Use the “Emotion Wheel” to get in Touch with Your Feelings

“When emotions rise to the surface, do you have difficulty putting your feelings and intimate thoughts into words? Try using the “Emotion Wheel” to get in touch with your inner feelings, find clarity, and improve your emotional literacy. Good communication increases engagement and improves our ability to collaborate and build relationships and stronger friendships. Communication is the best way for others to truly understand your authentic voice in a way that helps adoptees feel valued.” Judith Land

Adoption is a form of trauma—a deeply emotional process. Even newborns can sense that something is wrong and be difficult to sooth as a result. This effect has the potential to grow over time, even in the most loving and supportive adoptive homes. Adoptees have significantly more issues to deal with and things to think about. They often struggle with identity issues of not knowing for certain how they “fit in” and as they move forward in life, they may have difficulty forming emotional attachments and display low self-esteem. Separation from parents evokes strong emotions that are long-lasting and difficult to assess. Children often have difficulty openly communicating their inner feelings about topics they know very little about because it takes a mature mind and a bundle of life experiences to comprehend cause and effect, family dynamics, and abstract concepts they don’t always fully comprehend. 

Truth, honesty, openness, and respect are important to every child. Adoption is a personal journey, each story is unique because the early life of adopted children is special. It’s important to know what to say and do and how to react when asked questions about adoption and hearing comments from others, and whether to engage or walk away. 

Adoptees expect their adoptive parents and friends to be sensitive to their concerns and prefer to talk about adoption when they choose. One of the most sincere forms of respect is listening to what another person has to say, especially if an adoptee feels hurt, sad or disappointed. Communication is important. Using the Emotional Wheel System can be helpful for facilitating finding the right words when an adoptee is looking to engage with others.

Judith Land

Adoption—What is a soliloquy?

“Have you ever talked to yourself when you assumed nobody was listening? That’s a soliloquy. Adoption is a topic fraught with emotions, feelings, personal conflicts, tension, suspense, uncertainty, fear, and drama that stimulates self-reflection. It’s a topic that stimulates deep emotions and feelings coming from the heart and weighs them against the conscious realities of the mind. Every decision has collateral damages and lasting consequences—no wonder some individuals dealing with an adoption issue are prone to speaking to themselves out loud.” Judith Land

“O Romeo, Romeo, wherefore art thou Romeo?” This is the opening sentence of a romantic soliloquy by William Shakespeare. Juliet is speaking to herself, painfully wishing that her boyfriend Romeo had been born to different parents.

Hamlet exposes his innermost thoughts to the audience in a soliloquy. He is conflicted about whether he should continue to oppose city hall amidst a sea of troubles or simply give up. “Whether ’tis nobler in the mind to suffer the slings and arrows of outrageous fortune, or to take arms against a sea of troubles…”

 

Soliloquies are used to express our inner thoughts, personal problems and feelings, resolve arguments, explore different sides of an issue, and seek solutions to problems that trouble us. A soliloquy is a way of “talking to oneself” in a monologue, a poem, a dramatic speech, or unspoken reflections in response to events that trouble us. Speakers are trapped in their private thoughts in ways that reveal their emotions and feelings, motivations, and desires that would never be spoken aloud, if they were “aware” of anyone listening.

Emotional engagement is essential in the act of talking to oneself, particularly when we are conflicted about something that is explicitly going on in our life and there is a difficult decision to be made. Soliloquies illuminate our intimate thoughts, plans, pains, and motives in response to the events that trouble us. A soliloquy exposes our secret thoughts and intentions that we have in our mind by putting a light on relationships, thoughts, future actions, and the ways our decisions affect others.

Research suggests self-talk may help your brain perform better and that reading aloud helps sustain concentration and enhance performance. Soliloquies provide an emotional outlet for exposing strong feelings about difficult decisions that need to be made, especially when one is alone. They are a way of releasing raw emotional energy to describe perceptions, passions, apprehension, worries, and comprehension. Never be afraid to remind yourself how the topic of adoption has shaped your personality and family and altered your life’s trajectory.

Judith Land

 

 

Adoption Secrets

“The heart of a mother that abandons her child holds a sea of secrets, hiding in the dark like a vampire ready to jump out and bite you. Some family secrets are generations old and others newly created. Healthy families tend to avoid keeping secrets.” Judith Land

Shame is a powerful motive for keeping secrets. Birth mothers that relinquish their children to adoption fear their actions will be discovered and judged. Adoptive parents often fear that if children learn that they are adopted, they will want to find their biological parents and turn away from their adopted ones. As a result, they desire to keep the adoption a secret from their children.

