Psychological Secrets for Emotional Success

By Kelly Rabenstein

A 2023 National Indie Excellence Awards Winner and a 2023 Eric Hoffer Book Award Finalist

Connections give our life meaning. We can all benefit by learning to connect better at home and at work.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Koehler Books
• Release date: Aug 30, 2022
• ISBN: 9781646637614

Kelly Rabenstein

Doctor Kelly is a licensed counseling psychologist. She earned a master of science in applied developmental psychology from the University of Pittsburgh, a master of arts in counseling psychology at Boston College, and a doctor of counseling psychology at Chatham University. Her focus is on relationships between people and the ability (or inability) of individuals to deeply connect through interpersonal communication. Doctor Kelly has worked in a wide range of clinical settings and as a consultant for companies who want to improve productivity through increased communication. Her writing has appeared in academic journals, magazines, online news sources, and more. She makes appearances as a mental health expert in the media, such as The Doctors TV show, Bustle, Mic, Thrive, and PopSugar. She teaches at the City University of New York as well as Purdue University. She lives in Charleston, SC, with her daughters, a golden retriever, and her familiar, a black kitty named Friend. For more information go to www.kellydoc.com.

Book preview

CHAPTER 1

Journey with Me

Would you like to understand yourself better?

Do you feel misunderstood?

Are you often angry? Sad? Frustrated? And you don’t know why?

Do you want to grow as a person to connect better with others?

Do you desire deeper intimacy?

Would you like to know more about how to enjoy emotional success?

Why does the idea of emotional success speak to you?

Do you feel stuck?

These questions are some of the reasons I wrote this book. I’ve been thinking about you, and I know there are secrets I can share with you. I’m a licensed psychologist, and I love my work. My goal is to help patients thrive and to find the freedom to be authentic. When you are real with yourself, you can love deeply. Otherwise, you are too busy holding tight to your facade to become your best self. People feel whole when they are genuine. Whole people create connections. Connections lift us all up. This is my goal. It’s nice to meet you.

I’ve spent two decades sitting with patients, hearing their stories, exploring their emotions—moving with them as they pass through the intensity of their lives. Desire for connection is at the center of everything. When you connect, it gives you purpose and meaning. But people have learned to hold back. For instance, you might wonder if you will be misunderstood if you engage in a sticky conversation. Digital interactions bring people closer, but sometimes in the freedom of anonymity, they can polarize. Sometimes it seems easier to erase your differences and pretend everyone is the same, rather than to dive in and get closer. It can be the same at home. Tired, you avoid conflict versus working toward resolution.

This is flawed thinking. Everyone is different. Instead of turning away from variation, what if you had tools and confidence to move closer? You will make mistakes. I’ve created psychological secrets to help you—as if your therapist, mentor, and best friend are in a room together, moving you toward your best self.

The book is meant as a balm. It will help you move from feeling alone to being connected. What I’ve learned—working with clients, in my academic training, as a woman, lover, parent, eater, human being—is wrapped up in these pages. I thought of you as I wrote, and I hope you can feel that.

AWARENESS+ EDUCATION + EMPATHY = EMOTIONAL SUCCESS

I suggest you start a diary. Write down a sentence or two about each day, placing yourself as the narrator in your own life. Add more when you feel like it, without the pressure to catalogue every detail. You can use the journal as a companion to this book. I take a messy approach to journaling—mixing recipes for dough with writing ideas. It is colorful, private, and has bits of chocolate smashed in. Writing a few words at a time doesn’t feel momentous, but often, when you look back at your life from your own perspective, it can be quite moving.

The key to emotional success is knowing who you are and how that impacts others. One way to adapt to alternative ways of thinking is to move from passive reading toward action. With that in mind, I’ve included exercises after each major concept. These activities will help your mind transform information into action—all through the exercises I’ve laid out for you to do each step of this journey. I refer to these activities as actions because action equals movement with intentionality.

