Episode 57: Love, Life, & Relationships with guest Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell
About Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell
Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell holds a master's degree in clinical psychology and a doctorate in developmental psychology. Her areas of expertise include dating, relationships, identity development, authenticity, emotional wellness, and adult family relationships. Dr. Anderson Abrell's book Single is the New Black: Don't Wear White 'til it's Right is a word of empowerment to singles—encouraging them to stay strong amidst “single shaming,” live life on their own terms, and never ever settle for anything less than an extraordinary relationship. A former professor, Karin now hosts Love & Life—a podcast providing lively and informative discussions grounded in psych research to help us thrive in all realms of love and life.
Dr. Karin was in academia for many years - five years at the undergraduate level and five years teaching at the graduate level. She was taking her clinical experience and using it as a professor. Throughout this time, however, her personal life was not on track. Professionally – her life was going as she'd hoped; but her personal life kept being a struggle. So, she did what many people do in this day and age. She would date someone for a couple years and things would seem seemingly be going well. But, ultimately, then would end up not working out. Dr. Karin even called off a wedding at the age of 34 - two months before she was to be married. The cold feet became frozen and she had to call off a wedding.
As Dr. Karin searched through the relationship and dating landscape for information and guidance, she realized that there was a voice that was missing. She didn’t believe that she was any more flawed than her happily married friends. But, when she would go the bookstore and read titles of the self-help relationship books – she would feel worse.
Triangle Theory of Love
Dr. Robert Sternberg’s Triangle Theory of Love is the three component construct for the “total package:”
Intimacy – enjoying each other’s company, sharing a connection and being each other’s best friend.
Passion – the sexual chemistry and the spark.
Commitment – being dedicated to one another.
When we have intimacy, passion and commitment, Sternberg calls this consummate love. Often when people reflect on relationships or marriages that didn’t work out, they’ll realize that they only had two of the three of those elements of the Triangle Theory of Love – for example. When we realized we were lacking something – and identify what it was – we can make sure that we have the missing component in a future love relationship before making that final commitment.
Five Love Languages
Dr. Gary Chapman proposed five love languages that impact how people in love relationships interact with one another.
Gift giving
Quality time
Words of affirmation
Acts of service
Physical touch
Learning your own love language, as well as your partner's, is a great opportunity to bring more objective awareness into your relationship. Learning each other’s love languages can offer a lot of clarity, and open a unique pathway for more empathetic communication. For example, perhaps you want your partner to hold your hand, but they don’t want to hold your hand. Instead of internalizing that, you can use Dr. Gary Chapman's five love languages to help change your perspective and expectations. You can see that your love language is different from your partner’s and that they are trying to express their love to you using an alternative approach.
Take the Love Language Quiz - CLICK HERE
The Book: “Single is the New Black”
Dr. Karin decided to write the book that was hoping to find at the bookstore. Her book is called “Single is The New Black :Don't Wear White ‘Til It's Right.” The book is not about how to snag a man. It is the exact opposite. It's about how to remain happy, hopeful and positive despite the painful experiences you're going through in your love life. Dr. Karin wrote the book that she wishes had been available to me when she was single. There is so much single shaming out there – so she wanted to empower women. Staying single actually is evidence of your strength that you aren't caving to the pressure.
Dr. Karin’s book is very accessible book. It is not academic at all, but she felt it was important to share a little bit of research about the topic of dating and relationships. For example, there is a 2013 study out of the University of Toronto that shows that people who fear being single are more likely to settle for a less than exciting relationship or stay in a relationship that they're not enthusiastic about just because they're so scared of being alone. They are also more likely to put up with qualities that aren’t part of healthy relationships. Dr. Karin wants her readers to know that being excited about their single life is the best place for them to be when seeking a partner.
Dr. Karin’s mission through the book and through her social media platforms (e.g., Instagram) is to highlight all of the powerful learning experiences and learning moments that arise from being a single adult. Being single helps to prepare us to be strong and bring a powerful presence to our marriages, relationships, etc. It is not your partner’s job to make you happy – it’s an inside job. Dr. Karin doesn’t just want to talk about single issues either. She loves to talk about marriage as well, because she thinks that two independent people make a union stronger.
Family Relationships, Identity and Wellness
Your family of origin makes a huge imprint on:
You
Your relationship patterns
Your self-worth
Your self-esteem
The impact of our family of origin carries into every relationship:
Workplace
Friendships
Romantic relationships
This individuation piece is a term from the family systems literature where we look at how to carve out healthy adult functioning. How do you relate with your family of origin in a way that allows you to remain close, yet also independent and separate? Many times, in our culture, especially in certain subcultures where there's a very strong ethos of family, you can’t go against the family. A lack of alignment with the family unit means that you've betrayed the family:
You don't agree with everything the family says
You don't vote the way that the family votes
You don't adhere to the family's religious preferences
You don't have the same profession
If you don’t agree with the family 100%, you don't love the family. This kind of dynamic can have such an impact on your identity and how you interact with others. In Dr. Karin’s grad school course, the professor used to say, “what you don't know does hurt you.” Your family of origin is absolutely making an impact on you in ways that you are completely unaware of.
