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 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. 

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. 

If you’ve listened to a song within the last 10-20 years, you’ve probably heard this old saying. Time heals all wounds. Does it really? See, I’m not so sure. I can’t tell you how many clients I’ve run into that hold grudges, have family members that hold grudges, and how time really hasn’t done much for the wounds that people have felt.

Do me a favor. Go to your next holiday gathering where there are family members that have held grudges for years, and some even decades, and tell them that time heals all wounds.

It seems to me that its time for:

CORRECTED FAMOUS SAYINGS!!

You know what these are: Famous sayings that people have said over time, that made a lot of sense earlier in life. They were short and sweet, and profound all at the same time. Some examples are Knowledge is Power, and Don’t Just Think You Can, Know You Can. If You Fail To Plan, You Plan To Fail. While these are all well and good, each of them have to take into consideration context. Each person’s life is not so eaily mapped out and resolved with each of these catchphrases. Heck, knowledge isn’t power, Applied Knowledge Is Power. Don’t Just Think You Can, Know You Can and Do What You Can.

You see where I’m going with this, right? So Time Heals All Wounds is one of those sayings that is just begging to be Corrected!

So here’s my correction: Time Heals All Wounds, But Only If We Allow It To. This comes down to choices. Choosing to forgive. Choosing to move on with your life. Choosing to be a survivor and not a victim. This comes down to Actions, the A in the WATER Method.

The more power we give to the wounds we’ve felt in life, the less we allow time to affect them. The less power we give over our wounds, the more we allow time to affect them. I’d love to come up with an equation for this, for you analytical folks out there, but I’m not smart enough to come up with one (though if you can think of one, send it my way).

So consider how much power you give to your wounds. If you’ve given them that much power, what can you do to remove that power from them? What have you tried?

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.

I’ve been watching the Firefly series over the course of the weekend, taking advantage of some much needed R&R. If you’ve watched the show, you know that for the most part, the heros in the story are a sort of anti-hero. It has a western outlaw sort of feel to it, and the boundaries between right and wrong are blurry if you look at it closely enough. However, there is a definitive line between the “good guys” and the “bad guys”.

Throughout American culture, we see these contrasts in movies and TV all the time. My personal favorite is the Star Wars series, where there is a definitive Dark Side and a definitive (though not directly called) Light Side. We recognize these sides by the nature and choices of those who follow each of those sides. It is our culture’s way of showing the struggle between good and evil, which we know exists in the real world, but we can only hope that the good wins out over the evil more often than not.

So then it got me thinking about the concept of good and evil and what it means to us and our actions. Its easy for us to see good and evil in these movies, because they are defined by the characters and their choices. But what about with us? Can we say that about our actions? And if so, what do we say to ourselves about ourselves depending on our behavior?

Let me give you an example. When we see someone in the movies cheat on their significant other in a movie, we see them as evil in some way, depending on the justification made in the film. In real life, however, if we are that person that cheats, we have justifications for our actions, and reasons why we do what we do. We do this so that we do not see ourselves as evil.

And what good would that do really? If we perceive ourselves as evil, then that affects our Words about ourself, which eventually affects our Actions. However, if we justify our Actions, no matter how “wrong” they may be, then we absolve ourselves easily. Some theraputic approaches believe that this is best, so that we don’t bear ourselves down with guilt, and that we’re all just a bunch of victims. Where anything that isn’t nurturing is abusive. So all our actions are justified in the context of what has happened to us.

Personally, I think this is a bunch of crap.

Let’s face it. Guilt exists as a result of our core belief system (which is your set of rules about what is right and wrong). Having these rules is what allows our society to exist with a level of civility. No matter what you believe, you have some idea and semblance of what is right and wrong.

So what’s my point here? I mean, I can sit here and pontificate about right and wrong, darkness and light and sit here and tell you how to live your life based on what my Core Beliefs are. Truth is, whether we like it or not, we take our cues about our Core Belief System from these TV shows and movies. We want to be like those characters we identify with, and take on their values as our own to justify what we do.

Don’t believe me? Think about the shows you watch…did you start watching them because of the things you believe, or did you change your beliefs based on the show and the characters you like?

I’m not immune to this. I play all kinds of video games and played through them as various characters, both good and evil. What guides them through the story is based in some way on their goals or ideals, and whether or not we buy the reasons why they justify their actions.

I guess what I’m trying to say here, is that our Words and Actions are judged in some way, either by ourselves or those around us. Fact is, everyone screws up and does something wrong, and the point is not to define ourselves as good or evil the way we do in these fictional shows. Its better to learn from these screw ups, decide the kind of person we want to be, and take your life by the horns and be that person.

See, these sterotypes can be both harmful and helpful. The key is to use them as a tool to be a better person. Now what that means is different to each of you, but the idea (at least to me) is to use your Core Belief System and the ideas you want to pursue to become a better person. To strive to be better than who you are today, isn’t a new concept, but without a road map of who you want to be, you will continue to stay who you are.

Light and Darkness are a daily choice. Which choice will you make, and what does it mean to you? Tell me what you think!

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?