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Are You Being Love Bombed? Here’s What You Need to Know.

Amelia Elkins, LCSW, CAS What is Love Bombing?  At this point, the terms “gaslighting” and “ghosting” are commonly used in today’s dating language lingo. But what about love bombing? According to Sabrina Romanoff, PsyD, love bombing is when someone “bombs” you with extreme displays of attention and affection. In the beginning of a relationship, the difference between infatuation and love bombing could be confusing. Here are three common themes to help you recognize whether you are being love bombed in a relationship. 1.) Feeling Smothered A love bomber will go to great lengths to spend as much time as possible with their partner. This may look like inviting themselves to outings, overstaying a welcome, and/or putting their needs before their partner’s. Obviously, in the beginning of a relationship this can be confusing to differentiate. There is a difference between wanting to spend lots of time together versus recognizing space is healthy.  Time away from our partner helps develop stronger relationships in the long run. If a partner came over every Friday night and is just leaving Monday morning, in the beginning of dating, this could be an example of love bombing. More on this here. 2.)  Big Gestures Another component of love bombing includes large gestures like flowers, trips, dinners, and gifts. Sounds great right? This is how most get sucked into a love bombing relationship. Important factors to notice are a sense of deep connection that is almost forced, such as intense eye connection, talks about the future and committing to plans, and excessive flattery. Or maybe the love bomber is saying ‘I love you’ when you aren’t ready. Again, some of this is normal in the beginning of a relationship and should be happening, but it’s the extent and level of intensity to watch out for. More on this here. 3.)  Control Lastly, with a love bomber, things will inevitably begin to shift and lead to a sense of dominance. Constant texting, calling, or checking in may become the norm and before you know it, you are in an abusive situation. This is where gaslighting may start to show up and things become super confusing. This phase may also result in the love bomber trying to separate you from friends and family to create sole reliance on them. This may look like the love bomber becoming upset if you spend time with friends or family instead of them. More on this here. How to Know the Difference Lastly, components of healthy infatuation include a honeymoon phase where of course one desires to be with their partner and feels amazing around them. The difference is, there is space, separation, and healthy boundaries around wants and needs. Fantasizing about the future is normal but committing to things a year out after only a few weeks or months of dating is a little too intense.  Interested in exploring more about love bombing? Therapy is a great way to process the healthy vs. challenging components of a relationship. Reach out today to get started.

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Changing Jobs? Here are Three Tips for a Smooth Transition

By: Amelia Elkins, LCSW, CAS Numerous folks are currently changing jobs. There are many reasons to switch up career roles.  These include wanting a change in general, wanting an increase in pay, or reassessing priorities post-Covid. The average person spends 1/3 of their lives at work, so with that time investment, the job should be enjoyable.  While there are many benefits to changing positions, there are also many hurdles to face. Whether navigating a new schedule, new coworkers, new commute, or even switching from in person to remote, here are some tools to help the transition go smoother.   Maintain Routines Outside of Work: One piece I highly encourage my clients to maintain is keeping their routines structured outside of work to avoid too much change all at once. This may include going to the same exercise classes, maintaining a healthy diet, or even going to the same park for your lunch break. This creates a sense of normalcy which can be comforting when changing jobs. Research has shown that maintaining routines leads to positive mental health and may even help reduce depression.   Healthy Beginnings and Endings: What does it mean to have positive closure at your current position? This may mean having a celebration or gathering to share memories and wishes or setting up coffee dates to see favorite coworkers before the departure. Unfortunately, not all positions prioritize this, so this may need to be created independently. Maintaining positive relationships at past positions is important for a variety of reasons so time should be made for this. Secondly, creating new, positive relationships in a new position is also important. This is also an opportunity to do things differently if relationships didn’t start off on a good note at the last position. Easing into things, not latching on to one coworker, and giving time before making judgments about coworkers would be a good start. Being intentional and willing to make connection in a new role is key to success. More on this here.   Give Yourself Time to Adjust: Research shows it takes up to six months to fully be comfortable in a new job. I would argue giving yourself up to a year to feel confident and comfortable in a new role. Knowing the transition will be a change and being ok with this is crucial. How do you deal with change? What has helped with life transitions in the past for you? Taking time to reflect and give yourself permission to adjust to a new role may be helpful in reducing stress.

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Did you Grow Up Playing Sports? Here’s How Those Skills You Learned Back Then Can Help You Find Success in Your Career.

By: Bobby Dunham, MA, LPCC When You Were Growing Up, Did You Play Sports? Here’s Why That Matters Now. For many of us, playing sports was an imperative part of our childhood. We lived for those feelings of being on a team, our competitive natural, fueling our desire to win. Now that we’re older and compete in different realms (our careers) are there things that we are forgetting about ourselves that we used to implement while playing sports? Although we might not be competing against others in a formal setting such as sports, competition is still very present. Now we are competing for a promotion, or just competing with our former self to constantly make improvements. Here are some questions to ask yourself next time you find your confidence slipping at work. Am I assuming failure with no evidence? Okay, picture this: it’s the bottom of the ninth, bases loaded, down by three runs, and you are up to bat. The crowed is watching and the pressure is on. Of course, you’re nervous, but think about your mindset walking up to the plate. Is it, “oh, this is going to be bad.” or is it, “I am about to crack that ball into next week?” Naturally, we needed to be confident and believe in ourselves before we could be successful in our sport, so why would be not think the same way at work? If you are going into things at work doubting yourself, try to remember, confidence is key when believing in ourselves. Am I giving it all I got? Our careers are not a game of baseball, and our lives are more stressful than they used to be.  So, we can’t expect ourselves to give 100% all the time. That being said, given the energy you do have to expel at work, are you giving it all you got?  Or have you started to turn on cruise control just to get through the workday? As years go on, we might find ourselves becoming complacent and content with mediocracy. Since we don’t have a coach to monitor our performance anymore, it might help to step back every now and then to assess if you are really applying yourself as much as you are able. Do I know what winning looks like for me? Soccer: make a goal. Football: score a touchdown. Basketball: make the shot. Career: eh, not a clue. In sports we have a clearly defined end goal to work towards. This absolute clarity, unfortunately, might not be how the real world looks for us. If you have lost sight of what you are working towards, then it could be difficult to stay motivated not knowing what you want out of it. If you feel as though you are lacking specific goals, try writing down where you picture yourself in a year and then small obtainable steps to reach the goals. It’s easier to stay motivated when we know what we are working towards. Sports gave us more than just entertainment and purpose, it also instilled behaviors that might be useful for us to this day. Looking back at strengths we had in sports could remind us of how we used to handle stress and competition in ways to get results. If you think you could benefit from instilling old habits, think back to the days of playing those games we loved and we just might learn something about ourselves.   If you liked this post, here is a link for other great reads! https://menwhoblog.com/blog/top-mens-lifestyle-blogs.html

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