Emotional inhibition schema is a condition of subconsciously numbing emotion, with the implied belief that emotions are a problem.

Growing up in a family where showing emotion led to being punished, hurt, ridiculed, exploited, or neglected is one source of this schema.

Even as an adult, becoming more open to feelings takes patience, curiosity, and humility.

The “Sunday scaries” is an unofficial name for a feeling of dread, melancholy, anxiety or guilt, which begins Sunday afternoon and worsens into Sunday evening, and is marked by doubts regarding how you used your time, how you feel about your job, and even existential doubts about how you’re living your life.

People with self-sacrifice schema feel responsible for other people’s pain and find it hard to tolerate without trying to fix it.

Self-sacrifice schema comes from living in a situation of having too much responsibility before your time.

The difference between self-sacrifice schema and just being compassionate is healthy boundaries for both sides.

Subjugation schema is triggered when you want to express emotion but feel you must contain it because it would be too scary or risky.

There are two types of subjugation: subjugation based on fear and subjugation based on guilt.

Both types of subjugation come from childhood experience with difficult parent figures.

Enmeshment schema is feeling guilt, obligation, anxiety, and worry about your family’s feelings and approval.

Enmeshment interferes with a child’s opportunity to explore their own emotional maturity.

The foundation of boundaries is the need to accept and respect that others may not have the same needs or desires as you.

Triggered feelings of vulnerability may be more about your past than what’s happening now.

Certain childhood experiences may leave an imprint that the world is dangerous and life is fragile, so you feel you must always be careful.

To overcome vulnerability schema, remind yourself that now, as an adult, you can take care of yourself.

Those with dependency schema may feel incapable of handling one or more important elements of living an independent adult life.

Young adults suffering from dependence schema are often given the pop diagnosis of “failure-to-launch syndrome.”

Telling the people you depend on that you would like to become more independent helps them cheer you on.

Failure schema begins early in childhood as the child learns how to do things, including talking, bodily dexterity, coordination, and tasks.

By getting love and support and cheering on when they fail, children learn that failure isn’t “bad” or a reason to feel rejected.

Even if you don’t explicitly say such things to yourself, you’ll know you have what's known as defectiveness schema if you feel shame. You feel unlovable. Defectiveness is the official schema therapy term, but I call it the “I’m unlovable” schema.

People with social isolation schema may have grown up feeling like they don’t belong, and like there’s something wrong with them.

They may avoid people and find relationships fake and exhausting, and may feel they can relax and be themselves only when they’re alone.

Letting go of this schema takes patience and practice and stepping outside of your comfort zone.

With this schema, one's brain considers relationships to be a potential threat, so it keeps the stress response turned on.

You have difficulty trusting people, even those close to you like your partner or spouse. You may find yourself believing they are trying to control you.

With emotional deprivation schema, your childhood caregivers were not up to hearing, validating, mirroring, and responding to your needs.

Would you say you’re pessimistic about love, but, at the same time, you have a history of intense relationships that left you deeply hurt when they ended?

All of these techniques show that when you distance, you are able to be less emotionally triggered, less stressed mentally and physically, and you make better judgments and decisions.

Chatter is when self-guidance turns into self-criticism, worry, negativity, and fear, causing a feedback loop that undermines our performance. So we have a self-fulfilling prophecy: Worry makes us perform worse, which reinforces reasons to worry, which makes our performance even worse, and off we go into a spiral: Chatter.

The hardship we faced in childhood can play such an important role in our daily lives, but we so often convince ourselves to avoid it. If you find yourself making one of the 6 statements below, you may be preventing yourself from accepting important insights about what makes you tick.

Do you ever feel like therapy just isn’t connecting and wonder why? Does self-help culture make you feel bad about yourself?

Why is it that, for so many people, using a planner and calendar is so scary? Opening that nifty planner you got online— you know the nicely bound book with a calendar inside, as well as boxes for daily, weekly, and monthly goals— becomes like opening the Necronomicon to hellish feelings of dread, anxiety, self-criticism, and hopelessness. It’s there on the desk… staring at you!

Go back to the future starring your happy inner child and healthy caring adult modes.

We connect with the voices of child selves, parent/critic identified selves, and other modes so that they are really heard, often for the first time. This feels incredibly validating.