Dr. Kimberly Stearns

Relationship Expert, Clinical Psychologist, CEO

Is It True Passion, Or Just Drama?

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How to tell the difference

Ah, that first adrenaline rush of new love. When hormones surge and blood races around your brain and your body, making desire swell and slipping rose-colored glasses over your eyes. It feels so good, doesn’t it? But sometimes in the rush of all that fresh new emotion, it is possible to mistake the drama of a difficult relationship for true passion.

When you’re first getting to know someone, you don’t know what to expect. Unpredictability can be exciting, but if you get addicted to the rush, it can land you on the roller coaster ride of fighting, making-up, and fighting again, just to keep that feeling alive. If you find yourself in a pattern of dating bad boys who break your heart again and again, but the make-up sex is so good that you keep coming back for more, you might be falling into the trap of confusing passion with the adrenaline-fueled flush of relationship drama.

True passion doesn’t make you feel like you are stuck in a repeating cycle of ever-increasing heartache and hurt. True passion, when it manifests in a healthy relationship, is a shared experience that excites and uplifts you both.

So, why do people stay on the roller coaster of relationship drama even when it’s clear that the constant ups and downs are taking a serious toll on their emotional health?

One reason can be a fear of vulnerability.

Fighting feels comfortable because it allows you to keep your emotional walls up. It gives you an excuse to stay in defensive mode and focus on what is wrong with the partner instead of taking a good hard look at yourself. Making-up feels so good because it gives you a temporary respite between the fights, but as soon as another situation arises that requires one of you to open up and be truly vulnerable to the other, it’s easier to start a new fight instead.

Let’s be honest, there are ways that fighting feels good. It feels good to get that rush of energy as the anger builds. It feels good to be self-righteous and defend your stand. It feels good to unleash anger at the other person over the long laundry list of everything they have ever done wrong since you first met. It feels good to push them away or to be the one to walk away. And it feels good to go tell all your friends what a jerk your partner has been over a couple of cocktails. Doesn’t it? Doesn’t it feel good to complain and hear your friends complain about their relationship problems in turn? It feels like bonding. But this can sometimes be what Brené Brown calls Common Enemy Intimacy in her best-selling book Braving The Wilderness. Brené explains it like this:

“Common Enemy Intimacy is counterfeit connection and the opposite of true belonging. If the bond we share with others is simply that we hate the same people, the intimacy we experience is often intense, immediately gratifying, and an easy way to discharge outrage and pain. It is not, however, fuel for real connection.”

In this case, the common enemy would be the partners being complained about, mainly men. Having a strong and supportive circle of friends is important for everyone. We all need those close, emotionally intimate friendships where we can share everything about our lives with the sure knowledge that these people will not hold anything against us because of the long history of trust and love. But when we start bad mouthing a romantic partner to a group of common enemy intimacy friends, it may perpetuate the cycle of fighting and making-up. Those friends will be ready to remind you of any bad thing your partner did that you might have forgotten. When you are getting along with your partner, they might bring up something to upset you again. Not because they want you miserable, but because discord and fighting are what you bond about. It is the foundation this kind of friendship is built upon. And it keeps the drama alive.

Another reason people stay stuck in relationship drama is that it may be so familiar that they don’t believe anything else is possible.

Particularly for those who grew up in an emotionally tumultuous environment, the idea that love can exist without the catastrophic ups and downs might not even occur to them. I recently read an article by Matthew Salis who asked the question, why do the children of alcoholics marry alcoholics? It seems like they, more than anyone else, would know better. But here is one of the reasons that he came to in his research and by studying his own life:

“My wife’s father was an alcoholic, and I am an alcoholic. But Sheri didn’t marry me because of unfinished business. She married me because of the second reason I’ve consistently heard that children of alcoholics marry alcoholics themselves. My wife married me because she wasn’t sufficiently repulsed by my alcoholic behavior. She’d seen it before, so it didn’t shock or threaten her. My behavior as an active drinker might not have been acceptable, but it was familiar to my bride. And familiarity breeds comfort.”

In modern life we see drama-filled relationships modeled everywhere. What popular TV show or movie would be complete without some difficult, heartwrenching emotional situation for the characters to work through before achieving true love? Shows are even made about the pursuit of love and marriage like The Bachelor and The Bachelorette. These shows wouldn’t be interesting at all, much less entertaining, without a whole lot of drama mixed in. How many popular love songs employ language that sounds more suited to war and death than the kind of constant, strong, reliable, and passionate love that most of us claim we someday want to find?

So how do we learn to get comfortable with the discomfort of passionate but undramatic love?

