42:

Filed Under: Blog, Recovery, Self-Care, Uncategorized Tagged With: 12 step programs, abuse, addiction, Al-Anon, alcohol, Alcoholics Anonymous, angry, brokenness, Carl Jung, childhood adversity, conference approved literature, Debtors Anonymous, delayed adolescence, Elizabeth Schindler, emotions regulating poorly, exercise, God, HALT, healthful food, heaven, home, hungry, infancy, lonely, M Scott Peck, marijuana, maturation, meetings books, nicotine, Overeaters Anonymous, paradise, recovery, sacred disease, self-care, self-destructive patterns, Sex and Love Addicts Anonymous, slaves, sleep, slogans, social support, sponsors, substances, tired, Trauma, unresolved emotions, vicariously re-experience

How Well Do You Treat Yourself? Are You Important?

August 11, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT Leave a Comment

Your body is the only thing that no one can ever take away from you. While you are alive, you physical body is the only thing you are guaranteed to keep. “Do you not know that your bodies are temples of the Holy Spirit, who lives in you, whom you have received from God?,” Paul writes in Corinthians in the New Testament.

My performance in school was average from age 8 to 15. I did not work very hard at school, rarely doing my homework and just showing up for class. In 1979, when I was 15 years old, I started cutting and failing my classes at Cupertino High School which is located about a mile from the new headquarters of Apple Computers in Cupertino, California, USA.

When I started attending West Valley College in Saratoga, California, in January of 1982, I was starting over. I had been expelled from two high schools for cutting. I did believe in my intelligence and ability, but I had not yet proved it to myself at school. I finally followed my mom’s advice (years before she had been a classroom teacher). I took a Study Skills class where I learned about note taking, reading the text book, preparing for exams, and taking tests. I learned that generally one needs to study three hours for every hour spent in the college classroom. I spend most of the hours that I was awake focused on school. When I started working, it was at a job where I could study. I often spent 12 to 14 hours most day focused on school. I was an honor’s student. I had excellent grades.

In 1985, I hit a wall emotionally. I feel horrible. My lack of sleep, poor diet, lack of exercise, loneliness, and worry took a toll on my brain and body. I crashed. I took a semester off and started seeing a counselor. I learned to get 8-10 hours of sleep a night, eat well, exercise, meditate, and talk to friends. I do not let myself feel so miserable, because I know what to do when I feel tired, nervous, or worried. I focus on taking care of myself.

Our sleep is the most important thing we do for psychological health. Before electric lights in 1907, the average person slept 9 hours a night. Now, the average person sleeps 6 hours and 24 minutes a night. Dr. Daniel Amen reminds us that if we fail to get six hours sleep a night, a SPECT scan of our brain reveals problems. Dr. James Maas writes that if you get plenty of sleep every night, you will probably feel more alert, have more energy, and be healthier generally. If we are tired, we have lower energy and gain weight. In every significant problem psychologically – such as depression, anxiety, addiction, obsessive thinking – poor sleep is involved.

It is not only our sleep, but our food that strongly contributes to our health. Dr. Barry Sears writes that “food is the most powerful drug that you will ever take.” Our food affects the functioning of our brain and body. Every cell in your body is made new every five months. This includes the cells of our brain. When we eat food balanced with fresh green carbohydrates, protein, and healthy fats, we feel and think better. When we are depressed, it is helpful to eat a balanced breakfast that keeps our blood sugar even. In the morning, I often drink a smoothie with protein powder which gives me energy and clear thinking.

Exercise is also very important as well as sleep and eating. Dr. Agatston writes that adults and teenagers are less active than their parents and grandparents. It is widely accepted that our bodies benefit greatly from exercise. But our brains are affected by exercise the most. When we exercise, we change the wiring of our brains. This change to the functioning of our brain improves our learning, memory, concentration, and focus. Exercise is the best treatment to reduce depression or anxiety available, writes Dr. Mark Hyman. Check with your doctor and then get some aerobic exercise for 20 to 40 minutes frequently.

Taking time to talk with friends or family who are supportive and compassionate listeners is very helpful as well. Learning to relax your mind also helps reduce stress. Getting time to relax and play are part of a healthy balanced life. All these are parts of self-care. You deserve to feel good! Please watch this video and learn more about self-care.