These actions will suggest you write things down. You can use the aforementioned journal for this. We have also provided several pages for notes at the end of the book. Please take the time to write your thoughts, though it will obviously take more time, we know that the behavior of writing deepens both our understanding and memory of new information. The very act of writing forces you to metabolize what you've read, and this is part of what I want for you.

Movement with Intentionality

When you set an intention, you prepare for the journey ahead with clarity and purpose—which brings greater success. Without purposeful time set aside to delve into the topics, you will have a surface-level experience. Your brain learns best with repeated exposure to novel ideas. Personal growth is no different. I’ll give you an outline for how to approach the exercises to achieve the most meaningful outcomes.

Be yourself. Throughout this journey, I’ll ask you to reflect on yourself. Don’t try to answer in a way that shows you in a certain light. Let it be a raw, truthful, honest response. Answer as fast as you can, and let it be whatever it is. You can’t move forward if you don’t know the reality of where you stand.

Set your intention. What are your goals for this journey? Start big and then break things into smaller components until you’re left with your plans for this book, this chapter, and the action you are about to complete. When you are clear about your intentions, you are more likely to reach them.

Process. In therapy we always say, Beginnings and endings are important. Think about it—beginnings color how you frame the experience, and endings shape what you remember. Allowing space to narrate an experience gives you power to mold the ending. Therefore, processing is vital to growth. After each action, I’ll ask you to give weight and space to process the actions you’ve taken.

I’ve created layers of exploration to move you toward more meaningful experiences and deeper connections. Start with honesty, set your goals for the experience (prep your mind), and then process what you’ve done. Each step creates depth and opportunities for growth. If you find yourself on autopilot as you work through the reading or the actions, notice this, and start again at step one. This three-step process can help you engage in more meaningful experiences in all parts of your life.

AWARENESS

Let’s begin our journey. We start with an action that centers on uncovering more about who you are in this moment.

Who Are You?

You know a little about who you are in the world and how others experience you. But there is so much you don’t know. Unfortunately, much of this information is inaccessible.

What do others see when they look at you?

Would you like to know?

Imagine that you exist within layered systems. You start with the small micro system (your family) and move to ever larger systems, including your school, work, communities, country, and even the entire world. You impact the systems, and the systems impact you.¹

Let’s look to the smallest part—yourself—and focus on identity. When I ask you to list five things about yourself, I am asking you to consider your identity.

Identity is made of attributes that cannot easily change in the moment. Some parts are considered fixed, while others may be more fluid. Is your identity mostly fixed or fluid?

Identity is a complex concept. It has physical, emotional, and mental components, and it changes with setting and time. Imagine all the aspects of yourself like a solar system, spinning while also pushing and pulling with various forces of the systems in your life. It won’t ever be simple, but we will work together to increase your clarity through awareness. Every brain works differently, and everyone has individual ways of absorbing information. As a therapist, I work hard to find ways of meeting my patients where they are, and I will do the same with you. Let’s begin with a shared understanding and language about how the brain works. Let me tell you the science behind learning something new.

EDUCATION

Awareness helps you see yourself better. Education is the magic wand that lets you see another person’s reality. Education can happen formally; any class you take enriches your understanding of what it is to be human. It can also be informal, built into your life. For example, reading can be a simple way to learn more about others. Traveling broadens the mind and helps you to grow. Education can happen anywhere, such as talking with people different from yourself in a nonjudgmental and open way.

How to Change Your Brain

Do you know how your brain works? How you think impacts your perception of others! You have a unique way of gathering, keeping, and processing information. Let’s conceptualize the way you operate. Positive change can occur, but first you have to be aware of your patterns. For now, let’s focus on processing and working with information. Psychologists call these multiple intelligences and learning styles.

Sometimes when talking about intelligences or learning styles, you might assume it applies to formal education . . . but it is so much more! Gaining a clear picture of how your mind works has many benefits, including increased understanding of how you engage in the world, where your talents lie, and how you metabolize new information—the way you perceive the world around you. It doesn’t get more fundamental than that.

