So after having a child and moving my practice to a different location, I decided that it was necessary to re-evaluate the WATER Method. After all, its important to do a little introspection every now and then. After some thought I realized that something wasn’t quite right.

If you’re not familiar with the WATER Method, go ahead and check out my explanation of it on my main page. Basically WATER stands for Words, Actions, Thoughts, Emotions and Results – the Five things you can change about yourself and the world around you. But then it dawned on me that a fundamental idea was missing in all this.

The idea was the Rules, or core values, that we have that shape many of the Words, Actions, Thoughts and Emotions we have about issues in our lives. Ever have a negative thought or idea about yourself, or call yourself names, like “stupid” or “fat”? Sometimes these are based in negative rules we have about ourselves and the world around us, and sometimes those Rules have to change.

Granted, I’m usually not one to go around suggesting that we change many of our Core Values or Rules. Most of the time those Rules are a good thing, but every now and then they’re not. In future posts, I’m going to go into this concept a bit more, so we can get a sense of what we can expect from changing the Rules we have set up that may be hurting us.

Image by Martin Stranka

One of the things I’ve found in working with couples over the last 9 years, is that many of them come into session, and the session goes a little something like this:

Jack and Jill are fighting more frequently. Jack blames Jill for being too demanding, and they have stopped having intimate moments. Jill blames Jack for not helping out enough with the house and the children, and Jack is angry all the time.  The arguing in the office starts to escalate in just a matter of minutes. He said, She said. Back and forth.

Like Jack and Jill, many couples start to point fingers at their partner out of daily frustration and years of unresolved baggage between them. However, there’s one thing they’re forgetting: the only spouse you can change, is yourself. By stepping back from the confrontations, you can ask yourself, “How am I contributing to this problem? Where am I going wrong here?”

See, its real easy to point the finger, isn’t it? But when you look into your own issues, it gets a little more complicated. In fact, there are times when I run into couples who hear what their significant other says, and rather than address the issue, they hide behind a completely different issue! So shots are fired across the bow, and even though each partner hears the other, no one is really listening.

So the Result is that rather than digging into an issue and resolving it, we skirt away from it, and run even further away from where we are going wrong in the relationship. So much so, that perhaps we can’t even see it. Sound familiar? Hopefully not, but if it does, there’s hope for you yet!

So how do we fix it? Well, first we start with humility. Get over yourself (and I mean that in as sweetly and as lovingly as possible). You’re not perfect, and neither is your spouse. I understand that it would make you very happy to fix your significant other, but you have to recognize that you can’t control that person. They have to choose to change, and when/if they do, it means that much more. You can, however, control you, which is the next step.

Step 2 is taking a look at yourself, and realize what you’re doing wrong. I know that doesn’t feel very good, but hey, you want to make your relationship better, right? Well, that means work, and when you think of the word “work,” are you really thinking fun? My guess is no. So it means you have to take a second, and recognize that maybe some of your emotions about what’s going on here, might have something to do with you and what you’re doing wrong. Find one thing…just one, and own the thing you did wrong.

Step 3 is apologize for that thing. And please, don’t tell me you’re waiting for your partner to apologize first, because really, that’s just an excuse to not do it yourself. When does someone else’s bad behavior justify your own? Someone’s got to be the bigger person here, and take the first step. Does it always have to be you? No, and it shouldn’t always be you, and by recognizing you can’t control your partner, you’re taking a step toward improvement by taking responsibility.

See, if you’re humble, its hard for someone to be mean to you, unless they really don’t love you or don’t want to work out the relationship (and these people do exist, sadly). Humility is, in my opinion, half of the key to happiness. The other is gratitude.

Finally, step 4 is devising a plan of action. Its one thing to apologize (and if you’ve been reading me for a bit, you know how I feel about I’m Sorry), its another to take it step further by making a plan of action. By taking that step, you show, not just tell your partner that you mean business.

This is what I recommend to the couples I work with, because for many of them, they have been dealing with finger pointing for years. It has to stop somewhere, and with someone, so I usually try to encourage both of them to do it at the same time. That way, both parties are admitting a wrong-doing without the other doing the finger pointing, and can plan toward making ammends from there.

