No one was prepared for this Covid-19 pandemic. Each person is responding to this situation according to their life story up to the present. Whatever the experience, it is unique and individual. From the people who have to stay home, to the many who struggle every day so that people can return home safe and sound.

Everyone, including me, went through the experience of responding in a certain way to this huge change in our lives. When in certain cases feelings of apprehension, insecurity, fear or others are experienced, the levels of anxiety, stress, surveillance, insomnia and others can be induced.

It is important to reflect on what you can do to make this period easier than it may be. We are a sociable people, the confinement and the necessary distance forces everyone to be on their island and gradually the island tends to become too small.

We are often so busy in our lives that being forced to stop in this way forces us to feel how human we are, not machines! It forces the connection and the relationship. It is essential to stay connected, listen and be heard.

Reinaldo Diniz

Everything we do, think and feel is recorded and encoded in the brain. Repeating patterns over time shapes and trains the brain.

If we become aware of this we will realize how important it is to be attentive to what is paid attention to and to what we dedicate time and space in our mind.

Our experiences leave their mark. If we are curious and strengthen the ability to stop for a while and pay attention to what is going on internally, we can transform the way we experience what we feel and the responses we give.

It is easy to believe that what ails us is simply a matter of personal defect or a weakness inherent in one’s ability to handle things. We try to live the present by silencing and avoiding remembering the past that hurts us. Being in a present state, sometimes cognitively disconnected from oneself, and without objective awareness of past influence.

Being afraid of inner exploration, looking back and remembering what you don’t want to be remembered can be a big block. Fear is a very important part that seeks safety. We don’t want to remember and feel what hurts us.

Psychotherapy establishes security and space for inner exploration, an experience filled with curiosity, calmness, connection, compassion, centered on oneself and the moment.

Recognize life’s challenges, and understand the various ways in which the past has shaped present behaviors and emotions. An internal transformation to meet yourself.

Reinaldo Diniz

In the days that run social media can be an important tool, promote connections with people of the past and present, sharing information and even keeps people with what happens at the moment. On the other hand, and at the same time, it can create some distance in the importance of developing real relations of presence.

We all try to make connections. We want closeness to the family. We all want to get on well with co-workers. We want people with whom we can share our thoughts and with whom we can have positive experiences. But, as we know, there are people with greater or lesser difficulties of relationship.

For some people social media can be a tool used to show that are very happy and with a large number of friends, camouflaging the pain of loneliness and isolation.

There are many people in the world who are alone, which is different from having the opportunity to choose to be alone with oneself, alone to think and reflect. Loneliness is different, it refers to painful feelings of isolation. The word loneliness and according to the dictionary, explains, among other things, as a deep sense of emptiness and isolation, therefore, having in itself a negative connotation.

For some people it seems easy to connect with other people, for others it can be extremely difficult. However, being alone can be experienced as positive, pleasurable and emotionally invigorating. We have the saying that “better alone than in bad company.” When we are alone, we do not necessarily have to feel lonely, many people choose to be alone, to enjoy and even to feel good in their own company.

But being alone, isolated, remembers sadness, being forgotten or ignored, which may not be a pleasant situation. Loneliness can be seen as being physically alone, but there is loneliness that even in the midst of a crowd, or accompanied by friends and family that give us love, we feel empty, trying to fill that void and that seems not to be reached.

To a certain extent it will not be the number of friends we have acquired, but the qualities of relationships with us and with people we call friends. Time and availability are essential to nurture close and lasting friendships not only with others, but also with ourselves in order to promote feelings of less solitude.

Reinaldo Diniz

Eating Disorders, a response to a set of deep and difficult emotions that need to be understood in order to understand the role of ED in a person’s life. With curiosity and connection, helping the inner system, understanding it, and seeking to achieve internal transformation so that the ED stops doing what it does without it being by force

Many times we would like to be able to change our partner. Even if she or he only changed a little, it would help! If she or he would do or say it, it would be ideal!

Discussions can be seen in different categories. For example, a relationship with other people, a relationship with the world we live in, culture, etc., and a relationship we have with us. In this way, we could think of interactions that occur from and to the other and that can be balanced or unbalanced. Do we give them the opposite of what we receive? To a certain extent, do we need to receive what we give? Do we need balance? What are the consequences of the imbalance for a relationship?

It is common to seek therapy regarding personal relationships with family members, partners, friends and co-workers. Emotional imbalance promotes difficult feelings that end up negatively affecting everyday life.

Throughout life in the different contexts of the relationship, feelings and emotions are emerging. Feelings even unknown to our consciousness. Adapting to the relationship allows us to encounter feelings that are activated and that might not even known.

Relationships with anyone, always have a point in common, which is the relationship with ourselves.

Over time we accumulate beliefs and emotions that interfere with our relationships. Looking inside allows us to see the emotions, thoughts and feelings that often keep us away rather than approaching us.

Looking at the relationship from our Self, it can be emotionally difficult, but at the same time gratifying in the discovery of meaning.

Each has its own history. The circumstances of life change and it is not easy to accept changes over which we have no control. Inner exploration calmly and curiously seeks to find answers so that emotional balance can be achieved and clearly establish happier and more fulfilling relationships for ourselves.

Reinaldo Diniz

Why would anyone want to sabotage their own efforts? If we are more objective in the question, what is the motivation and logic underlying self-sabotage?

