Image from Redbookmag.com

In a day and age where everyone is telling the world about whatever is on their mind via Twitter, Facebook and other social networking devices, it seems that it is only fitting that we go one step further down the social networking spiral. That’s right! Anonymous posting of events in your life. See, its one thing to go and let everyone you know what’s going on, or even 1,800 total strangers (like I do from time to time…what is wrong with me? :) ), but its something entirely different when you can share an event with a bunch of people, and make it completely anonymous.

Enter FMyLife.com and GiveMeHope.com.  Two distinct sites with two distinct purposes. FMyLife, in case you couldn’t tell by the title, is a site where you share a terrible event: something ironic, funny, or just out and out painful, and at the end, put the letters: FML. In essence, the idea is that because something bad happened to you, well, then we should just *F* my life. Now granted, I understand the nuance of sarcasm, and recognize that this sort of thing can be helpful and cathartic. However, is saying F My Life really the way to go here?

And if it is, what does that say about our perceptions of life, and its value? This has to do with Words, what you say to yourself and others. The quesion here is, are your Words affecting how you perceive yourself and your life?

The other side of this coin is GiveMeHope.com. This site is all about things that happen to people, good but also some bad, that give people hope to go forward with their lives.  Same concept, but different spin. There is certainly a stronger level of optimism in the posts, and people seem to want to inspire others to hope as well.

So what’s my point here? Great, Jim. Two websites, one thinks life sucks, the other is about hope. Big deal.

Well, it is a big deal if you consider that our Words have been shown to affect our attitude about ourselves, our lives and those around us. Not only that, but it can also affect your overal physical health. Don’t believe me? Go take a look at what the Mayo Clinic has to say about the power of our words over our lives.  Here’s what popped out at me:

“Researchers continue to explore the effects of positive thinking and optimism on health. Health benefits that positive thinking may provide include:

• Increased life span
• Lower rates of depression
• Lower levels of distress
• Greater resistance to the common cold
• Better psychological and physical well-being
• Reduced risk of death from cardiovascular disease
• Better coping skills during hardships and times of stress “

So my point is, think about how your negative self talk and thinking affects you. I know it got the better of me this week (what, with my celebrity envy and all), and it really affected how I saw myself and my world. Once I snapped out of it, things seemed to go a lot better (I usually don’t let things get to me for more than a couple hours, give or take).

Moreover, think about what thinking positive can do for you. I’m not talking about the corny Stuart Smalley stuff. I’m talking about just straight up honesty about how good things are in your life. For me, the key to contentment in life is humility and gratitude. If you can’t be grateful for what you have, then you’re going to be ungrateful for what you don’t.

So be careful with all this FML stuff. Consider that perhaps your life and how you see it has much to do with your attitude, and if you let the negative stuff get  the best of you, it can have greater consequences than you think.

Kate Le Page also has a good article on this at Suite101.

On a housekeeping note, I have got to fix my email notifications, because it seems my WordPress doesn’t like telling me when I get comments. Its either that or my new Motorola Blur. Not sure which one is in the wrong here, but I’ll figure it out.

I haven’t been doing my usual “Monday and Thursday” blogging simply because I’ve been met with a quandry as of late. While part of this has to do with recent events involving the creation of a new human being, the rest of it has to do with this question:

Which is better: Feeling Great, or Doing Great Things? (this has nothing to do with me continuing to write a book…no…)

I found myself thinking a lot about this, mostly because I am split between the two. One the one hand, after a long day, I want to take some time to relax. In my field, we call this “self-care”, and place a high value on it, simply due to the nature of the work we do with people. At the same time, I can’t help but notice that there are people out there with less talent, less ability, less overall intelligence that have far more notoriety, influence and fortune than I do.

And I choose to let that drive me a little cuckoo.

Now that sounds a lot like I’m tooting my own horn, but if I didn’t believe I was a good therapist, then guess what…I wouldn’t be.