So consider looking at things a little differently. Its really easy when you’re mad to point the finger and shake it a few times. But what if you looked inward and took an account of where you’re going wrong, and then made ammends for it? Would that change your relationship?

I’m all ears.

So one of my clients brought to my attention (and I’m able to tell you this because she gave me permission to blog about it) that she was feeling overwhelmed over the fact that she was getting married in a few months. Though this seems like a good thing on paper, I could tell by her distress that she was feeling overwhelmed by the stress and the pressure to get all the details squared away. She said she was getting pressure from all sides: mother, friends, family members, her fiancee. Everyone wanted her to manage the planning of the wedding, because after all, it was “her day.”

So we sat and discussed how we could make much of the planning of this easier, when it dawned on me: What if you broke the whole process up into pieces. After all, you don’t eat a whole pie at once, do you? You eat it a piece at a time, and even then, you eat each piece one forkfull at a time.

We laughed about the analogy, but it made sense, especially in this situation. So how could we apply it to her life? Well we had to divide the pie up into slices. So with the pie being her wedding planning, we separated the planning into 8 pieces, and named each piece. It looked something like the diagram below.

The idea behind it was she could take a piece a day, and “eat it.” Take one topic, and break it down in steps. Each step is a “bite.” I recommended actually having a piece of pie with each topic, but then I thought that probably wasn’t a good idea considering she probably wouldn’t fit into her dress. And how cool would that be, really?

Now I could have just sent her on her way, and gave myself an enormous pat on the back for being so smart. But then I realized I had to take my own advice yet again. Because there are times when I feel a bit overwhlemed (as I’ve stated here before), and when I do, having tools ready to manage them is not a bad idea.

So why didn’t I try this out on myself. So here’s what I came up with:

So for me, I have to consider taking a topic a day, breaking it down into edible bites, and then resolving each issue so that they’re not bugging me so much. Remember, there are some things you can change, and some things you can’t, so that makes a lot of difference with regard to how much you can “eat” and how much you can’t.

Sounds good, right? So here’s the thing, I’m not going to sit here and tell you about it and not give you the tools to do this yourself. So I’ve included a blank, really cheesy, done in Windows Paint style pie chart that you can use to manage your overwhelmed feelings. Give it a shot and let me know here if it works for you. Go ahead and tell me. I don’t bite. 

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. 

If you know anything about me, you probably know that when it comes to technology, I try to keep on top of most of the stuff that’s going on out there. Additionally though, I’m also a guy that has a hard time letting old technology go. I had an old cell phone with this enormous battery on it that gave me a ton of talk time. The clips on the battery that kept it on broke. Did I get a new one? Nope, just threw some duct tape on it, and I was good to go.

This is generally typical male thinking. After all, most men aren’t much for aesthetics, so long as it works. As much as I hate to admit it, I’ve fallen prey to the same malady. My laptop broke and I was ready to replace the screen on it to get it to work (probably was going to need some duct tape there too). Thank God it started working, and didn’t have to do that. When it did break though, I hooked the laptop up to my TV so I could get access to my files (see, tech savy)

Well, the same thing happened with my glasses. Turns out one day I was bringing my dog outside, and I managed to lose them. This isn’t the first time I’ve done this, as I broke my first pair, and lost my second pair in a horrible rainstorm in front of Panera Bread. So there I was with no glasses, and once again I have to thank my lovely bride for somehow magically finding my old specs, because without them, I’d be sorely at a disadvantage this winter.

They didn’t fit though, and it drove me a little nuts. So I decided that this weekend, I would take some time to try to fix them, using my honey’s jewelry tools. I busted out a screwdriver and an old pair of sunglasses that broke ages ago, and tried to replace the right arm on the glasses. In about a half hour, I had the thing replaced! I was totally psyched…and then something happened that I didn’t expect.

The other arm broke off.

Suddenly, I felt like I was in a Pixar short (if you’ve seen them, you know what I mean).