We have all gone through situations or we have known someone who could be very successful, accomplished, but instead fails in their goals through repetitive behaviors that are harmful to them.

It is not uncommon to have people in therapy who are desperately seeking to achieve a personal goal – such as being in a relationship, achieving financial balance, losing weight, achieving stability professionally – however, are somehow involved in behaviors and beliefs that indirectly or even actively prevent them from achieving those desires and goals. Not finishing what was started, little patience, irritability, making excuses, lack of focus. Self-sabotage is often unclear, can be subtle, and ultimately prevents achievement of goals.

What often happens is that there is a purpose. There is a positive intention, a protective and less visible need behind the self-sabotage. Behaviors indicative that at an internal level is trying to meet a psychological and emotional need. This need may not be recognized.

To present curiosity and to meet and listen the history is the first step to follow this long path of behavioral change.

Create space, trust and security for the access to consciousness, in a rhythm of discovery, with respect and internal clarity fundamental for the changes to occur, not as a struggle, but rather because it makes sense.

Reinaldo Diniz

It seems that something is missing and that the feeling of emptiness is not complete. The feeling that we will always feel lonely, that certain things will never allow us to achieve personal fulfillment or, until, we will never be heard or understood. It is not easy to define the emotional deprivation of affective deprivation and perhaps the most common psychotherapeutic needs.

We take away, kidnap or exile ourselves from the rest of our experience. Perhaps because of the feelings of pain and discomfort that arise in us, or the possible feelings of shame that may accompany the experience.

In order for us to see and care for emotional deprivation, we need recognition, which is not easy.

The void of needing seeks solutions by looking outside ourselves. An arduous task, to satisfy the need for attachment and to feel valued by someone, while at the same time it is necessary to deal with internal critical thoughts and feelings related to this lack.

When this internal need cannot be heeded, there is a need to seek to eliminate this necessity externally, with the partner, with friends, with children, with food, with alcohol, or others, witch will act as protectors.

When you look inside and pay attention to the inner affective lack and help relieve it of our burdens, we no longer have to wait for external help to fill that void. The magic that the other can read our emotions and make it meet our needs is no longer the focus. It is very gratifying when we can face the needs without them running away.

If you are in a situation of emotional frailty and would like to know how to deal with the situation, feel free to contact me and talk about it.

Sometimes it is not easy to deal with emotions, especially if we experience intense emotions that take up a lot of space in our daily lives. Difficult feelings like anxiety, anger, stress, panic, among others, end up taking control of our life especially if we fight against them.

Considering our life history, our origins, the culture in which we are inserted, the logic in which we live, among others, dealing with strong emotions can be particularly difficult.

How many times do we go on the street and someone greets us asking, “So, is everything okay?” What is often answered, could be: “It’s all okay, thank you” or “I´m fine”. It is a fact that on certain difficult days we could be truthful and respond by sharing how badly we are feeling. The way we deal with emotions varies from person to person, but it is common that avoidance of emotion or behaviour change are strategies that we use. It seems to be easier not to bring deep emotions to the surface, it may be too painful.

The strategy of avoiding or even blocking the feeling of pain promotes internal relief, it is a protection, which at the same time creates distance, which distance us away from solving the problem, perpetuating it. However, emotion has a set of important roles. It’s like the red light that lights up on a car dashboard and tells us that something goes wrong. Emotion tells us not only what we feel, but also what we need.

When we hear the voice of emotion, which is, when we concentrate attention on fear, sadness, shame, guilt, or other, and we can feel the information that is shared internally with curiosity, calmness and clarity, the decisions of our life tend to be taken more safely.

Our emotions are present from an early age. Sometimes the interpretation that is made in a particular situation, is based fundamentally on the answers learned from an early age and that deals with fear, sadness, guilt, shame, among others. These are learned responses that keep us away from feelings of pain that cannot be reexperienced.

In the background it is important to pay attention to the feelings without being part of them at the same time, it is necessary to create safe space to listen to the history of the emotion that hurts, be with her and for her.

Bulimia nervosa is characterized by recurrent and frequent episodes of eating unusually large amounts of food and feeling a lack of control over these same episodes. This binge eating is followed by behavior that compensates for overeating, such as forced vomiting, excessive use of laxatives or diuretics, fasting, excessive exercise or a combination of these behaviors.
Unlike anorexia nervosa, people with bulimia nervosa generally maintain what is considered a healthy or normal weight, while some are slightly overweight. As people with anorexia nervosa, they often dread gaining weight, desperately want to lose weight, and are intensely unhappy with the size and shape of the body. Usually, bulimic behavior is done secretly because it is often accompanied by feelings of disgust or shame. The cycle of binge eating and purging occurs anywhere, several times a week, many times a day.

Other symptoms include:

– Chronic and inflamed throat pain
– Swollen salivary glands in the neck and jaw
– Enamel of spent teeth, increasingly sensitive and decaying teeth as a result of exposure to stomach acid
– Acid reflux disorder and other gastrointestinal problems
– Intestinal discomfort and irritation of laxative abuse
– Severe fluid drainage dehydration
– Electrolyte imbalance (very low or very high levels of sodium, calcium, potassium and other minerals) that can lead to heart attack.

What are the different types of Eating Disorders?

• Anorexia Nervosa
• Bulimia Nervosa
• Binge Eating disorder