So now that I have my laptop back in my possession, I can finally get back to doing this regularly, as well as working on the WATER Method book. Since I last posted a number of things have happened that caught my attention, and I’ll be sharing them with you over the course of the next few posts.

For starters, I found out that my new child is going to be a bouncing baby boy. Cool, right? Everone was like, “you must be so excited!” Or they would start talking to me about how wonderful having children is going to be. You know what my response was? I was not very excited at all. In fact, my response was so lackluster, that my wife was very concerned, and wanted to make sure I was OK.

Probably not the best indicator that I was showing the proper level of enthusiasm, huh?

So we sat down and had a talk. She wanted to know what the heck was up with me, and why I was a bit detatched from the situation. Turns out I had two concerns: 1.) That child rearing is going to be a lot of work (and it is; whoever told you differently is likely your mum or dad, because they want grandkids anyway), and 2.) I was concerned about the financial strain that children inevitably put on the household (diapers alone will cost you an additional $200/month).

Now, being a therapist and having a penchant for knowing a lot about other people, it seems I missed the boat when it came to myself and my worries here. My wife, in her infinite wisdom shared with me something very solid. I won’t get into the whole conversation here, but the gist of it went something like this.

“You don’t know that its going to be difficult and hard. We have no idea whether or not our child is going to be difficult or easy. We just don’t know.”

So here I stand before you defying my own method of managing anxiety once again. However, I do so to prove a valuable point.

Just because we can’t see or even control the unknown, doesn’t mean we don’t want to.

The insanity of it all, is that we know that the unknown is out there. We know that we can’t control it. We know that even if we try our absolute best to control every aspect of it, it can still turn around and go in the opposite directon of what we really intended. So why do we try to hard to grab this concept? What drives us to get to this place where try to plan for what we can’t see?

In my humble opinion, such as it is, is that we do this because the alternative is not very appetizing. The alternative is doing nothing, and waiting for fate to figure out how its going to handle our lives. Planning for what we can’t see is like taking enough provisions for a camping trip (in case a bear shows up and eats your food), or making sure your sail boat is in tip top shape in case you weather a storm. We do this because we have the unique ability to live vicariously through others, see their mistakes, and learn from them. We do our best to ensure that life doesn’t turn out poorly, and if we can put in some failsafes to try to improve the odds in our favor, then so be it.

So what’s my point here? My point is that even though you can’t control the unknown, you can control what you do about the unknown.  The unknown might scare you to death (like this child rearing thing does for me to a greater or lesser degree), but recognizing that the unknown is something we can’t control right now, and letting the unknown go can be valuable. The unknown doesn’t go away, but the power we give it over our emotions can at least be decreased a little bit.

By the way, turns out I am excited about my baby, but I’m not expressing it appropriately. Not sure they’ve written a book on how you’re supposed to express this, but that just goes to show you that there are parts of my socially inept adolescence still hanging around in my personality. Who knew. 

I’ve often said that if a woman can multi-task, she’s normal, but if a guy can multi-task, he’s got ADHD. I am about to introduce you to a very strange and magical place that men frequent often, but women may be unaware of. I’ve run into a lot of clients and friends who go to this magical place, and one of my clients finally put a name to it, which I thought was pretty clever.

Its called the Nothing Box.

Now what is the Nothing Box? Its a place where men go when there is absolutely nothing going on inside their head. Jerry Seinfeld once said, “Wanna know what men are thinking about? Nothing. We’re just walkin’ around….lookin’ around.” This happens more often than we men would like to think, or even admit. At times, the Nothing Box serves as a valuable tool to focus on the task at hand.

Now how do I know that this Nothing Box even exists? Well for starters, I go there often. One of the more common places I go to my Nothing Box is when I’m driving. All I’m doing is focusing on driving, and that’s basically it. When my wife is with me, sometimes she’ll ask me, “What are you thinking about?” To that I respond, “Nothing.” I wish I were kidding, but that really is the case.

I’ve worked with clients that will go to their Nothing Box as long as they are focusing on a task that requires concentration. These same men will ignore their wives for sex, insensitive to their wives, and have ignored small innuendo during conversation because too many people are talking.

So how do you avoid the Nothing Box? Here are a few tips:

1. Be aware of the outside world. Don’t be so drawn into what you’re doing that the rest of the world doesn’t shake you from your concentration.