And how do we know the difference between the two? The main difference to look for is how it makes you feel. Does the relationship make you feel insecure, jealous, unloved, or not good enough? Do you ever feel tempted to say or do something to make your partner jealous just to make sure they really care? Those are signs that it’s drama your feeling rather than real passion.

If you feel secure, trusting, loved, and appreciated and still feel your cheeks flush with an adrenaline rush every time you think about this person, then it’s more likely to be real passion.

So focus on bringing your best and happiest feelings to this kind of relationship. When the little hobgoblins inside your head start to make you feel antsy that nothing big and dramatic has happened for awhile, pause and ask yourself what you want to happen next? Try planning a special date or a weekend getaway. Instead of letting the feeling of restlessness push you into picking your partner apart to look for something to fight about, instead funnel those feelings into doing something positive. Your relationship and your partner will thank you.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/i-dont-need-you-to-complete-me-b67ae0b5ffe4

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I Don’t Need You To Complete Me

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The Myth of Soulmate Completion

Remember that moment in the movie Jerry McGuire when Tom Cruise finally comes around and gives Renée Zellweger the speech in which he tearfully declaims “You complete me”? After he spent the most of the movie adoring her child and being emotionally unavailable to her? And her response was “You had me at hello…”? A lot of people saw this as a quintessential romantic movie that showed how people can change, how love conquers all, and how soulmates are meant to complete each other.

Thanks to popular movies like this, as well as other TV shows, fairy tales, and a few cultural myths, a lot of people think that they are seeking a single sacred soulmate who will fill their voids, fix the damage accumulated throughout life, and who will fit together with them like two perfect halves of something meant to be whole. It’s a nice idea, isn’t it? That somewhere out there, there exists a single person who can do all of that for us, and all we have to do is find them in order to finally feel complete.

But seeking out a soulmate based on your idea of what you lack, to fill an emptiness inside you or to help you overcome addictions or deficits is the wrong way to approach your love life. If you focus on all the things that you think are wrong with you and base your desire for another person on those things, rather than on the kind of joy, fulfillment, and deep satisfaction that a soulmate relationship brings, you end up with a relationship built on all the wrong things.

A soulmate relationship is not some kind of tough-love therapy that brings out the worst in you so it can be changed and ultimate fixed. This is backward thinking and not helpful to anyone involved. Looking at love this way can also keep people stuck in unhealthy, unhappy relationships because people think they have to work through the hard stuff to get to finally get that something special they always wanted. Wallowing in damage while waiting for another person to repair you is a recipe for pain and tears.

Each and every one of us is fully responsible for our own personal transformation, our own healing, and our own journey through life. And each one of us is already a whole being unto ourselves. Putting the responsibility for your healing on your partner is not fair to them or to the great relationship that you could potentially share. When someone does this, it traps them in the unhealthy emotional life script of being The Dependent One, which disempowers them not only in their relationship, but in all areas of life.

Is possible to gain greater insight into your own patterns and healing through a genuine soulmate relationship? Yes, of course, it is. But the misconception that you need a soulmate to fix your broken parts and complete you is misguided and prevents you from finding the kind of relationship you really want. When you’re in a healthy relationship you inspire one another to grow, evolve, and bring out the best in each other. But inspiring positive growth and change is very different from actively trying to fix someone.

So instead of thinking about want parts of you need to be fixed, or what parts of your partner you can fix, focus on bringing your happiest self to the relationship. Give the relationship the best of you and accept the best of your partner. Enjoy what you each bring to the relationship without expecting it to be the fix to all your problems. You still get to do that part for yourself.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/when-your-love-life-feels-like-groundhog-day-91aa3d89cc12

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When Your Love Life Feels Like Groundhog Day

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How to break negative relationship patterns

The 1993 fantasy comedy “Groundhog Day” staring Bill Murray gave us the term Groundhog Day as cultural shorthand for getting stuck in a recurring situation. This can happen in our dating life without us realizing it. We often don’t notice the recurring pattern until after yet another break up that strangely echoes the one before. And the one before that…

Now you may want to stop me right there and say, “But wait! It’s not MY behavior that’s the problem. It’s the guys/gals I date.”

But if you feel like you keep on dating the same kind of person, getting into the same situations, and facing the same kind of heart ache over and over, then the bad news is that you are probably caught in a negative behavior pattern. The good news is that there is definitely something you can do to positively affect your own love life!

“Wherever you go, there you are.”