Understanding your perceptions is important to your overall increased self-awareness. For example, it is essential for you to be aware of whether reading a book and working through exercises will get you to a new way of being—or if there may be other/additional ways for you to engage with the material to move toward improved connections with others. Knowing how you take in new information can help you let go of ways of learning that don’t help you.

What kind of learning doesn’t help you? Here’s an example: I had a client who had high interpersonal intelligence combined with a passion for computer coding. She struggled with the type of instruction and assignments in her program. Frustrated, she decided to drop out of the program. Thankfully, during our sessions, she was able to define her learning styles and thereby seek new ways of getting the material. This shift in expectations from the traditional way of considering intelligence and education helped propel her into her chosen field.

Sometimes you mistake faulty information-gathering as limitations. It’s time to stop doing that. Knowing how you perceive the world is key to connecting with others.

How do you process, gather, and keep information?

Multiple Intelligences: Here’s How It Works

Everybody is a genius. But if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid.

—Albert Einstein

I’m not a huge fan of IQ. It was a brilliant construct created by two French geniuses with good intentions over a century ago. However, it is limiting. It has been proven to be directly linked to socioeconomic status. Assessments are also largely biased toward White males. In addition to these disturbing facts, it only grasps a certain type of thinking, what psychologists call G. G is made up of a group of skills that are thought to be correlated with the idea of intelligence. This is up for debate.

Thank goodness in 1983, Harvard professor Howard Gardner offered the theory of multiple intelligences (MI). He argues that limiting oneself to the classic notion of IQ ignores all the ways people are smart. I tell you this for two reasons:

First, let’s explore how you work so you are prepared to engage with the text in the deepest way. Here is your second action—a chance to consider how your brain works and evaluate your people skills.

Learning Styles: Here’s How It Works

Remember:

Each learner has a primary learning style and can be taught how to study and concentrate capitalizing on that style.

—Stephen Denig

In the early 2000s, a man named Stephen Denig realized that the way people learn is influenced by their intelligences. Where does your greatest aptitude lie? What comes easy to you? How do you interact with the world? These answers point to both your ways of being smart and how you assimilate new information—otherwise known as how you learn.

Your mind loves new information. How you gather and retain information impacts every unfamiliar thing you encounter! And again, this is how you learn. Now you have a clearer idea of your intelligences, which is the way you process information. Let’s consider how those intelligences translate into learning.

EMPATHY

What is empathy—and how is it compounded by awareness and education? You may have awareness and education. However, without empathy, you do not have attachment to others. Empathy leads to openness. Empathy comes from vulnerability and genuineness, and you can learn both ways of being.

In this first chapter, we are building your foundation for the rest of the book.

While we think about empathy, I want to introduce a framework for the language people use. How people refer to one another is a simple way to express empathy.

Person-First Language

How you speak matters. Have you heard of person-first language? This is a way of speaking that puts humanity central in the way you talk. Sometimes people bristle at the idea, calling it political correctness, as though being kind is too much work. Just as you wouldn’t let the door slam in someone’s face, you can think of person-first language as holding open a door—an invitation to connect.

What an uncomplicated way to show empathy. I’ll ask you to please consider person-first language in your way of speaking, no matter where you are, as how you speak has the power to reverse engineer how you think. If you speak with empathy, your empathy will increase. Empathy is a pillar of emotional success; how wonderful you can begin so simply with your words.

LOOKING AHEAD

The question is always blah, blah, blah and the answer is always love, love, love.

—Dr. Mary Beth Mannarino

The recent pandemic has given the world gifts. Though it has been and still is horrific, lonely, terrifying, and devastating, Covid-19 shines light on a two-sided coin. Endings make beginnings. Without destruction, new growth stalls. There is an ancient Hindu goddess named Kali. Many consider her a harbinger of death. But Kali also brings life. She embodies the idea that without loss, there is no new life. To start something new, you must be open to a change from the old ways.