2. There’s a time and a place for your Nothing Box. Don’t go there all the time, just certain times when you don’t have to be conscious of others needs or Emotions.

3. Increase your capacity for awareness. Sometimes you don’t recognize that you’re in your Nothing Box until you’re already there. Use your Thoughts to consider when and where you are most likely to go to your Nothing Box, and decide whether or not you want to go there.

For you ladies, there’s some stuff here too:

1. Realize that your man may vey well have a penchant for the Nothing Box. Cut him some slack if he’s decided to be there. Its not because he’s not thinking about what’s important, it may just be that he’s a guy and can focus on only one thing at a time.

2. Educate your man about his Nothing Box. He may not even know he’s going there. Kindly letting him in to what he’s doing could help you understand each other better.

3. Give your man some time to be in the Nothing Box. He’s got to be there sometime, so give him a chance to be there. Talk about when might be a good time for him to go there, so that it doesn’t get in the way of stuff you need to do.

So let me ask you this: Have you ever gone to your Nothing Box? Ladies, do you have a story about your man and his Nothing Box? I’d love to hear it!

P.S. – This isn’t a new concept. Cindy Holman talked about it here, as well as Robb Lewis, and Carolyn McCulley. Check out their stuff on this topic and enhance the discussion.

Recently Jonathan Fields did a blog post entitled: Does Learning Have To Suck? In case you haven’t read it, do yourself a favor and go check it out. I wanted to comment on it, but after some consideration, realized I had more to say about it than I thought. So, you get what you have here.

Now I really dig Jonathan’s style. I think he’s smart and articulate and has a pretty good grasp on most things involved with business. However, he recently wrote a post about  extrinsic motivation, and this really perked my interest. Seeing as I’m a behavior modification guy, especially with regard to children, I decided to take it upon myself to do a post about Intrinsic and Extrinsic Motivation.

If you don’t feel like reading his blog (a mistake to be sure), then I’ll sum up the story. Basically he offered his daughter an iPod if she was able to accomplish her homework goals. Through various trial and error, he was able to get her to do the homework she needed to do.

The conversation in Does Learning Have To Suck? then spilled over into whether or not learning has to be extrinsically motivated. The discussion went back and forth between those who thought that learning should be about things that motivate the child intrinsically (and not all this other stuff they’re taught in school) and that there is an importance to learning things in school, even if they’re boring.

I have worked on countless behavioral plans with my clients and their parents, many of which are frustrated with a child’s lack of desire to do the work effectively. Some would say this has something to do with the curriculum at the school itself, but I disagree. Here is my take on what the heck is up with some kids, and why they bore of information so quickly.

1. Television(and video games, and friends, and the internet) is way more fun. It could be that children are exposed to hours upon hours of television from the age of 2 onward. Compared to the bright lights and fast moving, cartoon weilding, technicolor circus, is it any wonder why school is so boring?

2. Curiosity and Playfulness are stifled due to being forced to be quiet in class. Children start learning in First grade that they have to be quiet and sit still in class. Order and routine are necessary for teachers to be able to handle such large amounts of students. The Montessori Method is different in this, as it teaches learning through all five senses, and encourages curiosity and a desire to learn through experience. This is why atheletes are motivated to excel, because they have an intrinsic desire to learn more.

3. Some parents just don’t want to fight with their kids over homework. Since the age of the elimination of corporal punishment, some children have learned that if they push the right buttons, they can get a parent to crack, and as a result, the parent gets held hostage. Some parents even avoid the homework situation entirely for fear of another blowout between them and their kids. This is when I encourage Extrinsic Motivation for children, simply because it allows the parents to use a motivator to get the child to do what they want. After all, that’s real world stuff, right?

Go ahead, tell me you’re bribing your kid, and then tell me you’re going to your job every day for free.

Ah, but it can be bigger than that, can’t it? What if the parent were to use an Intrinsic Motivator as an Extrinsic Motivator? Here’s what I mean:

I have a client who loves to skateboard. He always wants to learn new tricks, and is way more interested in learning this than his homework (duh, speeding down a halfpipe at 30-50mph and then breaking gravity? who wouldn’t want to do that?). The parent was frustrated and brought the kid to me. Turns out, the parent had the tools all along. All s/he had to do was offer time at the skate park as a motivator to do the work, and suddenly the work started to get done. The kid does his homework, and learns new tricks. Everyone’s happy.