Closed confidential adoption is a process by which an infant is adopted by another family and the record of the biological parents is kept secret. The name of the biological father is often not recorded, even on the original birth certificate. 

Minnesota was the first state to pass an adoption confidentiality and sealed records law to prevent the adoptee and the biological parents from knowing anything about each other to “protect” the adoptive parents from disruption. Infants were placed in state-mandated foster care for several months until the birthparent was certain about relinquishment and the adoption process was completed. Children treated this way often developed psychological problems identified as orphanage-type behavior, often evident even in adopted adults.

The infant from a closed adoption was issued a second birth certificate identifying the adopting parents as the child’s parents. The revised birth certificate became the legal name and identity of the child. If the city of birth and the name of the hospital were omitted from the revised birth certificate, adoptees from closed adoptions were denied passports.

Closed secret adoption has been increasingly criticized as being unfair to both the adoptee and the birth parents. Treating the identities of a child’s parents from a closed adoption as a state secret is a gross violation of human rights according to many adoptees, especially when genetic medical history is important for preventing disease and saving lives. 

Fortunately, there has been an increasing trend in recent years toward open adoption.

Judith Land

 

Adoption and Uncanny Dreams

“When I was a child I dreamed of my mother—a reoccurring vision of someone I was too young to recall. I didn’t even know her name. She was performing on stage, playing the violin in a symphony orchestra in Paris. She had long brown hair. Her back was turned toward me as the imaginary scene mystically unfolded. She was perfect. I dreamed of her because I had a strong desire to be reunited with her again someday. I sincerely wanted the experience to be real. As the years went by, I secretly wondered if my reoccurring dream of being reunited with her was a harbinger of a future reality?” Judith Land

“Those who dream accomplish the most. Following our dreams and endeavoring to live life the way we imagine leads to uncommon success. Dreaming by night may be driven by vanity and fear, dreaming by day with eyes wide open makes alternative realities possible.” Judith Land

Are dreams harbingers of future realities?

The future belongs to those who believe in their dreams. The accomplishment of all great things begin with a dream. Dreams have the power to move our hearts. Dreamers see alternative realities that identify the possibility of turning one into the other. Dreams may seem impossible and improbable in the beginning but when we summon the will, they become inevitable.

Dreams are a succession of images, ideas, emotions, and sensations that occur involuntarily in the mind during sleep that reveal insight into hidden desires and emotions outside the control of the dreamer, ranging from normal and ordinary to overly surreal and bizarre. Dreams represent the entire range of human emotions, revealing secrets of something once known and familiar, then lost and hidden within, haunting images of the return of repressed ideas, experiences and people, ranging from frightening, exciting, magical, and melancholic to adventurous and sexual. Dreams expose repressed thoughts and desires related to encounters, ideas, people and experiences of long ago that were previously repressed. Within each dream there is always a specific character, an image, or an event that evokes an emotional response that awakens us.

From ancient times to the present day, dreams have revealed secrets of something once known and familiar, then lost and secretly hidden deep within our minds. Content is often driven by unconscious wish fulfillment, drawing you toward intriguing possibilities and exploratory adventures. Adoptees are highly prone to vulnerabilities of being physically or emotionally harmed and dreaming can be an experience that can be terribly unsettling when events and circumstances exceed the boundaries of ordinary awareness, sensibilities, and normal dimensions of reality. Those that fear reality may feel apprehensive and alarmed when dreaming of uncanny events that seem otherworldly and unnatural.

Dreams allow spiritual connections to take place, stimulating and inspiring creative thoughts, miraculously opening our minds to alternative realities and future possibilities. Dreams remind us that nature works in mysterious ways, presenting opportunities for future serendipitous Hallmark moments, as well as, omens warning of potential encounters and events that are best avoided.

What do your dreams tell you?

Judith Land

Adopted—who’s pulling your strings?

“When I was a small child my adoptive mother put me in a leather harness attached to a dog lease. I had to walk at the exact pace, not too fast and not too slow, never running, hopping or dancing ahead to pick a dandelion, smell a flower, or skip a rock on the surface of a pond, and especially never falling too far behind.” Judith Land

Puppets are an ancient form of entertainment using strings operated with the puppeteer hidden to an audience. The attachment of the strings varies according to the character’s behavior and purpose.