That line has been attributed to a number of different thinkers and writers over the years. On the surface it seems obvious and trite: of course I’m there, wherever I go. But the idea that the one constant in your life is you, is actually pretty profound. If you look back on the past relationships in your life and see a definite negative pattern, whether that be dating the same type of person or ending up in the same kind of impossible situation at the end of a relationship, no matter how much you tried to pick someone who seemed different from the person before, you can see that the common denominator in all of the equations is you. And it is quite possible that what needs to change in order for your life to improve, is also you.

This is in no way to ever blame anyone who has experienced abuse for their own abuse. The only person to blame for abuse is the person who chooses to abuse another person. However, patricularly for people who experienced abuse early in life, sometimes perceptions of what love is and how it is supposed feel can be skewed. It can lead people to false beliefs about their own worth and how they deserve to be treated. And that is something that can be changed.

So how do we change ourselves to change our negative relationship patterns? It’s easier than you think!

Now, I’m not one to advocate endless navel-gazing or Eat, Love, Pray style removals to far off places to bring about change. Most of us have jobs and lives to attend to and people who rely on us. Besides, there are much faster and easier ways to gently move ourselves towards the lives and loves we most want.

The Thee Keys:

The Three Keys to lasting behavior change are Self-awareness, Self-love, and Gratitude. Yep. That’s it! If you can master those three profound behaviors, you can change anything in your life that you want to change. Don’t believe me? Let’s break it down.

Self-awareness: Paying attention to your own thoughts is the first step.

When you think about your past relationships, or any situation that you want to change, ask yourself, what story are you telling yourself about the situation?

You might be telling yourself that this will always happen to you because no one understands you. Or that no one can be trusted and everyone will betray you. Or maybe you believe that you simply have bad luck and that you have, and always will, get the short end of the straw.

Listen to all the things you inner voice is telling you- this reveals your own thoughts about your current experience. These are exactly the thoughts that are keeping you stuck. Once you learn to recognize these negative impressions, you’ll be aware enough to be able to shift yourself into a better situation instead.

Self-love: taking care of your needs and having the same kind of compassion for yourself as you would for others you love.

How do you treat yourself? Do you believe that the wants and needs of others are more important than your own? Do you criticize yourself harshly for not being perfect and agonize over every little mistake? Do you deflect compliments and praise because deep down, you feel like you don’t deserve them?

So many of us are taught self-negating behaviors in childhood that it is difficult to learn how to practice self-love. Without even knowing it is there, many have a deep underlying belief that taking care of ourselves is selfish and wrong, but nothing could be further from the truth. When you practice self-love and take responsibility for making sure your own needs are met, then you are most able to tap into your power as a human being and you become a far greater source of good in the lives of others.

When your cup is full, it’s easy to be generous to those around you because, you have so much to give.

Gratitude: the act of noticing and expressing appreciate for every good thing in your life, no matter how small.

Gratitude elevates your mood and thoughts by dissolving the negative ideas and emotions in those stories that you are now aware of, replacing them with a positive mindset. The fastest way to deeply feel gratitude and get to a place where you feel better, is to express your appreciation out loud.

Give someone a sincere compliment. Tell them about something you’ve always particularly liked about them, or thank them for something they’ve done for you, even if it was very small. And don’t forget to appreciate yourself too. Doing this feeds right back into self-love.

Appreciating and loving yourself teaches others how to love and appreciate you. Show yourself the kind of love that you want to receive. Love that isn’t endlessly difficult. Love that doesn’t have to hurt. Love yourself the way you love a favorite child in your life. Be kind to yourself, even when you see yourself falling into one of the negative stories you identified. Be generous with your own thoughts as you gently move yourself away from the negative thoughts and replace them with positive, appreciative, grateful thoughts.

Breaking the Pattern

Now, let’s return for a moment to the Groundhog Day movie. What most people remember the movie for is the fact that the day started over and over again ad nauseam, but what many forget about is how Murray’s character finally ended the cycle of repetition. It wasn’t until he genuinely changed himself with self-awareness, self-love/self-improvement, and gratitude that he was able to break the cycle and move on with his life. The final Groundhog Day that he spends in Punxsutawney is the best day of his life up to that point. As he falls asleep next to the woman he has grown to genuinely love and cherish, he tells her that even if he is doomed to wake up alone and repeat the day all over again, forever, he wants her to know that he is finally happy because he loves her. I’d add in that he finally loves himself as well. The charater was able to break the cycle using the three keys, and you can too.

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/embracing-lazy-915b907aaabe

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Sally’s Orgasm and The Myth of The High-Maintenance Woman

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How denying our needs, hurts us all.


Remember that movie “When Harry Met Sally”? Most people who have seen it do, and I know exactly why. The orgasm scene in the restaurant was pretty groundbreaking at the time and Meg Ryan was adorable doing it. However, this is also the movie that gave us the legacy of and cultural shorthand for the myth of the “high maintenance woman”.