Additionally, I worked with the kid and used skateboarding to illustrate cool science concepts, like gravity and velocity. We then talked about Geometry and Physics, and how a half pipe is really kind of a circle cut in half. Every time he goes up and comes back down (Newton’s Law in action), his speed allows him to break free from gravity, if only for a short time.

He then told me I was really smart. Little does he know…

Fact is, Extrinsic Motivation is kind of a cultural norm. Sure, it’d be nice if we could all just get along and do things for the fun of it. But there are a lot of boring jobs out there that pay well. Heck, I had to make that decision myself (Rock Star – because you know they hand out diplomas for those…or Shrink, which doesn’t pay as well as TV says we do…I’m still waiting for my awesome fountain).

Most jobs are in one of two categories: Ones you love (and pay poorly) and ones you hate (and pay well). Sometimes you get the short end of the stick on all fronts, but you get the idea. Anyone who sets out on a career does so for one of those two reasons, and hopefully you are able to find balance in there somewhere.

My point is, learning is part of growing up. Part of growing up is also figuring out what you want to do with your life. That changes as you grow, but I think its healthy for kids to understand how the world works, and also have dreams and goals to shoot for as well. Besides, even if you learn about “how the world works” doesn’t mean that it has to work for you the same way. You can always beat the odds, and do something different (like loving your job and getting paid well to do it).

Everyone is different. The way one person learns and gets through school might be completely different than another. I’m horrible at test taking, but breezed my way through college and grad school through writing papers. Some things we will learn because we have to, and some because we want to. If that means it sucks along the way, but we end up getting something for our efforts, I’m kinda OK with that.

What do you think? Can a kid have it both ways? To learn, love it and want to learn more? Gimme what you got!

So I’m sitting with my wife today and we’re talking over coffee about our friends and how they’re doing lately. One of the things we noticed was that women and men seem to see their friends very differently. Not that we need another reason to create a difference between men and women mind you, because heck, there are plenty of ways they’re different to begin with. But we noticed something really funny…

Some women hate successful women, yet some men praise and aspire to be like successful men.

For example, if Woman A is atractive or pretty in some way; if she’s successful or smart, or has some other quality that Woman B doesn’t have, then Woman A is a complete witch, and deserves the scorn and hatred of Woman B.

Whereas if Man A is attractive or successful or has some talent or skill that Man B doesn’t have, Man B seems more inclined to idolize Man A, and aspire to be like him.

I have no evidence to back this up whatsoever. I have tried to find articles or studies to show this strange anomoly between men and women, and I’ve come up with a whole lot of nothing.

However, what’s the point of talking about this? What’s the big deal anyway?

The point is to allow this example to help us understand ourselves. Because if you’re Man or Woman B, you likely need to consider how this affects your life in a very negative way.

Here’s my take on this: Some women feel threatened by other women who have different, better, or other talents than they do. When this happens, they instinctively turn on these women who have other traits, and look to find ways to distance themselves from them. This could also allow for her to not be compared to other women who she percieves as “better than her,” and prevent her from being let down by others in the process.

On the other hand, men tend to do one of two things: they are either really supportive, and out of some form of admiration aspire to be like men who are successful, or they tend to envy them in an unhealthy way, and as a result, might praise them to save face, but may hate them from within.

See, in my opinion, the reason why we react the way we do to other people is because of the way we see ourselves. Abraham Maslow described this as the Hierarcy of Needs. Specifically, these issues tend to be somewhere between the Love/Belonging Needs and the Esteem Needs.

So depending on the needs that you have at the time, could determine how you respond to people who come your way.

But let’s take it a step further! What if you are one of these people? Is it a good idea to continue down this path?

Since this is a combination of Love/Belonging Needs and Esteem Needs, it seems we need to work on those the most. Here are my suggestions:

1. Consider what you’re telling yourself about yourself in relation to others. What is causing you to want what they have? Think about where that’s coming from, and how that’s affecting your Emotions and Actions.

2. Live your own life, not someone else’s. How much time do you spend thinking about what it would be like to live someone else’s life? If you’re spending more than a few minutes, you’re spending too much time in fantasy land. Live your life and enjoy it.

3. What do you really want? Do you want someone else’s life, or a better version of your own? If you want a better version of your own, stop looking to other’s lives as examples, and start looking at how you can change your own life to have what you want.

Granted, this isn’t therapy. Its your life, you do what you want…but consider how your attitude about others  and about your self is affecting how you see yourself, and how its affecting your overall life enjoyment.