One of the greatest challenges for many adoptees is to learn how to gain control of your life when it becomes obvious that emotional manipulators are making you doubt your own self-worth and self-identity; people that pull your strings without good intent, intentionally attempting to undermine, confuse, and bring you down; often starting out with flattery before using your insecurities and vulnerabilities against you, coercing you into proving your love and devotion by doing chores and favors for them.

Emotional manipulators have no desire for authentic communication. They are wolves in sheep’s clothing that control and influence others in an unscrupulous way through fear, obligation and guilt. They are emotional bullies lacking love, empathy, guilt, remorse, or conscience that use mental and emotional abuse to serve their desires for power and control. They know your weak spots. They tell you how lucky you are, and then act as though you’re a burden, making you feel guilty and indebted. They destroy your self-esteem and question your validity. Whatever you do is wrong. 

Any problems you experience are your fault. If you’re upset, your expectations are unjustified and unreasonable. They say that you are too sensitive, over-reacting, and lost your sense of humor, leaving you doubting your own behavior. Gaslighting is the oldest trick of manipulation. Giving you the silent treatment increases your anxiety, desperately waiting for a reaction from them, whereby they sow the seeds of doubt that erodes your ability to navigate daily life. They never take accountability for their own behavior. Don’t expect an apology or expect them to change their ways. If they are upset, you are responsible for their bad moods and obliged to fix them.

Breaking the cycle of manipulation requires awareness and emotional distancing. Boundaries and hard lines are important, especially when you need to sustain a relationship with family members. Buy yourself some time when you need to regroup and determine the best way forward. Establish boundaries and stick to your standards. Remember that nobody can manipulate you without your consent and cooperation. Don’t try to beat them at their own game and don’t let things drag on too long because you may be compromising your health, identity, and future. 

Sometimes the best strategy is the exit door. Always aim for the best…

Judith Land

 

Adopted Child Syndrome verses Post Traumatic Stress Disorder

Post traumatic stress disorder and adopted child syndrome similarly explain the psychological trauma that may result from exposure to a severely distressing event. Post traumatic stress disorder is an intense psychological condition that develops after a person is exposed to a traumatic event, including death and separation from family and loved ones. The diagnosis may be given when a group of symptoms continue after the traumatic incident, such as disturbing recurring flashbacks, avoidance or numbing of memories of the event, and high levels of anxiety. Abnormalities may be diagnosed as subjective, chronic, relapsing or remitting. In all cases, health care providers should be alert to the presence of a distortion of normal feelings and behavior.

Homesickness, the loss of a birth parent, unrequited love, broken heartedness, and post traumatic stress disorder are deeply rooted in the mind of the patient, but difficult for anyone other than a psychologist to diagnose. The insecure patient stifles their normal curiosity because they sense the adopted parents’ anxiety, and feel a pattern of tension and an ominous pressure against voicing their feelings. Many adoptees hope to heal the wound caused by the separation by reliving the life that was lost at the time of separation to provide a more solid base for their lives, but fearing to know why they were abandoned by the birth parents, and knowing that the adoptive parents would feel their interest in the birth parents was disloyal, the adopted child experiences a dread of the truth.

Severing the connection with the birth mother is a stressful incident that traumatizes the primitive instincts of the adopted child; an occurrence that may lead to a severe psychological condition referred to as the the primal wound. When the effects are chronic there is substantial evidence from many sources that the non-relative adopted child is more prone to higher levels of anxiety and emotional difficulties. There has been consistent evidence of morbidity of various types in adopted adolescents and adoptive families are more likely to seek help for their distress. Evidence in the statistical record highlights an abnormally high percentage of adoptees exhibiting anti-social behavior. On the behavioral level, examples include problems in human bonding, attachment disorder, antisocial behavior and oppositional defiant disorder as indicative warnings trending toward an antisocial pattern. Adopted child syndrome is a term most commonly used to explain behaviors in adopted children that are claimed to be related to their adoptive status. Other terms used to diagnose and describe the behavior of orphaned, fostered and adopted children are genealogical bewilderment, oppositional defiant disorder, selective mutism, and other anti-social behaviors.

Post traumatic stress disorder, adopted child syndrome, and the primal wound don’t technically qualify in medical terms as syndromes because the signs and symptoms are psychological and subjective, the observed condition and the cause and effect aren’t clear, and the relationship is not measurable. In medicine, a syndrome is based on clinically quantifiable terms where the cause and effect have a clear relationship that is noticeable. A symptom is defined as a feature which is noticed by the patient. A sign is a condition noticed by others. High blood pressure and diabetes resulting from physical or medical conditions may produce fatigue, nausea, malaise, anorexia, mental disorders, and quantifiable weight loss, but these medical conditions may also be signs of chronic fatigue syndrome and deep rooted psychological issues.