So I grabbed some of my wife’s copper wire, and bent it to my will (Muahahaha!). About 20 minutes later, I had two new arms that worked fairly well, as you can see above. I also replaced the nose clips. All in all, the glasses were reasonably comfortable, and fit just right (adjustable too…beat that Lenscrafters!)

Now I know what you’re thinking. Why not just go out and but some new ones? Well, the “Tough Economic Times” gave us a proverbial slap with a newspaper as of late. So as a result, we’re trying to keep as frugal as we can. Needless to say, another $100-$200 for new glasses cetainly wasn’t on the menu.

And hey, they ain’t pretty, but they get the job done. They’re functional. They work, and I can see. Which leads me to the point of all this.

Sometimes your life isn’t going to be perfect. Or your marriage; your kids, your job, or even your living situation. Sometimes you have to be grateful for the functionality of life. If stuff works, and works pretty well for you, it may not be awesome, aesthetic, or even sensitive to others’ feelings. Sometimes what works for you doesn’t work for everyone else, and that’s probably OK.

Sometimes you just have to think outside the box, and make choices based on some of that thinking. Don’t leave inside the box behind either, if that works for you instead.

I guess my point is, through working on my glasses, and fixing them to some degree, I realized that soemtimes we just have to get things to work in our lives. With the chaos we run into regularly with all our responsibilities, it seems nearly impossible for everything you do to go just right. Something’s going to give, and you have accept that to a greater or lesser degree. What you can change here is how you manage those issues when they arive, and being prepared by knowing what your limits are.

Things don’t always have to be perfect, but getting by and working through the issues, and having a level of satisfaction for your hard work is about as close as you can come…and its not bad at all.

On January 4th, PBS broadcast a show called “This Emotional Life,” which talked about different theraputic techniques and recent breakthroughs in mental health counseling and treatment. It turned out that my mother in law watched it; and the therapist I work with; as well as a bunch of my clients. In case you haven’t seen it, do yourself a favor and click the pic above to check out some of the excerpts from it.

The video excerpt above is about the dangers of some self-help. Dr. John Norcross makes a few points about self-help, and how only about 20% is based on actual research. Additionally, he mentions that there is a danger in the “power of positive thinking” and how people can use it to the extreme and say that calamaties that come their way are a result of their not thinking positively enough.

This actually reminds me a lot of some old school Christian thinking. If something bad happened to you, then you must have sinned in some way. However, if you’re grounded in reality in any way, shape or form, you would realize that everyone runs into difficulty, and some people’s difficulty is greater than others. It strikes me though, that positive thinking has its merit, and he even says in the interview that our Thoughts do have a lot to do with how we operate (which is a concept I talk about a lot here).

So I guess what I’m asking you to do is this: Watch the video and ask yourself if the self-help that you follow is backed by data of some kind, AND is the self-help you’re following potentially damaging? One thing that I’m going to do for sure from here forward, is actually do some research to see if my technique is either done somewhere else by someone else, and if there is research to show that what I’m doing here works.

Don’t get me wrong! I do have my education and 8 years experience to back me up on what I’m throwing out here. However, I think its important to be able to offer you current, accurate and valuable information on how to manage your stressors.

What do you think? Does your self-help work? What is it? Talk to me people.

So I’m sitting with my wife watching a church service from our home, because we had planned on going to church that morning, but she really wasn’t feeling good, so we stayed in (she’s pregnant, she’s allowed). So I decided to go check out my old church, as they stream their church services every Sunday. During the message, the pastor makes a very strong statement, which is the focus of my post today.

The gist of it is this:

People don’t care about the truth anymore. They only care about what makes them feel good, and what they can get out of a situation.

This statement got me thinking, because I didn’t want to believe it was true. Surely there are some people out there who care enough about the truth, and will do so at the cost of feeling good and being selfish. Then I realized that the truth is relative for a lot of people. I mean, I’m a Christian, but if you don’t believe what the  Bible says is true, then you’re not going to agree with me about my version of the truth when it comes to religion. That’s OK, its a free country, you’re more than welcome to believe what you want.