One of the reasons I feel conflicted about this moment in movie history is because so many women, as well as men, bought into the idea that being high maintenance is bad and being low maintenance is good.

When women talk to each other about a mutual friend with relationship problems, one might say, “yeah, but she is pretty high maintenance. I mean, she really expects a lot of that guy…” This idea of high maintenance, this negative view of having needs, requirements, boundaries, and standards, became just one more thing that women get criticized for.

In my work as a psychologist and matchmaker, I have met women who decided early on that they wanted to strive to be the ultimate low maintenance woman, to have so few needs that it almost seems like they have none. Because that’s what men want, isn’t it? These women require so little from partners that they are barely there at all. A woman like this becomes the ghost of a girlfriend, trying to feel satisfied with her own dissatisfaction in her anemic relationship by complaining about it to girlfriends over drinks once a week. Girlfriends who usually have similar complaints.

It might seem that a woman who wants nothing would be easy to please, but really, the opposite is true.

It may be easy enough to not displease such a person, but it is also impossible to truly please them. Whatever positive thing a partner might do can be all well and good, but none of it will be anything they deeply want. Because they don’t let themselves deeply want anything. Dates, dinner, presents, sex, these women can take or leave it any of it on any given day. And as the initial excitement of being in a new relationship wears off, they may start leaving it all more often than they take it.

What’s so wrong with having needs and goals anyway?

On the one hand, some of this is understandable: you don’t want to scare off a potential soulmate by telling them you want to get married and have children on the first date. But if you find yourself afraid to express even the little things, like where you want to go, what you want to do, and more importantly, whether or not you’re comfortable taking your date back to your place, and once you get there, what you do and don’t like in bed, you could be sabotaging the relationship from the very start.

Having wants and needs is part of being human. We all have them. They are important. They are part of what makes each one of us unique. Denying yours, pretending to like things you don’t or being afraid to claim the things you do, is the kind of dishonesty that grows with time and can eat away at what otherwise might have been a promising relationship.

Most betrayals feel small at first.

Imagine, for example, letting a date think you like eating raw oysters on a half shell because they excitedly ordered two dozen on your first date. They thought you’d appreciate their sophistication and maybe hoped the oysters would have an aphrodisiac effect to get you in the mood. You smile and try not to throw up as you choke down a few and maybe dump a few discreetly into your napkin. But you like this person anyway and they like you. How much can that one little white lie hurt? For your birthday, they get you oysters again. And again, when they take you out to celebrate your promotion. Then, for your anniversary too. Now it feels way too late to say you don’t like them. So, you keep eating them and hating them, while you try not to vomit. How many special occasions will you spend feeling nauseous just to save face? If you eventually get married, how will your beloved feel when they finally realize they’ve been forcing you to eat something you detest on every special date? They may even wonder, if you lied about that, what else have you been lying about all along?

Let’s circle back to Sally and her orgasm again for some honestly in the bedroom.

Sally showed us all how easy it is to fake an orgasm. Even in the middle of a busy restaurant. And everyone laughed. Maybe a little uncomfortably, but they laughed, because it’s funny. And it’s funny because, on some level, it’s true. Don’t most women fake it? At least some of the time? Women who are used to denying or pretending away their needs might tell themselves, it’s not that big a deal. It’s not that bad. No woman orgasms every time. Why make a big deal out of it? Besides, who wants to tell their lover they’ve been missing the mark and might need a little help finding it?

Well, just as with the raw oysters example, the longer you let this something like this go, the harder it will be to ever admit the truth. Some spouses don’t know their partner is sexually unfulfilled until they find themselves on a couch in couple’s counseling, trying to solve a problem they didn’t even know they had. Now they feel blind-sided and betrayed, as well as feeling the shame of not being the attentive lover they may have always thought they were.

If you are nodding your head reading this as you recognize something of yourself in some of these lines, don’t despair. Self-awareness is the first step to positive change. Start to notice anytime you are dishonest about your wants and needs, even in the smallest ways. This includes through omission, by not raising your hand at work or at home to say, I don’t want to do that, or that doesn’t work for me. You don’t have to take the step to correct it right away. Notice it first. Start making a list. Beside each entry, write down the flip side, what you could have said or done to clearly and honestly express your wants and needs. The next time something similar comes up, pause a moment to think about what you could do to be more honest in this situation. They start trying it out.

Having wants and needs that you honestly express doesn’t make you difficult.

It doesn’t make you undesirable. It doesn’t make you “high maintenance”. It means that you are an honest and mature adult who is taking responsibility for their own wellbeing and expects the same of any partner.