So as a result of sitting and watching people on TV (and maybe I’m just watching too much TV, and that’s my problem) do their thing and pimp out their self-help stuff, I can’t but sit here and think about how, if I had enough drive and motivation, I could probably do the same thing.

And yet, can I drag my own sorry behind out of the long hours and work with people to be able to go the extra mile and do what it takes to achieve that?

This decision has to do with all the  elements of the WATER Method: My Words are telling me that I deserve some time for myself, and that I want something more. My Actions show that I’m doing something in one direction, but not another. My Thoughts wander off into how I could be helping others and reaching more people. My Emotions are the feelings that I get when I think about these ideas. My Results are what I have right now, and what I could have if I change any of the other elements.

So when it comes right down to it, what do I value more? At any given point in time, that seems to change, and even if I want something bigger or better, am I willing to do what it takes?

A better question would be this: What do you value more? Do you think that its better to feel good in the moment, or plan ahead and feel good as a result of the things you accomplish?

Trick is though, each of these has their own fair share of consequences. Feel great now, but lost opportunity for accomplishment later. Do great things now, and suffer that difficulty, but feel great later for what you’ve achieved. Each has its own share of pros and cons.

What’s more: How does this affect your mental health? A strong part of mental/emotional health is feeling good or not feeling good, so is it better to feel good in the moment, or work through your issues so you have a longer lasting contentment?

Alright, I think I’ve talked enough. What do you think?

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.

I’m going apply the WATER Method to my own life, so you have a better understanding of what I do to keep it together and still gro people every day.

Let me start by saying that last week was probably one of the hardest weeks I’ve ever had. I didn’t say worst, because as bad as it was, life is still pretty good., and I have a lot to be thankful for. However, I have obtained a newfound appreciation for parents, and all the hats they have to wear.

Be that as it may, I’ll share with you the issues that have been stressing me out, and what I did to manage them.

Let’s start with my list of stressors.

- Cleaning my house
- Working on my own business
- Taking care of my wife, as she’s pregnant
- Making sure I’m good to my animals
- Managing the Finances
- Dealing with my own personal issues
- Keeping cool to manage other people’s issues

OK, so now that I have my list, the next step is to separate them into what I can and can’t change.

What I CAN’T change:
- My wife’s feelings
- Whether or not clients show up for sessions
- Other people’s issues (until we work on them together)
- My wife’s pregnancy (we ARE keeping the baby)

What I CAN change:
- Cleaning my house (Actions, Results)
- My Feelings & Issues (Words, Thoughts & Emotions)
- How I conduct my business (Actions, Results, & Thoughts)
- Taking care of my animals (Actions)
- Taking care of my wife, and how much I do it (Actions & Results)
- Keeping the finances in line (Thoughts & Actions)

See that? So what I do form there is take the things I can’t change and resolve that I can’t change them. No matter how hard I try, stressing out about them isn’t going to change those things from being beyond my control.

So by accepting that I can’t change them, and resolving this, I let go of them, and choose not to think about them (remember processing vs. stuffing?). Then I take action on the things that I can change, and utilize my energy toward making those improvements.

As a result, I’m more on top of my finances, my housework, and my wife and I have come up with ways to keep working together despite her staying home to sit on the egg.

Does this help explain the WATER Method better? Talk to me people.

Bottling things up. When you hear someone say this, its usually perceived negatively. After all, you can’t bottle up your emotions, right?

Well, to make this a little easier to understand, and less boring, I’ll tell you a little story that I learned from therapy school.

In order to listen to people’s problems every day, and not go insane, you have to set some sort of boundaries with your emotions. Sometimes you have to do this on the fly, because you might get a phone call from a family member or something that could throw you off your game. If you have to work with someone in the next few minutes, and you don’t have time to manage your issues at the time, you gotta figure out a way to put those problems aside and help someone.

So I created the Bottle. But its not like your usual bottle…its a special bottle.

See, this bottle allows you to manage the boloney you’re dealing with in a way that encourages you to deal with the problem before you go to sleep. It takes a bit of discipline, but if you do the technique right, it should work for you too.

