Rescuing Yourself From Rescuing Relationships
Look at the possible origins and motivations for your white knight rescuing behavior, and the consequence rescuing relationships you have with your romantic partners. But to rescue yourself from these unhealthy relationships, you must first look at the relationship you have with yourself. Rescuing yourself involves self-reflecting; that is, observing yourself, thinking about how your behavior in your intimate relationships may represent your own inner conflicts, and giving consideration to what you are actually needing or seeking. One must look at the importance of self-perspective.

Self-Perspective
Self-perspective involves looking at yourself objectively. As a white knight, the person you rescue is, in part, experienced as an extension of yourself. This leads you to disregard your own inner conflicts, interferes with your ability to accurately assess your own or your partner's behavior, and obscures determining whose needs are really being satisfied. Gaining self-perspective requires that you observe and evaluate who you are in your relationship, and discover what you actually need or seek for yourself.

Driven by his/her conscience, an overly empathic white knight will anticipate his/her partner's needs and provide her/him with nurturing and esteem: what she actually needs for herself yet feels she does not deserve. If, for example, you had a self-centered mother, you may have grown up never receiving the validation that you needed as a child. Such was the case of one overly empathic white knight we studied who tried to rescue her partner by trying to help him get his business going and thereby increase his self esteem. But what this white knight was actually trying to obtain, was validation that had been missing in her own childhood.

A tarnished white knight rescues his partner to minimize awareness of his own vulnerability, and to hide from himself his feelings of shame and inadequacy that result from failing to live up to his ideals. The example of Tom, whose parents did not hide the disappointment they felt about his academic struggles, which led Tom to feel shamed as a child. As an adult, Tom tried to make his wife feel shameful and inadequate by being critical and inciting her to feel jealous, which then placed him in the position of being the rescuer from the very feelings he had caused her to feel.

Rescuers who fall into our subcategory of the terrorizing/terrified white knight may impose their own intense fear on their partners through rigid control and physically abusive behavior. Looking at Lexie, who grew up in a terribly frightening and unstable environment. She became so abusive towards, and controlling of, her partner that the police had to be called.

Since you cannot rescue yourself through a proxy, you will have to let go of your unhealthy rescuing relationship to become aware of what you really need. This involves facing your misguided hope that your rescuing behavior will provide you with what you need, and coping with the aftereffects of another failed relationship. Reclaiming what you may have projected onto your partner and examining the beliefs that led to your rescuing behavior in the first place will help you to separate who you are and what you need from your partner's identity.

Published on January 9, 2010 by Mary C. Lamia, Ph.D.
For more information about : The White Knight Syndrome: Rescuing Yourself From Your Need to Rescue Others: http://www.whiteknightsyndrome.com

"Love," says Fromm, "is the only satisfactory answer to the problem of human existence." Poets have written that, "Love conquers all," and to "surrender to it." Urging one to surrender implies resistence to Love, but why? Fromm asks, is Love an art, or is Love a pleasant sensation or feeling which to experience is a metter of chance, i.e. something one, "falls into," if one is lucky. Fromm asserts that Love is an art, and says that to truly Love, in all its forms, one must possess: Maturity; Self-Knowledge; and Courage. "Object," or "faculty,": Many people pursue objects or affection, or objects to love, and correspondingly treat them as possessions. Fromm asserts that Love is the faculty or ability to Love in its different forms: brotherly love; romantic love, etc. Since Love is an art to be practiced, Fromm asserts that it can only be practiced in freedom with one another. In other words, people cannot treat others as objects or possessions to be controlled for ones own egotistical or selfish purposes. Such behavior to result in certain destruction and never to attain true Love. "Love," vs. "falling in Love/Infatuation,": People speak of falling in Love, with new people they meet. Falling in Love is not necessarly Love, but infatuation, e.g., strangers meet, they break down social walls between one another, they feel close/as one. This new experience, infatuation, Fromm describes as "one of the most exhilarating and most exciting experiences in life. However, Fromm argues astutely, that this initial infatuation feeling slowly and naturally loses its miraculous character more and more with time, as the two people get more acquainted and learn more and more about eachother - flaws, character defects, etc. Fromm says the problem all-to-often arises when people confuse infatuation feelings (exhilaration/excitement) for proof of the intensity of their Love. As the infatuation feelings naturally subside, it results in the wish for a new conquest, a new "Love," with a new stranger. Again the stranger is transformed into an "intimate" person, again the experience of falling in love is exhilarating and intense, and again it slowly becomes less and less, and ends in another wish for a new conquest - a new "Love," always with the illusion that the new "Love," will be different from the earlier ones. Fromm says this is not Love. These illusions are greatly helped by the deceptive character of sexual desires. Sexual desire aims at fusion, says Fromm. It can be stimulated by the anxiety of aloneness, by the wish to conquer, by vanity, by the wish to hurt or even to destroy, as much as it can be stimulated by Love. Because most people associate sexual desire with the idea of Love, says Fromm, they are easily misled to conclude that they Love each other only when they want each other physically. Fromm asserts this is not unlike a drug addiction, when people constantly seek out the exhilaration/excitement of infatuation. Fromm cautions that if the desire for physical union is not stimulated by Love, if romantic/erotic Love is not also coupled with other forms of Love, that it will never lead to union in more than an orgiastic, transitory sense. An implication of this that when this happens, i.e., when one finds new infatuation, the other one on the losing end gets scarredm then after a few times of getting burnt will begin to actively destroy or sabotage Love in the nascent stage when it occurs in the future, in an effort to avoid the past painful feelings associated with Love gone wrong or to avoid feelings of vulnerability and/or to maintain control -- in essence to not surrender to Love. Fromm describes what he calls the essential components that need to be mastered, for all forms of Love: Care (the active concern for the life and the growth of that which we love); Responsibility (to be able, willing and ready to respond to the psychic nneds of the other); Respect (concern that the other person should grow and unfold as he/she is on their own, to be aware of her unique individuality - freedom); and Knowledge(a desire to discover what makes the other "tick," an active penetration of the other person). Fromm concludes that Love is not just a feeling, it is a decision, it is a judgment, it is a promise. To love means to surrender and commit without guarantees. Love is an act of utter faith says Fromm.            By  Richard R. Rohde, Esq.