So, stop being dishonest about your wants and needs because you’re trying to be low maintenance or you don’t think your needs are important enough. It wastes your valuable time and the time of the person you’re trying to impress. Honesty is the best gift you can give anyone, because only with honesty can you build a firm foundation for a future life you’re both going to love.

https://psiloveyou.xyz/is-self-sacrifice-ruining-your-relationship-2ee77b25a6dc

Embracing Lazy

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Sometimes the best self-care is to do nothing at all.

Photo by Lenin Estrada on Unsplash

Does it ever feel like your every waking moment is all about go go go! Full calendars and to-do lists, appointments and assignments, phone calls, emails, and texts all the time!. Too much to do in too little time? Maybe you even feel a secret sense of pride about how stressed and overworked you are? Is there a sense of exhilaration about being the businest person you know?

Sure we all want to suceed and be seen as successful, but burn out is real and wide spread. In this article from Psychology Today it identifies “cynicism, depression, and lethargy” as some of the emotional, mental, and physical signs of the special kind of exhaustion brought on by repeated and prolonged stress. Not exactly what we think of when we think of success.

So what can we do to make sure we don’t hit that horrible point of burn out ourselves? One of the best ways is to take regular, periodic breaks from the stress. There is a reason weekends were invented afterall. But these days so many keep right on working through the weekends, whether for their regular job, or trying to start up or maintain a side hustle. And while all of that is admirable, if it lands you in a state of cynical, depressed lethargy, you aren’t doing yourself or anyone else any favors.

This is exactly why there are times when the best course of action is inaction. When the best thing in the world you can possibly do is to just sit back, relax, and embrace your inner lazy. Why not take that Saturday morning where you would normally rush off to the gym in a compulsive ritual-like way, and luxuriate in bed instead?

Peruse your favorite magazine. Stare out the window. Daydream. Do nothing. Spend time with your pet. This can sometimes be the best recipe for improved mental health and an enhanced happier state of mind. Being still and calm. can bring more tranquility into your life, and even result in a reduction in blood pressure. There are so many health benefits to just taking a little time off now and then.

So once in a while embrace your inner lazy and realize the wonderful effects of this. We all feel driven sometimes to engage in activities that in the end are not helpful to us and may make us feel more harried and frenzied. So take those lazy moments, relish them, enjoy them and reap the wonderful effects. Why not try it this weekend?

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/how-to-have-more-to-be-grateful-for-9d0c4f98267

Delayed Gratification Increases Anticipation

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How to maximize your joy when you have to wait

Photo by Aditya Saxena on Unsplash

Planning and anticipation

Thanks to the internet putting so much of the world at our fingertips and overnight shipping of almost anything from anywhere, we have become a society used to instant gratification. We want something, we type a little, click on a couple of links and either get it immediately or know that it is on its way. But what about the things in life that just don’t work that way?

Studies show that people who plan out vacations and events in advance spend far more time reaping joy from the occasion as they pick and choose, linger and daydream about how much they will enjoy each aspect when they eventually get there, than people who do not plan and are more spontaneous with their travel. The planners also tend to be the ones who anticipate nostalgia and respond by taking photos and bringing home souvenirs to remember how much fun they had.

By doing this they spread and multiply their pleasure across the months both before and after their trip. Overall, this tends to make them happier than people who enjoy their vacations only during the time they are there.

This new world of virtual dating can sometimes include a significant delay before potential matches meet in person. Especially if they live some distance apart. This usually occurs after both parties have gotten to know each other well enough to decide that it is worth investing the time and emotional capital in a face to face meeting.

For some, this delay seems frustrating and unnecessary, but for others, the delayed gratification of meeting someone they truly connect with first on an emotional level only heightens the pleasure with days or weeks of giddy anticipation.

Anticipating something pleasurable boosts your mood and can help you feel joy for days or even weeks prior to the pleasurable activity.

So, if you find yourself in a situation where you aren’t able to experience the gratification you seek immediately, try to think about how you can stretch the pleasure out as long as possible with positive anticipation. Make plans. Think about contingencies. Pick out clothes. Look up restaurants and scan menues. Reread the best chat messages. Rewatch that video message or Marco Polo feed when your potential match said that perfect thing. Use the time to center yourself in all the good feelings. Imagine what it will be like when you finally meet. Write poems or manifestoes. Express your feelings howsoever the mood moves you and try to squeeze the joy out of every delayed moment.

Happy dating!

https://medium.com/@drkimberlystearnsphd/accelerate-intimacy-by-traveling-with-someone-you-are-dating-25317619f03c