So without further ado, and so you know what the heck I’m talking about, I’ll share this simple technique with you:

1. Take the issue you’re dealing with and put them in an imaginary bottle. After I wrote that, I think I sound a little crazy, but just humor me for a moment. Whatever it is you’re dealing with in the moment, take that issue and throw it in the bottle. Don’t worry, its not going to stay there too long.

2. Put it on a shelf. You’re putting the issue aside temporarily, with the purpose of going back to it when you don’t have to save the world or something. Visualizing the shelf allows you to recognize that bottling the problem is temporary. Most people skip this step, bottle the problem, and try not to think about it or try to forget it. This doesn’t work, as you need time to process the issue.

3. When you have time, take the bottle down. Take the bottle down off the shelf, open it up, and deal with the issue before it gets buried with all the other nasty stuff you may have buried in your life. If you don’t have the time, make the time to deal with these things before they affect the other areas of your life.

See! Bottling things up isn’t as bad, so long as you take whatever’s in the bottle out, and manage it at a later time. Keeping it bottled up is usually a bad idea, so you have to find time to let the issues out of the bottle.

What do you think? Can you put the issue aside and take the time to manage it? Talk to me people.

The holidays are coming, and for some of us, that means a lot of fun with family we haven’t seen in a while. It means spending time and sharing stories and eating food til we burst. 

But for some of us, that means a lot of stress and frustration around spending time with people that we may not like, and for some of us, really secretly despise.  I’ve realized that I haven’t put up something about holiday stress on this thing, so I figure now is as good a time as any. After all, if you’re reading this, you’re probably wondering how you’re going to get through the upcoming Thanksgiving, and forthcoming Christmas insanity.

Well, that’s what I’m here for. So let’s focus on the usual issues that people have to deal with over the holidays, shall we? Mostly this involves interacting with your family, right? You know what I’m talking about: Overbearing parents; aunts and uncles that make stupid comments about what you should and should be doing; grandparents that pinch your cheeks; and that one relative that always says insensitive things about your life and no one has the stones to say anything to them about it.

So what do you do about all this insanity? It can be really overhwelming even thinking about dealing with all these personalities in one room, not to mention adding in there all the food and drink that goes along with it.

Well, the good news is that large amounts of family only come to these events once in a blue moon. So at the very least you can deal with them in small doses. However, if things get especially stressful around these times, we need to have a battle plan in place.

OK, so here’s the Battle Plan. Simple, but Powerful.

1. Set Boundaries. If there are issues that are off limits, be very clear to your family that these issues are off limits. You can do this very calmly, and matter of factly. If you’re worried about what others will think about your boundary setting, remember that you are not in control of other people’s Emotions, but you are in control of how others treat you.

2. Manage the stress appropriately. The last thing you want on your holiday is a big argument about something foolish and ridiculous. So find ways to take a break throughout the day. Find little breaks in the action to relieve some of the stress. If you have to, put the stress aside for the moment, manage the situation at hand, and after the family leaves, do something to relax at the end of your day.

3. Remember that you can change your Emotions, not other people’s. Decide what you want to feel and be prepared for the usual barrage of nonsense that comes from some of these family members. Also, allow other people to feel whatever they want to, and separate yourself from their feelings. Pretend there’s a bubble around you, and that’s where everyone else’s Emotions stop and your Emotions begin. By setting that boundary with yourself and others, you can then keep your Emotions in check without allowing anyone elses Emotions to affect you.

We’ve all been there. We’ve all seen family get togethers go wrong. The key is whether or not you’re going to let it get to you.

If you’ve ever called yourself an idiot (like me), then you’ve probably kicked yourself for doing something stupid. More often than not, its probably not the first time that you’ve done it either. Why is this the case? Because humans are creatures of habit. This is nothing new really, but sometimes I wonder if we take the time to think about our habits.

Better yet, we probably don’t think about them in a way that changes our behavior. Well, that’s what this post is here to change.

