Psiholog Irina Mihu

21/06/2025

Message me 'attachment dance' to get my free webinar to help you better understand the push-pull dynamic of anxious + avoidant attachment styles.
This post + caption below were written by the wonderful 💙
Every single person deserves this reminder and to drink it in like daily medicine: your worth and value - as the indelible person you are - has nothing to do with the capacity of any other person to meet you in that splendor.

As humans, we use the feedback of others to make sense of who we are:
“I know I’m funny because people laugh at my jokes!”

And we internalize this external feedback, and it becomes part of our identity.

This same mechanism goes terribly wrong when the inability of other people to be present and consistent feels like a reflection of who we are or a measure of our worth.

As infants, we can’t rationalize the absence of caregivers not showing up or meeting our needs or emotional states - and we endure and compensate.

These compensations can be called attachment styles.

As we get older, we add stories to fill in the gap of why people don’t or didn’t show up for us.

Other people not showing up for us can look like them pulling away, shutting down, stonewalling, ghosting, or not being able to validate and honor our feelings and needs.

These inner stories can sound like this:

“If I were loved, people would stay!”

“If I were enough, people would show up for me!”

“If I were (smarter, better looking, more important, etc.), they would be less distant and meet my needs.”

The sad tragedy is that these stories become beliefs - and these beliefs then get internalized as who we are.

How do we even begin to unwind a lifetime of narratives and beliefs that lock us into pain and suffering?

Let’s start by recognizing that the pulling away, shutting down, not meeting you, etc., is the behavioral reflection, the symptoms, of the other person’s capacity.

It is a manifestation of their not feeling safe in themselves to be fully present with another person, the limit of connection they can handle, and the overwhelm of their nervous system with the lack of resources to navigate it. In other words, they can’t be there for you because they can’t be there.

10/06/2025

18/04/2025

Am observat că majoritatea celor care solicită consiliere nu au avut curaj să spună la timp "nu" abuzurilor emoționale. Frica de abandon si mai ales iubirea duc deseori la acceptarea celor mai nocive comportamente. Cuvintele lasă cele mai adânci răni. Ne putem cere drepturile emoţionale in toate relaţiile in mod blând, civilizat si matur, doar prin răbdare și comunicare? Daca nu, este un abuz. I am OK, you are OK?

18/04/2025

Information on BPD criteria

28/05/2024

Amen 🙏

28/04/2024

❤️

03/04/2024

"Treat yourself" or "Do what feels good" are phrases that likely come to mind when we think of self-care, and while bath bombs, scented candles, and fuzzy blankets can definitely help us unwind, self-care doesn't always involve pampering yourself.

That's right: What many of us consider self-care is often confused with self-soothing, a related but separate skill in our wellness toolbox. Self-soothing and self-care are both valuable tools in our wellness arsenal and while the two practices are related, there are also some distinct differences, like timing and consistency.

So, how do we differentiate between the two?

The World Health Organization (2009) defines self-care as "the ability of individuals to promote health, prevent disease, and cope with illness and disability with or without the support of a healthcare provider." Self-care, in short, is doing things to promote your own wellbeing in the long run. It often involves a degree of consistency, habit-building, and delayed gratification.

Self-soothing, on the other hand, is an emotional regulation strategy used to regain equilibrium after an upsetting event (Thompson, 1994; Gross, 1998). It includes extrinsic and intrinsic processes involved in monitoring, evaluating, and modifying emotional reactions. These processes aim to calm the current distress by diminishing primarily negative emotions and corresponding physiological arousal, eventually resulting in homeostasis. This means that self-soothing acts are more direct as they provide immediate relief and instant gratification, while self-care more often includes lifestyle changes.

Both are significant aspects of self-regulation and wellbeing, though, and one cannot replace the other. It is equally important to know how to calm yourself down in an emotionally activating situation and to habitually engage in self-loving practices that leave a lasting effect on your health. Besides, some activities, like going for a walk in the nature or practicing mindful meditation, can fall under both categories! When and how we use them, however, can be different.

Which one are you more familiar with practicing?

03/04/2024