When diagnosis of the signs and symptoms and the underlying cause and effect are judged to be of a subjective nature they may not be accurately diagnosed because they cannot be measured in medical terms. The patient suffering from post traumatic stress disorder, anxiety disorders, the primal wound, sorrow, grief and bereavement may be ignored because the signs and symptoms are psychological and not medically quantifiable. Adopted parents faced with diagnosing feelings, emotions and behaviors in their adopted child classified as social withdrawal, apathy, inability to experience pleasure, antisocial behavior, defects in attention control and failure to thrive have difficulty identifying symptoms that cannot be measured directly. For that reason, they may fail to recognize the signs or the severity of the cause, and when the patient avoids telling others about their symptoms, the relationship between the two remains unclear. When stress and anxiety rise to a high level, the patient may eventually exhibit destructive behavior directed toward self, family or society—only then is the problem accurately diagnosed.

Contact Judith Land

 

http://www.adoptiondetectivejudithland.com | Judith Land Blog

Adoption Detective | Memoir of an Adopted Child | Judith Land

Detective Adopción | Memorias de un niño adoptado | Parenting & Relationships

采纳侦探|回忆录收养的孩子 | 입양 형사 | 입양 된 자녀의 회고록

Thông qua Thám | Hồi ký của một trẻ em đã được thông qua

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Incredible Discoveries Await Curious Adoptees

“Even when it isn’t possible, or desirable to contact family members directly, it can still be highly rewarding to study history, lifestyles, social influences, cultural customs, and language, and learn about the geographic places from which your ancestors originated.” Judith Land

“Genetic testing is becoming a cornerstone of healthcare. Genetically encoded features of a person for ancestral research can also be used to diagnose current illness, predict future disease risk, and to define other less medically relevant traits.” Judith Land

Ancestors are much more than a name. Adoptees should be favorably encouraged by the growing popularity of DNA testing and rapidly expanding ancestry computer data bases as reliable sources of educational enlightenment and entertainment. Adoptees curious to learn about family genetics, medical history, cultural and social customs, language, country of origin, and significant historical events influencing the lives of previous generations, get ready for some excitement. 

Alex Haley grew up hearing stories from his grandmother about the family history. He wrote the novel Roots: The Saga of an American Family the story of Kunta Kinte, an 18th century African captured in Gambia, sold into slavery, and transported to North America. The story traces the life of Kunta and his descendants down to himself. The novel, combined with its hugely popular television adaptation Roots led to a cultural sensation in the United States. Haley earned a Pulitzer Prize and many awards, including nine Emmys and a Peabody. Roots is a work of the imagination rather than strict historical scholarship but it was an important event because it captured everyone’s imagination.

Thanks to DNA testing I have learned much more about my family background than I ever anticipated. Thanks to the internet, my appreciation of other cultures and knowledge of other regions of the world where many of my relatives originated from, has been significantly increased. 

Don’t be discouraged by rumors and innuendo. Discovering the parts of the world where your ancestors came from can be highly exhilarating, illuminating, and compelling. 

Judith Land

 

 

On Children

Kahlil Gibran

 

 

 

 

 

 

And a woman who held a babe against her bosom said, Speak to

  us of Children.

And he said:

Your children are not your children.

They are the sons and daughters of Life’s longing for itself.

They come through you but not from you,

And though they are with you yet they belong not to you.

 

You may give them your love but not your thoughts,

For they have their own thoughts.

You may house their bodies but not their souls,

For their souls dwell in the house of tomorrow, which you

      cannot visit, not even in your dreams.

You may strive to be like them, but seek not to make them like

      you.

For life goes not backward nor tarries with yesterday.

You are the bows from which your children as living arrows are

    sent forth.

The archer sees the mark upon the path of the infinite, and He

   bends you with His might that his arrows may go swift and

     far.

Let your bending in the archer’s hand be for gladness;

For even as He loves the arrow that flies, so He loves also the

  bow that is stable.

