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Category: Personal Growth

YOU DESERVE

June 4, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Families, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors

“you deserve flowers on your doorstep and coffee in the morning you deserve notes left on your dashboard and ice cream sundaes at 3am you deserve honesty every day and to be kissed every hour you deserve to be reminded how beautiful you are” --anonymous Came across this and thought about all of the couples I’ve worked with who did these things for each other when they first met and fell in love. This period is called the “honeymoon” period or the “infatuation” period and doesn’t have to go away. It generally goes away when a baby arrives or shortly after or the couple has been married longer than two years even without children or there’s some sort of family crisis, illness or death in the family or there’s financial hardship. Every event in the list above is stressful. And these are the times when one or both of the partners begins to believe the other doesn’t love them or loves them but isn’t interested in what’s going on with them or says they’re interested but never comes up with any ideas for something fun to do or works late and doesn’t help out much at home and so on....

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BABY BOOMERS, FACTS AND FICTION

May 21, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Seniors, Transitions

Some people, mostly women, of a certain age have determined that they prefer living alone and that being in a relationship is not something they yearn for. As my grandmother put it several years after my grandfather died, "I already cooked and cleaned for one man. I don't want to cook and clean for another one." And that's just fine because those people are making a choice and the choice that pleases them. Still, there are many seniors who would like to have a partner and do want to fall in love again. In fact, there are plenty of seniors who will fall in love, and hold hands, kiss, make love, and fall asleep next to someone who makes their heart happy. Unfortunately, there are certain mythologies about seniors that circulate as fact when they’re actually fiction. Many seniors don’t have any expectation that there is a special person for them. So they don’t look, they don’t hope, they don’t aspire to anything but they do feel lonely and depressed. If a senior believes that the only thing to look forward to is going to church to pray to whatever god they believe in that they go quick and without...

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SUFFERING

April 30, 2014
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| Categories: Addictions, Aging, Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors, Transitions, Trauma

“The foundation of all mental illness is the avoidance of legitimate suffering.” -Carl Jung No one who is suffering wants to be told that their suffering is legitimate suffering. Mentally Healthy people want the suffering to stop, want to return to a mental place where they are no longer suffering. If you are looking for a sign or a guide, this post will help you. That makes sense. Emotional suffering can be just as awful as physical suffering. I can tell someone that their suffering won’t last, that even if they do nothing a better day will come or, at the very least, they will grow and learn new ways to be that are more rewarding  but no one has ever skipped out of my office praising the virtues of suffering no matter what I say to them. Still, Carl Jung, the founder of analytical psychology, made a good point with his statement. Suffering is part of the human condition. No one escapes suffering. The question is what is legitimate suffering? Here’s a partial list: 1. You lost a loved one to death, divorce, or illness. 2. You lost something you valued, a job, a home, a pet. 3. You...

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A SENIOR THOUGHT

March 31, 2014
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| Categories: Aging, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Seniors, Transitions

After we've raised families, or retired, or completed "middle age," and moved on, we sometimes feel sad and depressed or empty and lost. An important aspect of aging is that, as we age, we still need to "matter." Mattering to someone isn't the same as being needed because we're better than the bank (no interest loan that never gets paid back) or are convenient baby sitters. Mattering means we count, we're wanted at the family gathering because we're interesting and enjoyable, not that we're "parked" at the family gathering because, oh well, what else are they going to do with us? Mattering means seeing someone's face light up at the sight of us or hearing the phone ring because someone wants to talk to us or someone wants to come and visit or someone wants us to come and visit. Becoming irrelevant in our lifetimes is a sad state of affairs and doesn't happen in many other cultures. In other cultures Mom and Dad live with the family as they age. Sometimes two or three generations all live under the same roof or in very close proximity to each other. Mom and Dad matter, they are wanted and appreciated, not...

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HOW TO HAVE A SUCCESSFUL ARGUMENT OR DIFFICULT DISCUSSION

March 31, 2014
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| Categories: Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships

This is a technique that is a very simple tool to vastly improve communications between any two people, man and woman, parent and child, employer and employee, immediately. For many years, along with Fair Fighting, I've instructed people in this technique. Yet, I find that people will try it for a day or two and then not use it anymore. I've tried to understand why people won't use something that is so helpful and will greatly reduce, if not eliminate, conflict and lead to conflict resolution. I've inferred that there are two or three things about this technique that cause people to ignore using it during times when it absolutely should be used. First, when people are upset or angry, they want to say what they have to say, in rapid fire, making sure they deliver all of their points to the other person as quickly as possible and then, when the other person is talking, they are only hearing part of what is being said while, at the same time, composing in their mind what they are going to say next. So the person who is talking doesn't get the full attention of the listener. I've observed that people...

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FEELING EMPTY

March 31, 2014
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| Categories: Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth

Our feelings are very important, even negative feelings, because they tell us something about ourselves. Just like a pain in our foot indicates there's something wrong with our foot, and we need to pay attention to it or we could injure it further, negative emotions are signals to us to pay attention. Feeling empty isn't the same as feeling lonely although it's a kissing cousin and could be there as well. Feeling empty is how a person can feel even when they're in a relationship, one they like. Drinking or using drugs might fix that feeling in the short term but in the long term it will only make the feeling worse. Schools today have had to stop emphasizing the arts because of "No Child Left Behind." Teachers are forced to teach for the tests and cannot allow time for very much creative work. So, children aren't learning how to self-soothe by pursuing individual creative interests. Being absorbed in painting, writing, photography, and many other types of creative endeavors allows the individual time to separate from the external world and become completely absorbed in what they're doing, following their own noses, so to speak. Shopping doesn't count, going to lunch...

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