You can decide to be a flexible reed and bend in the rain, or a stiff branch that may break.

It depends refers to the notion that nearly everything in the universe is fluid. When I began grad school, I thought I would be given clear edicts. Instead, I was taught to see patterns and to accept that no two situations are the same. The second part—Ask your supervisor—refers to the idea that no matter what, we all need support scaffolding. I wasn’t taught how to respond to each specific ethical situation but rather how to seek appropriate support and then attempt to work through the problem. Life is a lot like this—everything is gray, and it never hurts to have great support scaffolding.

Change can bring up pain. As we move deeper into our time together, I will ask you to consider your support scaffolding.

Support scaffolding can include friends, family, colleagues, and professional help such as a therapist. Everyone needs support—and like scaffolding, it can hold you up while you rebuild into something new. When you need a break from psychological secrets, it is time to engage your support scaffolding. When you feel stress, you can’t learn. To achieve emotional success, you need to know when you need support.

Life is about making the choice to lean into experiences, take what you can gather as tools, and move on as best you can. You’ve chosen this book because you want to be a reed bending in the wind, and that means letting go of the way you’ve always done things. It’s time to connect.

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1 This concept is based on the brilliant and ever important work of Urie Bronfenbrenner (1917–2005) and his ecological systems theory—which you will learn all about, I promise (see chapter 3 if you can’t wait). Urie and I go way back. I mean, back to Psych 101 because, sadly, we never met in real life.

CHAPTER 2

(Self) Aware

Do you know what your limitations are? When do your defenses rise to the surface, limiting your ability to connect with others? What do those emotional blocks do to help you? To hold you back? Chapter 2 is an exploratory chapter that will help you begin to experience your inner limits more clearly—not to remove them, but to know where your growth edges lie in a more objective way so you can connect more deeply with others.

What’s your name? Coraline asked the cat. Look, I’m Coraline. Okay?

Cats don’t have names, it said.

No? said Coraline.

No, said the cat. Now you people have names. That’s because you don’t know who you are. We know who we are, so we don’t need names.

—Neil Gaiman

Are you approaching this chapter feeling smug and prepared or uncertain and apprehensive? Maybe you are angry and feel like it’s a pointless endeavor. There are as many reactions to inner work as there are people working through the book. Everyone has something to learn about themselves. Human beings are both curiously intelligent and unaware. You are also complex and simple at the same time. First, think about your own traits. Next, you will consider known and unknown aspects of yourself. And lastly (in this chapter) you will work through how you self-protect, sometimes to your detriment.

As we consider self-awareness, let’s agree on these dichotomous theorems as a starting place.

As a therapist, I believe everyone can dig a little deeper. Get to know the corners of yourself and shine some light where you maybe haven’t explored before. There is a universe inside of you, and if you can’t dig, you are finished with growth—so let’s close shop and call it a day. If you are ready to see some glorious magic inside of yourself that you may have been unaware of . . . let’s go! I’m right here with you, believing you are a wonderful being, and only through knowing yourself better can you connect more deeply with others. I know you’re on board. Woo-hoo!

We will discuss four psychological secrets in this chapter—aspects of identity, personality theory, ego development, and defense mechanisms. We start with the parts of yourself everyone can see or assume (identity) and move inward: first personality, the parts you are used to sharing with others; then deeper to your ego; and last, how you defend your weak spots.

I chose these four secrets as the starting point to greater self-awareness because they are the basic building blocks I use as a therapist to better understand each patient. When I meet someone for the first time, I have these four constructs in the front of my mind, and as I gather information about each new person, I am placing this new knowledge into these categories to help me better understand the person before me—from the outside all the way in. All these components work together to create the full experience of my patient, as well as how others perceive them.

Many times, the interpretations I offer during therapy are based on my conceptualization of the person based on these theories. I apply these ideas to my own life as well, to break down when I repeat a