Ever watch a movie that has a scary moment in it? I’ll admit I haven’t seen very many, mostly because I think horror movies are a waste of oxygen. Be that as it may, if you’ve ever seen something startling in a film, it probably had that desired effect the first time you saw it.

Meaning, see it once, get scared. See it again, and yawn.

Why did this happen? At first, you were scared out of your wits (for me, this was Bilbo trying to grab the ring from Frodo in Lord of the Rings). After the first time though, well, that’s just crazy old Bilbo grabbing the ring again.

You’ve seen it before, so the effect is lost.

But what if we looked at our Actions this way? Or our Thoughts? If we could recognize that anything we want to change has been done before, and that we’ve seen it play out in our lives over and over again, then we can change that scene and make it better. I mean, why have a sucky ending to your life? Make the scene and thus the behavior what you want it to be.

How do you do that? Here’s the breakdown.

1. Take a look at your negative habitual Actions, Thoughts or Words.

2. Look at the triggers that happen before those Words, Actions or Thougts.

3. Once you’ve set the “scene” you know when its coming. You’ve seen it before, so you know what’s going to happen.

4. Decide how you want your future to turn out, i.e. How you want to change things, and make an effort to change your future.

If you think about how you want your future to go, and how its been acted out in the past, you can change the scene by implementing a new script. The key is recognizing what happens before the problem issue, remembering how this event has happened before, and then deciding how you want the event to turn out in the future.

Do this enough times, and you can change your habits.

So as a result, I’ve decided to throw a few stress management pointers out there. This may seem a bit redundant, but if you don’t know what you need to do to relax, stress can seem overwhelming at times. So here’s some basic stuff that has worked for me and for the awesome people u’ve worked with.

1. Take Deep Breaths. This sounds so lame, and yet its probably the most powerful technique you could use. By taking a moment to put the stressor out of your mind and take some deep breaths, and I’m talkin’ really deep here, you tell your body to be at a state of relaxation. Your body can’t be stressed an relaxed at the same time. By breathing deeply you give your heart the oxygen it needs to slow down your heart rate. This can reduce your chances of an Anxiety Attack.

2. Exercise. This is yet another no brainer, but you’d be surprised how many people know this, and make excuses as to why they can’t or won’t exercise. 5-15 minutes of exercise can help with both anxiety an depression, and more than that its natural.

3. Find a Creative Hobby. Doing something creative, social and constructive can have some really positive effects on you. I had one client who picked up a creative hobby, and as a result, gained not only relaxation, but assertiveness as well. Getting you thinking in a creative way can not only distract you away from the stress inducing problem, but it can also get you problem solving as well.

Those are just 3 of many ways you can manage stress in a positive way. They seem simple, but Tony Robbins once said that the definition of profound knowledge is knowledge that is simple and yet powerful. You probably know that these can help, but maybe you haven’t applied them before. What about you? Do you have something better or different?

I was going to sit here and blog about death and how Halloween takes death and turns it into something we fear or something that we joke about. I was going to go off on a rant about how horror movies are bad mkay, and that we are trained by society to fear death.

Then I thought about it, and thought, that’s just no fun at all.

So I decided to share an equation that came to me in session one day. The simple equation below.

Let me explain this equation a bit further. See, I work with a lot of couples, and some of them have to work through issues of infidelity, lying and other acts of mistrust. As a result, many of them come into my office looking for a way to rebuild the trust that has been lost.

So this is what I offer them. You can not have Trust without Facts, and you can’t have Trust without seeing those facts for a period of Time.

Well, this is all well and good, but how can I apply this to my own life?

Well its not just as simple as that, is it? There are certain Facts that need to be understood in order for Trust to exist. What kind of Facts are we looking for? The kind that is necessary to ease the emotional distress of the other person. And not just any amount of Time will do, but we have to get specific about the amount of Time that must occur in order to regain this Trust.

Let’s make this simple, because I tend to make things more complicated than they actually are.

1. Decide that you want to rebuild the trust between you and the person who broke your trust. You have to decide whether or not you want to rebuild the Trust. This is where it has to start if you’re going to rebuild any trusting relationship.