The Power of Negative Thoughts
“Take charge of your thoughts, take charge of your life” – Dr. Karin
There is a relationship between your thoughts and feelings. We all know this intuitively. We know that when we're feeling good, you're thinking happy thoughts. In contrast, when you find yourself in a dark place and you're feeling down, what are you thinking about? What's going on in your mind? What is your self-talk when you are feeling low? The power of cognitive behavioural therapy is that we have so much more control over our self-talk than we realize. It may seem like you can’t help what you're thinking, but you can – it just takes a lot of discipline. Dr. Karin encourages people to set a little timer. When the timer goes off, write down exactly what you're thinking at that moment. Be very honest about what was going on in your head. People who are feeling down and depressed are thinking about something negative around 80% of the time. Dr. Karin suggests having a conversation with yourself and challenging yourself about the thoughts you are having. It takes a lot of work, but the beautiful thing is when you start doing this, it becomes easier and easier to challenge and then reframe your thoughts.
The more you retrain your brain to think in a certain way (even if challenging at first), the more the neural pathways will be reinforced, and the easier it will get with time. The neural pathways are forging a strong connection. If we have a strong connection in our neural pathways about negative thinking, then that's our default mode. But, we can change those neural pathways such that the positive thinking pathways are reinforced and strengthened and pretty soon it's harder to get in a bad mood. We're actually finding that this work changes your brain wiring, and that’s so powerful.
Gratitude Practice
A practice of gratitude actually helps rewire your brain, because if you express gratitude on a regular basis you start to prime yourself to look for moments throughout the day that are positive and that make you feel warm and fuzzy. Small moments (e.g., a warm cup of coffee in the morning or a quiet morning walk) are extra powerful because we can find these glimmers of gratitude throughout the day. Noticing these positive occurrences that happen throughout the day can shift the way that your brain is wired, because now you're seeking out these moments of gratitude. Your brain is now more attuned to these positive occurrences that are happening throughout the day. In contrast, if you’re constantly thinking negatively – you are essentially blind to the positive things that happen because we're not paying attention to them.
Confirmation Bias
The social psychology term “confirmation bias” is a type of cognitive bias that involves favouring information that confirms your previously existing beliefs or biases. You favour perceiving information that confirms your previously held beliefs. So, if you have a positive bias, you’ll “see” more positivity and joy. In contrast, if you have a negative bias, you’ll “see” more gloom, disappointment and sadness. Gratitude teaches your brain to look for the good, positive and joyful. A gratitude practice rewires your brain towards a bias of happiness and positivity. Any research study on the correlation between gratitude and happiness that Dr. Karin has seen shows a relationship between gratitude and happiness such that the more happy I am, the more grateful I am and vise versa.
Acceptance and Commitment Therapy (ACT)
As Dr. Karin mentioned earlier, cognitive behavioural therapy is basically taking charge of your thoughts. In Dr. Karin’s Love & Life Podcast she talks to the creator of ACT, Dr. Steven C. Hayes, in episode 65, “Liberate Your Mind to Address Depression and Anxiety.”
The basis of ACT is creating distance between your thoughts. You challenge yourself and you challenge your thinking (e.g., “That is an irrational thought. I don't receive that.) Another way you can create distance is to look at those negative thoughts as they are a kind of dictator within. This voice and commentary may have originated from a critical parent, a former coach or someone in our past that was critical of us. Ultimately, we end up internalizing that criticism which causes us to feel bad about ourselves or to feel that we have low self-worth or self-esteem. The creator of ACT, Dr. Hayes, encourages us to look at that voice, that commentary that's negative and critical and call it a dictator or give it a specific name. Dr. Hayes talks about taking those thoughts and visualizing them. For example, you can view your negative thoughts as leaves that are flowing down a stream. If the thought is flowing down a stream, it doesn't have to stay. It can be here for a moment and then it can go away. Another option is to make the negative, critical voice sound goofy. The purpose is that this act provides distance between you and the thought. It provides a little levity to the thought to where you don't have to take that thought so seriously.
Conclusion
For more information on Dr. Karin Anderson Abrell you can visit her website - CLICK HERE.
To listen to Dr. Karin’s Love & Life Podcast on Spotify - CLICK HERE.
Follow Dr. Karin on Social Media
Instagram - CLICK HERE
Twitter - CLICK HERE
Facebook - CLICK HERE