But aside from religion, how can people come to terms with what the truth is? Some would say you come to this determination through science. Surely if you can prove something with science, then you can determine what the truth is that way, right? Then you lay out the global warming/climate change question, and you have people who have data that show both sides of the argument, and both could be considered to be true based on the information presented.

Then you can think about truth in a court of law, and how we are asked in court to “tell the whole truth and nothing but the truth.” How then, is truth determined? By facts and evidence, and upon the weighing of that evidence, the judge or jury comes to a determination about what the truth is, and how the court should proceed as a result of that determination. So it would follow, then, that we can determine what truth is based on facts.

But what if we don’t care about that stuff? What if we throw truth out the window because it doesn’t fit our worldview? Do we then disregard those facts because it feels better to keep our worldview? How then do we determine facts, if our perspective is so tainted that we will take false evidence into consideration?

Then there’s the generation of children in this day and age. You’ve seen them haven’t you? The ones that really don’t care much about the truth, and are more concerned with how their friends and their experiences make them feel, and what they can get out of life from others. I shouldn’t fault them too much, but at the same time, there is a line you have to draw at selfishness, so I usually confront teenagers on this as soon as I think they can handle it.

People have said “the Truth hurts,” and I think that’s because for the most part, the truth is difficult to swallow. The truth doesn’t feel good. Its not considerate of your feelings, and it doesn’t give you anything amazing as a result. I’m not sure that people even believe that “the truth will set you free” anymore, because in many respects, its better to be a slave to your own perspective than it is to be free with the difficult truth.

OK, OK, Jim. I get it. But how does that pertain to my life right now?

Since I can only throw my professional opinion at you, I’ll give you my perspective on the truth. First, determine your sphere of  relevance. Are these facts relevant to your life, and your sphere of influence? If not, then perhaps focusing on this area of truth is not necessary for you right now. So determine what truth is relevant to your life.

Second, do your best to seek out the most pertinent truth to your life. Since everyone’s life is different, the truth that is relevant to your life will be different. Do your absolute best to seek out the most truth for your life.

Lastly, do your absolute best to live your life according to the truth. No matter how hard it may be. Even if it makes you change your worldview, live according to the truth.

If I didn’t believe that what I was sharing with you was the truth, and didn’t follow it myself, I wouldn’t be typing it here. Why? Because I do my best to live by what I believe is the truth. I may screw up, but that doesn’t mean I’m going to let my screw ups determine who I am and my continued thirst for the truth in my own life.

So my questions to you, and if you comment, please answer these questions: Does Truth Matter? and If so, how do YOU determine what is truth?

You made it! You got through another holiday season! For a lot of people this was a time of stress, parties, presents for family members, and eating a lot of food that you will eventually regret eating. You got through it, and now here you are on a Monday, sending your children back to school and heading back to work to begin a New Year, hopefully refreshed.

So now that things are back to normal, you can begin to focus on the stuff you put on the back burner to manage the holiday season. This is our Normal Insanity, the stuff we deal with on a daily basis without the holidays to use as an excuse. Its the stuff we now must face, or choose to continue to ignore. If we’re not careful, we could find ourselves in a place where continue to stuff our problems and not manage them.

So here are some ways to ease yourself back into the normalcy of post holiday season bliss.

1. Let go of the holiday season. Its over, which means the stress of it is over. If you have really good memories of that time, then give those more weight than the stress you’ve experienced. Remember, you make it through the season, it didn’t kill you, so you’ve made it through the hard part.

2. Take on a new attitude. Remember that your routine is what it was before, and unless something dramatic has changed, you will go through what you normally go through without the holiday stress. However, you can make it better than it was before the holiday season. Your attitude can make a difference.

3. Your time off was a larger example of a smaller concept. Remember that you can take time off in your average day, so long as you can schedule it well. Don’t feel like scheduling your time so you can have a little break here and there? Hey, its your life, but remember that those brief moments here and there are what brings you through the stressful periods. Take care of yourself so you can manage the negative, and relaxed to enjoy the positive.

