DEBORAH COX BLOGS
Once Upon a Time: Repression and Learning to Say No
Repression: I once knew what this was and then I forgot. Last weekend, I attended the EMDRIA conference in Minneapolis where physician, Gabor Maté, spoke about the connections between trauma, emotional repression, and disease. He told the story of his Jewish infant...
How Getting Grounded Makes you Smarter
I believe you. I think it's important for you to know that. When someone's taking you seriously, you stay more awake to your observations. Sometimes we knock down the disturbing ones, like a kid playing Whack-a-Mole. We fear a dawning realization. We don’t want it to...
“I’m not creative.” 17 Signs of Artistic Abuse
Artistic Abuse What is artistic abuse? Creative expression heals. Everyone has an inner artist. When we nurture the inner artist, we heal. Artistic Abuse (or Neglect) is communication (direct or indirect) that discourages, shames, or minimizes a person’s creative...
Stuck at the Pageant: Why we have trouble with Hillary
I just realized I’ve been duped again by Internalized Sexism. I thought I was well past this. But I bought in, unconsciously, to the sliming of an important woman. When I look at her record of public service, I find no question or doubt. Hillary Clinton is the most...
Abusive Religion or Political Party? Toxic Faith: Part II
Toxic Faith & Political Abuse Spiritual practice should calm and ground you – so you feel hopeful, refreshed, more generous, and more compassionate. Religion and philosophy should promote ever-increasing access to your wise mind or Higher Self. But some...
15 Signs of Religious Abuse: Toxic Faith, Part I
How do I know if I’m in an abusive church? Religious abuse keeps us quiet because of the beliefs that support it. In fact, if you have difficulty with your faith tradition or your church, you probably think it’s YOU with the problem – not the spiritual guidance you're...
Dis-Fellowshipping: When People get Shunned
I have shunned and been shunned. What leads me to turn my back? Repeated bullying or toxic behavior that takes a mental or physical toll. Abuse toward me or others, without acknowledgement of impact. It makes me sad, but out of self-preservation, I've sometimes hit...
What Does Freedom Look Like to You?
We hear a lot about freedom from politicians and life coaches. But freedom seems a bit vapory to me. Freedom to, what, exactly? Last week, I started asking people, What does freedom look like to you? Here are some of the answers people gave me. Having the...
Notice Body-Mind Connections and Heal from Trauma
I used to fall a lot. On the sidewalk. In my yard. Up a flight of marble stairs. About seven years ago, after a string of bizarre falls where I ended up with scars on my shins and a pulled muscle in my back, I followed the trail of breadcrumbs and made a body-mind...
Loathing, Lust, & Longing: Why We Obsess so Much
My son amazes me. He has his obsessions, but they're about his music, his philosophizing. He’s so different from the adolescent me of thirty-five years ago. He’s calmer and freer to learn. He’s funny, and takes creative risks with language. He accepts people with all...
Book Review – Wife Material
Some in the 70s missed ERA and the end of Vietnam. Among them was Elizabeth Campbell, the heroine of Wife Material: A Novel of Misbehavior and Freedom. Cocooned from the larger world of feminism and anti-government rallies, Elizabeth was well-prepared for domestic...
I’m a Total Failure: Transform Multi-generational Guilt and Shame
I'm a Failure. If I weren’t so lazy, I’d be more financially stable. If I was a better daughter, my parents would still be together. If I were thinner, my husband would have sex with me. If I weren’t so angry, I’d have friends. If I’d worked harder in my 20s, I’d have...
Relationship Disconnect: How it affects our health.
2019 Update: As if we needed more proof . . . relationships and bodies function together. This article talks about loneliness, which is just another term for disconnection. Everyone I love needs to read these four books. The Birth of Pleasure, Carol Gilligan The...
Zombies in Relationship: Identify Feelings and Come Out of the Trance
Several months ago, I wrote about dissociation, or being tranced-out. Trance feels like confusion or sleepiness and it blocks our energy in relationships. Trance envelopes us when we can’t make sense of the mixed information we’re receiving inside our relational...
Deepening our Relationships by Letting People Know Us
Yesterday, I had a conversation with friends about how we become known inside our relationships. Where and with whom can we be truly ourselves? How much do we share? What parts of ourselves do we keep hidden? Loneliness and social isolation pose serious health risks....
A Conversation about I and Thou
Remember the last time you worked a concession stand? You wore your team’s t-shirt and took money and gave out candy bars? Remember how odd it felt when people handed you their dollar bills without any eye contact? Like you’re the generic...
Leaving Home to Find My Higher (Grownup) Self
I Write to Grow Up I struggle to differentiate, as we all do. Leaving home is a lifelong process, as described by Murray Bowen, the father of family systems theory. But writing my novel, Wife Material, about the process of leaving home, catapulted me forward. That’s...
Writing as Healthy Rebellion
Julia Cameron says we all have the right to write, even if someone has told us we’re no good at it. Writing is a birthright that cannot be denied. It brings what’s inside to the outside, a very basic human need. I’m working on a sequel to Wife Material, the novel I...
Snap out of Trance and De-Zombie-fy (I & Thou, part 2)
I've been watching people turn into zombies all week in couples therapy. One woman said, I shut myself down so I won't have to strangle him! Trance-induction is complicated. It robs us of moments, but it helps us avoid feelings we don't want to have. And sometimes it...
Find Your G-Spot: Healthy versus Coercive Guilt
My clients report LOTS of guilt. Guilt over everything . . . being a rebellious teen (thirty years ago) . . . failing to protect their children from unforeseen tragedies . . . eating desserts . . . not living up to their potential . . . breaking someone’s heart...
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