Have you ever noticed how food influences mood? What should you eat to be alert and persuasive for the big presentation? Or to be a divine conversationalist for the cocktail party?
If you feel lazy after a large cheeseburger, a big plate of pasta, munching on fries, or swallowing a bowl of  ice cream, that is no surprise – and it is not only because your stomach is busy digesting a high-calorie meal.

Yes, what we eat is first processed in our stomach and pursues its road to the small intestine. From there it either gets rejected down or it gets absorbed into our bloodstream and circulates up to our brain. Since our CPU is an organ that is fed by the nutrients in our blood, what we eat definitely influences its workings.

Here’s more detail about how it happens: neurotransmitters are basically the vehicle used to transport information between neurons and other cells. Two important neurotransmitters responsible for mood regulation (amongst other functions) are serotonin and dopamine. These communication vehicles are made from amino acids, which in turn come from the protein we eat. Already the connection is established.

Since the good mood regulators are made from amino acids, it would be intuitive to think that eating a lot of protein is the perfect good mood diet. However, too much protein at once is not the way to go. The various types of amino acids compete with each other, which confuses the brain into wondering how to process all this input in such a short time frame.

Now you might wonder, “Where are the fruits and vegetables in this picture”? Well, you’re right. To keep things simple, let’s simply say that the ability for the brain to produce and store neurotransmitters is also dependent on certain vitamins mainly found in fruits and vegetables. And what about some exercise ?  Twenty to thirty minutes or speed-walking every two days would be most beneficial in raising and maintaining higher serotonin and dopamine levels which would in turn make you feel better and thus look better and enhance self-confidence.

What, then, is the optimal brain food for good moods? Here are the four golden rules:

1. Frequent meals. Eat lighter and more frequent meals (four or five times a day) to avoid giving too much to your body to process at once. If you overeat, your body is so busy digesting, less energy is left for other tasks.
2. Complex Carbs. Eat complex carbohydrates like whole grains, oatmeal or brown rice. Complex carbs are “thought to be our most valuable energy nutrient” inform Marie Boyle and Sara Long, authors of Personal Nutrition. They also take longer to process completely, so they will keep you satiated longer and they facilitate a slow release of nutrients in the bloodstream and therefore to the brain, thus insuring a speed that is easy to process.
3. Protein. Include moderate amounts of protein at every meal or snack. Proteins are mainly found in meat, fish, eggs, beans, dairy, nuts, and various soy products. Of course, the daily requirements will vary from person to person, depending on a wide host of specifics, but the recommendation is to have between 10 and 35% of daily caloric intake come from protein.
4. Fruit and Vegetables. Top your meals off with generous servings of colorful fruits and vegetables (of one serving each). “Eat all your vegetables!” as my mother used to say!

We have all heard many times that we should eat well if we want to be healthy, but the connection between food and mood is more recent. If you are in the habit of skipping breakfast in order to arrive at the office a few minutes earlier, you might want to revise your morning routine. “Get up five minutes earlier and eat a hard-boiled egg for protein along with a bowl of oatmeal topped with fresh berries to boost your mood first thing in the morning”, suggests Registered Dietitian Lynn Grieger.

This resonates exactly with many a dietician's advice, “Positive emotions are not only indicators but also producers of success.” I would challenge meal-skippers to see if following the above suggestions not only helps you maintain a better mood, but also your productivity level throughout the day.

Check out the Health and Wellness exhibition in Vancouver on February 17, 18 & 19, 2012
Vancouver Convention Centre, East Building Exhibit Hall B & C
999 Canada Place Vancouver BC

http://thewellnessshow.com/