2. Decide what you can trust this person with, and what you can’t. This separation has the WATER Method all over it. What you can and can’t change and what you can and can’t trust someone with are much in the same. The only difference is that with Trust, you can make a change in what you can’t trust someone with.

3. Give this person measurable goals with which they can rebuild your trust. Decide what you are willing to trade in return for your trust. Take in this process, and really think about what is worth trading for…what Facts and for how long do they need to exist before you feel comfortable trusting this person.

4. Decide to give back that trust. Make sure you make this decision, because if you don’t, you may find yourself wondering why this person is so bitter. I mean, you just made them jump through these flaming hoops, you have to make sure you keep up your end of the bargain.

So there you have it. Einstein had E=MC2, Newton had his laws of physics, Freud had his theories. Maybe this isn’t as amazing, but hey, its helped some people Maybe it will help you. 

With all the talk about the H1N1 virus, people are being more careful than they ever been about trying to stay healthy. Its at a point now where the wipe-grabbing behaviors of Adrian Monk don’t seem so out of the ordinary, when everyone is worried about getting sick. However, its a very real fear. People are getting sick, getting in contact with other people, and then those people become sick. Contagious sickness is like that.

What about emotions though? Have you ever thought about the people you spend time with? What kind of attitude do they have? Are they positive or negative and how does that affect your day? I’ll give you an example of how I “caught” an Emotional Cold.

One day my wife and I were just hanging out. It was your normal day off, and we had a ton of things we wanted to do. With a list as long as our arm, we figured the best thing to do would be to start with breakfast. So we hit our favorite pancake joint, grabbed some pacakes (you know the kind I’m talking about: strawberry syrup, whipped cream, etc.), some coffee and figured we’d be all set with our day.

Then something strange happened. We got home, and my wife was suddenly really tired. I, who is all about being flexible when it comes to days off, shrugged it off and suggested that she take a nap. Before I knew what hit me, I was right there next to her taking a nap. We woke up hours later with the sun down, and a list still as long as our arms that needed to be done.

I could have just gone and done my own thing, but I was open to her emotional state. I caught an Emotional Cold, and let it get the best of me. This has much to do with boundaries, but it also has to do with social conditioning.

See, we want to do what everyone else is doing in a group setting, even if the group setting is small. Sure, there are times when we want to go against the grain, but for the most part, as a society we value a cohesive group think, so we don’t have confrontations (because those are bad after all).

However, this can also be a good thing! Because you can make your emotional state contagious as well. Consider how you can influence someone in a positive way with your own attitude. Let me give another example, this time of someone giving a Positive Emotional Cold.

I worked with a client who’s boss would emit anxiety toward this person. As a result, my client picked up her anxious behavior and state, and it made my client more and more anxious as the days went on. We talked about setting emotional boundaries, and how her anxiety is hers, and my client’s Emotions were my client’s.

The next week, my client came in all excited, because after we had discussed setting those emotional boundaries, the boss’s anxiety stayed where it was…with the boss. My client envisioned making a protective bubble, and behind that bubble, my client was safe. Outside of that bubble, the boss did her own thing. Eventually, my client became emtionally assertive, and was able to transfer their calm state onto the boss!

So by choosing to be calm, the boss picked up on this, and started to calm down as well.

So what’s the bottom line? Here’s the breakdown:

1. People are social animals: We’re going to pick up on each other’s stuff whether we like it or not.

2. Recognize where you’re catching a cold: Decide if you want to pick up on someone else’s emotional state or not. Also, decide if you want to continue hanging with people who continue to give you an Emotional Cold.

3. Decide if you want to feel something different. You can always feel differently than those around you.

4. Do you want to be contagious? How can you pass on your state to others?

5. Should you catch a positive cold? Maybe you’re a Negative Nancy and its time you hung around people who were passing on positive Emotional Colds.

So consider how emotions can be contagious in your life. Are you a carrier or a reciever? I’d love to hear your experiences!