Key Words:
Blog 16
Blogs by Daniel Davis, self-care
Daniel Amen, sleep
Mark Hyman
James Maas
Paul, New Testament: Corinthians
Barry Sears
How Well Do You Treat Yourself? Are You Important?

Filed Under: Blog, Recovery Tagged With: Barry Sears, Daniel Amen, James Maas, Mark Hyman, New Testament: Corinthians, Paul, self-care, sleep

How do I fall asleep and stay asleep?

May 26, 2015 By Daniel Davis, LMFT 2 Comments

One of the most frustrating things is to have time to sleep and to lie awake in bed, starring at the ceiling.    Look around you if you are in a crowded room – the person on your left sleeps well.  The person on your right has trouble sleeping.  Sometimes, it is the demands of work, school, or children that keep us from getting enough sleep to feel rested and alert.

Before the electric light was invented in 1879, most people slept 10 hours a night.  People in countries free from demands of modern industrialized society, typically sleep 10 hours a night.  Americans on average sleep just 6 hours and 24 minutes sleep at night.   Successful people sleep 8 hours and 24 minutes a night.

Good sleep energizes the body and enables our brains to think and remember better.  Thirty percent of high school and college students fall asleep in class at least once a week.  Without enough sleep for long periods of time, we can become physically ill with health problems such as diabetes.  Most mental health problems are related to sleep.  We can become so deprived of sleep that we do not know what it feels like to be wide awake.

Here are some suggestions to improve sleep:

*Keep a regular schedule for going to bed and getting up

*Don’t drink or eat caffeine (coffee, caffeinated tea, or chocolate)

*Don’t smoke, especially near bedtime or if you are awake in the middle of the night

*Avoid alcohol and heavy meals before going to bed

*Get regular aerobic exercise (not to close to bedtime)

*Minimize noise and light where you sleep (quiet and dark help)

*Keep temperatures moderate-not too hot or cold

*Spend the time 30 to 60 minutes before be relaxing (quiet music, meditation, pray, stretching)

Using simple movements, natural to us as children that we have been taught to suppress as grown-ups, Laura Lund offers us ways to fall asleep and stay asleep.  Laura Lund is certified as a Somatic Counselor and Educator with Zapchen Somatics.  In this video, Laura Lund demonstrates techniques to help us sleep.

 

Key Words:

Blog 5
“How do I fall asleep and stay asleep?”
Blogs by Daniel Davis, sleep
Laura Lund, sleep
sleep, hygiene and research

Filed Under: Blog, Sleep, Somatic Therapy Tagged With: hygiene, Laura Lund, research, sleep, Zapchen Somatics

“Do-It-Yourself” Resources

Access an ever-growing library of “do-it-yourself” informational and instructional videos, articles, and blog posts in over 30 different categories ranging from “Calming Oneself” to “Balancing Your Brain” to “Self-Care” … [GET STARTED…]

About Daniel Davis, LMFT

I create an environment where clients experience their unique significance, authentic empowerment, and profound acceptance and collaborate with clients to identify solutions to their current crises. For more information on how I can help you, contact me today by calling 408-249-0014 or emailing info@danieldavislmft.com. I look forward to speaking with you! Read More…

Connect with Me

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube

Search This Site…

Location

I provide Virtual Counseling, E-Counseling, and Online Counseling and Psychotherapy Services as well as Phone Therapy Sessions to residents of California. As such, you can access any of my services at a location of your choosing. Please contact me today for more information and to find out how I can help you!

Contact Me Today!

To further explore how I can help empower the changes which will make your life more meaningful and content, use the contact form to ask any questions you have or call me at 408-249-0014 to schedule an initial consultation.

Connect with Me

Want to keep up with what I'm doing as well as received helpful tips and suggestions? Join me on...

  • Facebook
  • LinkedIn
  • YouTube
verified by Psychology Today

Daniel Davis, M.A., LMFT
Counselor in Santa Clara, CA
Professional Seal for Daniel Davis

Daniel Davis, LMFT - Virtual Counseling, E-Counseling, and Online Counseling Services in California.
 
Copyright © 2023 Daniel Davis, LMFT · Privacy Policy · Terms of Use

Therapist Website by AbundantPractices