The Rational Basis® of Happiness Podcast

The Selfish Path to Romance. Download chapter one for free at DrKenner.com and Amazon.com.

Here is a question that I got from Janine.

Dear Dr. Kenner, I'm into my third trimester of pregnancy with my first child. My girlfriend expressed her concern that my husband and I will lack warmth as parents because we are cold fish. Can you imagine your girlfriend coming up to you and saying, "You know, the two of you are really cold fish. You're not going to make good parents?"

So I'll continue here. I know that I shelter myself emotionally a bit from her, the girlfriend, because she has been so quick to judge me in the past without understanding a proper context. Her concern has some legitimacy for both of us. Though I tend to disconnect in response to trauma or great emotional upset, I also do this to a certain degree every day. I don't invest much emotion into my life, and I don't experience as much hurt or disappointment. So you can hear a little bit that you're deadening your emotions.

I grew up in an abusive household and used to disconnect from my emotions as a protective measure. It is not serving me well. Now my husband is also emotionally repressed. Are there activities, reading materials, or suggestions that you feel may help us warm up and reconnect? Thanks.

Janine, I want to tell you that when I went through a period in my childhood, I wasn't physically abused. There wasn't big trauma, but I did have a coping strategy of withdrawing and not feeling strong emotions, and I have changed dramatically. So change is possible with knowledge and with effort, and the effort is enjoyable.

If someone said to me, "Ellen, we have to make you deaden your emotions," that's not fun. But to come out of your emotional cocoon, your protective cocoon, when it's not serving you any longer can be fun if you approach it in the right way, and I hope you will.

So here are some tips. First, you want to empathize with the fact, which I think you already do, that you went through a lot of pain in your childhood, and the coping strategies might have been very good ones. You know, if you have a very abusive father or mother and you can't speak up, you can't speak your mind because they yell at you. You can't share what you love with them—the values or the toys or trucks or dolls or whatever it is you love—because they'll take it away from you.

So many kids in that situation do have the coping strategy of avoidance, withdrawal, or emotional repression. But as you know, you lose out on that emotional color and passion in your life—the "Yay, I won that game," or "Oh, I can't wait to get that toy," or "Why did you do that?" You know that richness of emotions, and you don't want to do that to yourself because your emotions are your values, and you want to become more of a passionate valuer in your life.

The first thing I would do is give yourself permission to enjoy your pregnancy. If you're not doing it that much, enjoy feeling the movements in your belly. Enjoy planning for your child together. Enjoy it with your hubby. You also can practice with one another. If you're both a little emotionally repressed, you can practice with one another, saying, "Oh, I like this," or "This was fun today," or "I had a good time," just saying what your emotions are and building up an emotional vocabulary.

You can even go online and look up emotions and find words for the sad emotions, for the happy emotions, and you get a whole list of different adjectives that give you a richer repertoire of expressing yourselves with one another. You can understand your emotions better, and most people don't know that you can understand each category of emotion.

If you're feeling sad, depressed, bummed out, that category has to do with loss—loss of something that you find is important, loss of a job, loss of a loved one, loss of a feeling of self-respect or self-esteem. Happiness is the opposite—you've achieved something you value.

Anger is the feeling that comes from feeling something's not fair. Anxiety comes from either self-doubt or uncertainty. So you can learn cognitive therapy skills that will give you much more enjoyment in your life because you'll understand yourself.

You can also learn assertiveness skills, how to express emotions safely. Instead of saying, "You jerk, you idiot, you're a fool," you can learn to say, "I was hurt by that comment," or "I'm really puzzled by what you did." I'm talking about myself, my response, how I feel. And that's a skill you can learn. They're called assertiveness skills, or "I" language, meaning the pronoun "I."

I feel, I expect, I would like, I hear. I mentioned earlier about becoming a passionate valuer. Janine, just allow yourself to start to feel like you. Ask yourself the question, "What do I like in life?" Like you're in a toy store, which it probably will be with your first child in a year or so. What do you enjoy in life?

Is there reading certain books that you like? Make sure they're a little more upbeat and not about trauma and tragedy. Or is there a couples' hobby, even if it's a small couples' hobby that isn't time-intensive, if you guys don't have a lot of time, that you could enjoy together that brings a togetherness to your life that you could laugh about?

Maybe you could watch some movies, some soul food. I think of it as "Singing in the Rain." If you haven't seen that, it's an older movie. Or some newer ones that are even "Beauty and the Beast," a Disney movie that is a lot of fun. You can read books with heroes and heroines.

My favorite are "Atlas Shrugged" and "The Fountainhead." They are wonderful heroes and heroines in "Atlas Shrugged." Toss out the labels your friend called you—a cold fish. So catch times when you feel warm with one another and with other people because you mentally want to discover your strengths, your ability to open up a little bit more emotionally, and get rid of that cold fish label.

And with motivation, you're not going to change overnight. So just give yourself a little coaching, like you would your best friend. Just say, "I want to become a little warmer today. I want to be able to express a little bit how I feel." A little bit, those words—"a little bit" or "a tad"—help us move into action rather than "I have to change overnight."

Also, motivate yourself by what you want. You want to have a more vibrant emotional life with your husband and with your new baby when your baby is born, and with the people in your life that you value. You want to be able to enjoy hobbies and maybe your career, and so you want to be able to breathe emotionally.

You are in the beginning of a wonderful journey, and I think that you'll enjoy that alternative. You always have the coping strategy if anybody, if you're traumatized. I think all of us go into a bit of withdrawal, so don't beat yourself up if you occasionally feel that. Build the skills to really breathe emotionally for yourself.

Janine, for more Dr. Kenner podcasts, go to DrKenner.com.

Please listen to this:

Here's an excerpt from "The Selfish Path to Romance," the serious romance guidebook by clinical psychologist Dr. Ellen Kenner and co-author Dr. Edwin Locke.

Sex is an intensely selfish pleasure and is based on both a deep emotional connection with your partner and a selfish desire to give your partner equal pleasure. We view sex in the context noted above as good. The pleasure of sex is properly viewed as an end in itself, not as the means to any other end. Sex is good because it is rationally pleasurable. It is part of your nature as a human being to enjoy life-affirming pleasure.

Dr. Leonard Peikoff explains that sex, quote, "is a celebration of one's power to gain values and of the world in which one gains them." Unquote. You can download chapter one for free by going to DrKenner.com, and you can buy "The Selfish Path to Romance" at Amazon.com.