What do you think? Has this ever happened to you?

One of the more common themes I’ve been dealing with in session with my couples is the concept of love, and how some people are “losing the loving feeling.” And I’ve come here to say one thing:

Love has nothing to do with feelings.

Yeah, I know, I know. This flies right in the face of all the great romantic comedies you’ve watched. It goes against everything you’ve been told by your favorite TV shows and romance novels you’ve read. Hell, it even goes against good ol’ Tony Robbins methodology doesn’t it (hence why he got divorced, because he couldn’t “be happy” in it). After all, aren’t you supposed to feel love and happiness all the time with the person you love?

No, you’re not.

Let me break it down to you this way. Think about all the reasons you got into a relationship. Think about all the feelings you felt and what that meant to you.

Did any of that stuff have anything to do with the other person?

Think about this for a second. The great feelings you feel are feelings YOU feel. This has to do with you. You get involved with someone because of how they make YOU feel and how they compliment YOUR life. The fact that all this works for the other person is really great too, isn’t it.

But in essence, it has to do with you and how you feel.

This, is in essence a form of relationship narcissism. The relationship isn’t something that you commit to for better or worse, its something that is an accessory to your life. Its there to make you feel happy or loved. If things feel bad, or there’s a problem that people aren’t willing to work on, then its time to move on, isn’t it? After all, if you’ve lost the loving feeling, then there must clearly be something wrong with the relationship.

Or maybe, just maybe, you’ve come back down to Earth and realized that you have to live in reality.

And reality is no fun. Nowhere near as fun as the endorphin filled, infatuation-fest that you went on when you first got involved with that person.

OK, I’m ranting. I know I’m ranting. But I do have a point in all this.

Sometimes relationships are not going to be fun. Sometimes they’re going to be hard, and sometimes they’re downright ugly. If you don’t make a choice to love someone despite how they make you feel, then what is going to keep you together?

That’s my point. You wanna know why the divorce rate is at 50% and climbing? You want to know why kids are still affected by divorce, even though its considered “normal” these days?

Its because no matter how normal it is, it still affects them…and negatively.

Its because people are weak (abuse, abandonment and adultery aside; leaving in these circumstances does not make you weak), and they don’t want to work out their crap. Its much easier to go find some other person and feel all those great feelings all over again. Its much easier to ignore the problem and keep making the same mistakes you always make in relationships.

Don’t get me wrong. It takes two people to make a relationship work. Each person has to decide that they’re going to make it work no matter what. I’ve seen people make that choice, and as a result, the relationship improves and gets stronger than ever before. I’ve also seen people bail because they’re weak and they don’t want to work through the issues.

Those people are likely still chasing that loving feeling.

Maybe I’m being a little harsh, but you know what? That doesn’t change the fact that its true. If you don’t like how that makes you feel, that’s fine, its your life. Go ahead and ignore the problem like you have before.

Or fix it. Either way, life is too short and too long to pretend that love is only a feeling. If that’s what you believe, good luck chasing the feeling. You’ll be chasing it a long time.

My recommendation: Think long and hard about your life and your children’s lives 5-10 years down the road from now. Do you honestly think you will be happy? Do think they will be in the long run?

If you think it can work, at least try. You can always leave if you wuss out.

OK, I’ll stop now and let you talk.

If you can’t control your crap, then you shouldn’t be in a relationship. In my opinion, there’s no excuse for cheating.  Plain and simple.  This isn’t the first time I’ve said this. My previous post: Life is Short, Have an Affair?, I go off on a tangent about a site that allows you to do this easier.

I won’t even waste the muscle usage in my fingers to type the name of the website.

Anyway, every now and then I work with a couple that decides to work through the cheating. Now I’ll admit, its not easy work, and usually involves a decent amount of time to help them get through it. However, the dedicated couple can get through the breakdown of trust that occurs when one of them cheats.

What I see more often than not, is that the “cheatee” (the person that was cheated on) is looking for a reason why from the “cheater (do I have to explain this?)”

Problem is, as I explained earlier, there’s no excuse for cheating. However, there is a difference between Explaining and Excusing.

Explaining a problem makes reason. Excusing a problem gives reason.

See the difference? Explaining a problem helps us understand the process by which something like this happened. Excusing involves the “cheater” to be on the defensive, and causes the “cheatee” to be on the offensive.