Let’s not forget that with a new year people often have concerns and worries about the future. I have to say for one that I am scared to death about being a new parent, and what the future is going to hold for me as I move forward. I will have to say though, that using the WATER Method does make it a bit easier. Sure, I can plan for the future, but until I experience it, I’m not going to know exactly what to do until trial and error shows up. I’m going to screw up somewhere, and as long as its not a really nasty screw up, I’m kind of looking forward to it.

I also have to say that finishing my book seems a bit daunting, but I’m going to break it up in small increments to make sure that I accomplish it sooner rather than later. I figure if I can crank out a page every two days, I’ll be on the right track, and should have it done sooner than I think.

So don’t let the new year and the adjustment back to normalcy get you down. You will move on and forward, provided you have a plan in place to keep your wits about you. I know I need one. What about you?

Happy New Year! New Year’s Day is one of my favorite days of the year, because people all over the country and all over the world put the past behind them, and focus on moving forward toward positive change. We like to use this change in date to signify this decision, and it seems like a good place to start.

But let’s face it. How many times have you made a New Year’s Resolution, and then dropped the ball and let it slide. You’re still smoking. You’re still trying to lose that Holiday weight. You’re still trying to set better boundaries at work so you can spend more time with your family. Change can be scary, and sometimes its easier just to do what you’ve been doing all along, rather than try to come up with a plan to change AND actually use the plan to make the change.

Well, in a rare moment, I am going to go all crazy self-promotion today, in order to illustrate a point. As of today, I’m offering the New Year’s Resolution Revolution! This is my way of trying to help you set goals and achieve them through the power of the internet.

Now why the heck am I doing this? Because I’m sick and tired of seeing people set goals for their lives and not achieve them because they can’t stay on top of the resolution. So I’m setting something up to try to help you stay on task and not let those goals go to hell where all good intentions go.

In addition, I’m going to set my own New Year’s Resolution right now, so you know that I actually buy into my own baloney. Here are my resolutions as follows:

1. Every week I am going to finish at least 5 pages of my book, The WATER Method.

2. I am going to help at least one person achieve their New Year’s Resolution.

3. I am going to stick to my blogging schedule, and post every Monday and Thursday (like I did before).

So there you go. I will be updating the status of my New Year’s Resolutions weekly, so you know where I’m at, and you know that I mean what I say. If I don’t do it, call me out. I’m a big boy, I can handle it. 

Do you have a New Year’s Resolution? What is it? Do you need some help making it work? Click here to check out my New Year’s Resolution Revolution!

With Christmas behind us and the New Year upon us, we begin to think about how we can change our lives and make promises to ourselves and our loved ones about how this year will be better than the last. 

 It takes about 4 weeks to a month to break a habit, or to make lasting changes.  That is just long enough to start to get discouraged, and give up. But, what if  you made a plan? Then the goal has smaller easier goals, bite-sized, to help you work up to the final achievement? Doesn’t that sound a little easier? What if you had a helping hand to assist you on your way? Someone who can provide encouragement, and practical advice for the big obstacles and small discouragements that come along, especially when you are actively pursuing a change? It might just be helpful, and turn a pipe-dream into a reality in your life.

As a result, I am going to be offering something new and different to my readers. Starting in the New Year, I will have a subscription service available to help you with any New Year’s Resolutions that you want to make…and actually keep…this time around.

Bear in mind too, that I’ll be working on a resolution of my own: Completing The WATER Method Book. I’m actually going to apply my own methods to my own New Years Resolution, and post the results here.

Thing is, getting the job done is not going to get done overnight. Its going to take time. I think a lot of people lose sight of their goal as a result of the time it takes to make the changes. People don’t like to wait to lose the weight, or to quit smoking. The sad part about that, is that time is a necessary part of making the necessary adjustments to your life. It took you that long to get yourself into that habit or way of living. Its going to take a bit longer than a few weeks or even a few months to make the change.

The point here is, don’t give up. If you want to make change in your life, give yourself an appropriate time table to make that change. Otherwise you’ll find yourself getting frustrated and breaking another resolution.

P.S. – Or, you could work with me, and I’ll help you make the change more permanent in your life. Its one thing to keep yourself in check…its another thing to have someone help you through it. Its up to you.