 

 

Adoption and Conventional Wisdom

“The next time someone challenges your personal beliefs about post traumatic stress disorder resulting from maternal deprivation, ask yourself if their way of thinking is restricted by conventional wisdom. The health hazards of using pesticides when growing fruits and vegetables and smoking tobacco were not considered particularly harmful to one’s health in the 1950s, even among doctors. After all, the world turned out to be a sphere, not flat.” Judith Land

“Wisdom is a virtue. It is the soundness of an action and decision with regard to the application of experience, knowledge, and good judgment. Acquiring and practicing wisdom gives way to happiness and longevity of life. A wise person is a person who can foresee the future.” Judith Land

 

Conventional wisdom refers to all the commonplace ideas and expert opinions that are accepted as true by the majority of people, common ideas that most people agree on and use to make everyday decisions about their lives, to use as a gauge of normative behavior, beliefs, and professional conduct. Conventional is an adjective for things that are normal and ordinary that follow accepted ways that are typical and commonplace, accepted standards of social behavior, and cultural norms.

Conventional thinking is a term that emphasizes predictability, related to usual ways of thinking and doing things in your family, business, community, and culture, based on ideas which are esteemed for their acceptability. It is the body of ideas and explanations accepted as true by the public and experts in a field of knowledge and experience that almost no one disputes.

Conventional thinking leads to conforming cultural norms in behavior and thinking, but conventional wisdom isn’t always true. It may be a hindrance to the acceptance of new information, new theories, and explanations; an obstacle that must be overcome by legitimate revisionism. Since conventional wisdom is convenient, appealing, and deeply assumed by the public, consistently repeated statements may also become conventional wisdom, whether they are true or not. 

The topic of adoption is rife with specific ideas and notions about what is best for single mothers and adopted children. The inertia of repeated ideas about traditional customs, beliefs, and usages handed down from past generations that adhere to accepted customs and cultures, can last for many years, even after many experts have shifted to a new reality. Over time, there has been a gradual shift in thinking in American society regarding open verses closed adoptions, the value of family reunions, and the severe lasting psychological effects of the primal wound, maternal separation, and deprivation.

Unconventional thinkers are individuals that visualize possibilities that haven’t taken form yet. They think independently to visualize the bigger picture and comprehend the details. If the care of children and motherhood are important to you, educate yourself. Learn to seek the truth by challenging conventional wisdom.

Judith Land

 

 

Adoption Triggers Intense Feelings

“Life is an endless trial. Death is the certain verdict. Pain teaches you more than pleasure. Adversity teaches you more than comfort. Even a small glimmer of hope tantalizingly far in the future, can help adoptees overcome the anxieties and traumas of daily living.” Judith Land 

“Adoption is a huge life-altering event that triggers complex emotional responses in adopted children. A lack of control and power leads to anxiety, fear, and anger, resulting in attachment disorders, a negative sense of identity, difficulty with intimacy, and emotional trauma.” Judith Land

When the adoptee mind reaches for understanding and relevancy during times of darkness, confusion, and deep distress, powerful emotions and intense feelings are evoked in the conscious mind.

Emotions are the outward display of our feelings about circumstances and the people we are with. Emotions are reflected in our behavior, mood, body language, thoughts, and verbal responses. The world cannot be fathomed or described without talking about how we feel about things. Many of our emotional responses are triggered by speculation and abstract concepts, rather than concrete facts and events. Glory, love, honor, courage, death, beauty and poetry are examples of abstract thoughts that trigger complex thoughts, sentiments, and reactions that are often difficult to describe in ways that others can comprehend. 

Adoptees with the highest levels of ‘emotional intelligence’ are more likely to possess a higher degree of empathy for others. By understanding how another person feels about certain things, they can profoundly understand with deep insight what the other person is communicating. Those who understand the profundity of others share the greatest insights and depth of knowledge and often sense these things without words. 

Emotions are a natural instinctive state of mind deriving from one’s circumstances, mood, and relationships with others. Understanding the consequences of emotions is critical to healthy living and future success. Sadness is emotion characterized by feelings of disappointment, grief, hopelessness, disinterest, and a dampened mood. Fear is the emotional response to an anticipated negative social situation. Disgust is a sense of revulsion to things we hope to avoid. Anger has negative mental and physical consequences on our health. Surprise triggers flight or flee responses that trigger spontaneous memories. Happiness is a pleasant emotional state characterized by feeling of joy, gratification, contentment and well-being. Happiness is also linked to increased longevity and satisfaction in relationships. 

No one is born with success. Our emotional reactions to circumstances, tribulations, and frustrations test our faith, temper our passions, shape our character, and help us succeed. The higher our destiny, the greater the obstacles we are forced to overcome, and the more important it is to display emotional intelligence.

Judith Land