It allows the cheatee ammunition.

And they should have it after all. The cheater has a big target on his/her back for being so stupid to begin with. However, the reason why I bring this up, is because finding an excuse is NOT going to help things.

If you want to know “why” to work through and improve the relationship, that’s one thing. If you’re just looking for more ammunition, why don’t you use what you have already? Its not like they didn’t give you a stockpile when you found the emails, text messages, pictures, reservations or any other incriminating evidence.

Same goes for the cheater. Seriously, do you honestly think excuses are going to help the situation? Doing some strong soul searching and understanding the reasons for your behavior, and discussing it in as non-accusing or assuming a way as possible is probably the best way to go (if you’re looking to fix the relationship that is).

What’s the point of this post?

The point is that if you are going to couples counseling for a cheating incident, and you want to make it work:

Cheatee

1.  Seek the explaination so you can move forward with your partner. If you want someone to take your side while you verbally beat the heck out of them, find a friend.

2. Use your therapist to help the two of you understand what happened so you can fix the problem. Are there angry feelings? Sure there are. But yelling at each other in session isn’t going to change the situation.

3. Go to individual therapy to manage these feelings. This way you can process the broken trust, develop coping skills for the anger and sadness, and then come to the couples session more focused.

Cheater

1. Go to individual counseling and figure out why you did what you did. Its time to learn more about you and what happened here. It also means you have to learn about boundaries you need to set with yourself and others.

2. Once you figure that out, give an Explaination, not an Excuse. No sense defending what you did. For whatever reason, it was wrong. Resolve that, and explain it to yourself and to your partner.

3. Apologize, and keep doing it. Its not going to resolve all at once. It will take time, and you’re going to have to eat a heaping helping of humble pie.

Please understand, this is not to patronize or minimize cheating. Remember the beginning of the post: There’s no excuse for cheating. But I encourage the seeking of knowledge over the seeking of ammunition any day of the week and twice on Sunday.

Its not going to be easy. It will be the hardest work you will probably be the hardest work you ever do. But if you have something worth saving, and are willing to save it, your relationship will be able to withstand anything.

How do I know? I’ve seen it.

Am I naive? Tell me what you think.

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Are you addicted to the internet? There’s a test you can take online to determine whether or not you are. As far as statistics go, I said you could Google Internet Addiction Statistics and find them. Here’s what I found: 

 (From Websense) “The survey, which was conducted by Harris Interactive across a swath of 305 employees, determined that the average worker spends more than one entire workday each week surfing Web sites that are not work-related.”

(From Stamford University) ”The researchers found that 68.9 percent were regular Internet users, which is consistent with previous studies, and that:

• 13.7 percent (more than one out of eight respondents) found it hard to stay away from the Internet for several days at a time
• 12.4 percent stayed online longer than intended very often or often
• 12.3 percent had seen a need to cut back on Internet use at some point
• 8.7 percent attempted to conceal non-essential Internet use from family, friends and employers
• 8.2 percent used the Internet as a way to escape problems or relieve negative mood
• 5.9 percent felt their relationships suffered as a result of excessive Internet use

Among those polled, 67 percent confessed to visiting Web sites for personal reasons. Compulsive workplace shoppers claimed 24 percent of those polled. News junkies came in second at 23 percent, pornography hounds at 18 percent, gambling at 8 percent, and auctions at 6 percent.”

So it seems as though Internet Addiction is a big problem. How do we fix it? More on that later on this week. In the meantime, check out my interview and let me know what you think!

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/27600105/

The story goes on to say that it is unclear as to whether or not the child was abused. It also states that the murders were pre-meditated. This stands to raise a few questions:

Was it nature or nurture? Was this child sociopathic, or did he feel trapped, with no way out other than to end these lives? If he was not a sociopath, what drove him to do what most adults would have trouble doing? Until we know the truth, I suppose we could speculate all day.

I call this a parent’s worst nightmare, because the idea of raising children is to do your best to ensure that they are safe, but also that they don’t make terrible choices they will live to regret. At least that’s my impression of what raising a healthy child should be.

I would encourage most parents who have a bleak outlook on their child’s future, to think about this case in context with your own child’s life. Remember, you’re still alive, and when compared to this case, that counts for something. It means that as long as you can develop a relationship with your child, perhaps there is hope for them to become happy, healthy and making good choices.

Jim
www.NewHopeCounselingOnline.com