Breathing Life - Joshua Roy's Blog

Had a profound and wonderful experience with a young woman who had struggled for many years with an eating disorder.   This woman stated that when she was about 7 years old she made a decision based on a thoughtless comment made by another person.  At this time she decided that she was large, and began living into this belief as a fundamental principle of her life.  From that time she had constantly struggled with weight, and this issue was having a major impact on her health and life. The first thing that I did was a process called parts integration.  Through this process she learned that the part of her that wanted healthy appetite and living was subservient to the part of her that wanted a pleasure filled appetite of eating unhealthy and sugary foods.   In other words the desire to eat unhealthy food was greater than her desire to treat her body with the love and respect it deserved, by eating satisfying and good foods.  She realised that this had created internal conflicts within herself. She said, “I recognise that I have been giving myself mixed signals.  My mind and body has been doing exactly what I have been telling it to do”….

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 have done previous posts on matching and mirroring and in order to appreciate this post it would be a good idea for you to check out former posts.  I also have a video on my site in which I give two examples in building rapport using matching and mirroring. Sending a text message or email is a less effective communication strategy. This seems to be the preferred way for young people to communicate.  The reason this is less effective is because words alone can be significantly misinterpreted.  I recall sending a funny text once to a friend.  This text message was misinterpreted and the friend became offended.  You see all the person got was a written message.  I sent it as a joke, yet the receiver had no way of knowing that I was joking.  As I was writing the joke I said it in a funny way in my own head, and then laughed at how funny I thought the joke was.   Unfortunately the joke did not work and I can only assume that the person read with a very different tone in their mind.  I have wondered how the same message may have been received had…

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,…

Have you ever had someone have a breakdown in front of you?  It happened to me this week.  I was with a woman in her early 20’s and she had been given some terrible news.  I helped her to understand the news and what it meant for her, and how it would affect her life over the next several days.  She did not take the news well and showed this by her body language.  She began to weep and cry and say “What.  What.  That can’t be right.  I’ve done nothing wrong”.  She hysterically began to repeat the word “No”, over and over again. As I watched her behaviour I decided to use matching and mirroring. Immediately I copied her body language by crying.  I stood opposite to her, where she could see me and I held my arms up to my face just as she was doing.  I then said, “What.  I don’t know.  I just don’t know.  I don’t know what they will do.  I am new here”. When I was speaking I used the same distressed tone of voice that she had used when she spoke. The result was interesting.  At first I thought that she would…

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…