Breathing Life - Joshua Roy's Blog

Some time ago my wife and I attended a relationship “strengthening marriage” seminar. After completing the course we explained to a family friend that we did this course. The response was very interesting. This person said, “oh, I did not know that you were having marriage difficulties”. This was an interesting response. When I replied that we were not having problems, the person looked perplexed. The prevalence of this perception is really concerning. The mechanical world understands the need for tune ups and prevention checks. Car services are not only done to change oil, but to check brake pads, lights, tyres, and other moving parts.  Very few cars break down on the highway when regular car services are performed. So why did my wife and I participate in the “strengthening marriage course”. Well this is not the first course we have done together and it will not be the last.  While at the “strengthening marriage course”, the facilitator asked what activities you can do together as a couple. Other couples gave standard answers like hold hands.  Sit together and talk. Go out to dinner.  Go to the movies. I then explained to the other couples that my wife and I…

I spoke with a teenage girl who stated that she is always fighting and getting into yelling arguments with others, including her mother, her cousin, and other people in her life.   Her justification for being confrontational is that she hates others telling her what to do.  This is an issue for her now in her life, yet in the future it could also be an issue if she someday works for a boss.  The reality is that most of us need to be able to respond appropriately when being told what to do.   I decided to do a process with her in which we considered her strategy for getting angry in communication.   I compared the strategy of getting angry with the strategy of baking a cake.   I explained her that if she wanted to bake a cake she would gather ingredients, order and sequence those ingredients, place it in the oven and wait for the cake to cook.  If those ingredients were incorrect, or the time in the oven was too short or too long then the cake would be a flop.  Too much opening of the oven door in anxious expectation, and the cake may…

I was working with a client that was struggling with feeling resentment in her life.  I could see that there was work to do in establishing shared values, however for now it was necessary to create a kinesthetic strategy that would enable her to at least deal better on an emotional level. We worked together to create the following neurological bridge. There were four components. Resentment Active understanding Enduring patience Loving peace Once anchored into her nervous system, we were able to establish a new pattern of behaviour. This simply meant that instead of being stuck in feeling resentment, she would automatically wind up feeling loving peace. She was grateful of the changes caused and she felt now that she would have a different outcome when she fell into that emotion in the future. This process took about 20 minutes to establish. I tested the outcome and was pleased to hear that it worked wonderfully. (She was able to create each emotion in her body and the transitions through the various emotions was rapid. She was an incredible learner). Each of us runs strategies in our own lives. Dealing with negative emotions can be a real challenge to some, and this may…

The struggles of ADDICTION   I was working with a man who struggled to separate Love from Sex.  He described that both seemed to him to be one and the same.  He described that when he had sex he felt loved.  When he was rejected sexually, he felt unloved and/or unlovable.   Therefore he had a rule in his life that sex equalled love.  One of the fundamental needs that we have as human beings is the need to be loved.  This led him towards a sex addiction.  He thought that he wanted/needed sex, when he was actually wanting/needing love.  This is not uncommon for one with similar addictions.   Addiction can be very strong, and the roots of addiction very deep.   There is a prevalent thought in the world that “once an addict, always an addict”.  I choose to believe that this statement is completely false.  It is my experience that when an addict is shown another way, that addiction, or any addiction can be overcome.  When the addict chooses another way to meet the need inside themselves, and consistently follow this new way, life will change.  The person simply needs to attach enough pain to the addiction,…

We all have a need to be loved.  This is one of the fundamental needs that each human being shares.  What happens when we feel unloved?  When we feel unloved, and this feeling is reinforced over time, we can find ourselves in a very lonely place.  The feeling of not being loved can lead to the making of negative choices.  When we feel unloved we may sabotage our relationships.  When we feel unloved we may act and behave in ways that are immature or inappropriate.  When we feel unloved and then “act out”, and doings so can cause us to feel even worse.   It is a very negative spiral. I had a conversation with a man who explained that when he felt unloved he would spiral into negative patterns and negative behaviours.  He struggled with addiction and found that his life had become unmanageable at certain times in his life.  Furthermore he found that this feeling of being unloved seemed to start a negative spiral.  Something negative would happen and he would respond by feeling that he was not loved.   While in that negative place he would feed his addiction in an attempt to feel better, and act inappropriately.  This…

I spoke with a young woman who has suffered Anxiety and Depression.  This may be circumstantial due to her current situation. Things will be changing for her in the near future and therefore we had a conversation about that future. First I asked if she could see a vision of the future. She responded that she could see it, and described herself in a car with friends singing away as loud as she could. They were all laughing and having a great time. (Vivid imagination – WOW). She sounded very happy as she described this scene. I asked her to continue to describe how she had felt and what she heard. She described feelings of joy and happiness. She described laughter and sounds of Joy. After listening I decided to see if I could assist her to enhance the scene in her mind. I asked her to make the picture she described as big as a house and bright like the sun. I asked her how this felt. She could hardly communicate with me as she imagined the picture enlarged and bright. I then asked her to turn up the sounds in her mind. The music, the laughter and the…

A couple of weeks ago I met with a young girl who explained to me that she was in a bit of trouble.  She was in trouble with the courts because she had stolen her mother’s car.  As I was speaking to this young lady I asked her about the relationship she has with her mother.  She explained to me that all her mother cares about is the foster children that she is looking after. I asked her why she stole the car.  She was unable to answer this question. I explained to her that I believe that all of us want to be loved and accepted.  I then asked her “do you think that you stole the car because you wanted your mothers’ attention?  Do you think that you may have done it because deep down you want your mother to love you. She thought about this for a time and then said, “Yes, I guess you are right”.  I then asked her how it was working out for her.  I asked her if her action had the desired result.  The look on her face indicated that her attempts to get her mother to show her love, really did…