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Category: Personal Growth

CHILDREN DON’T NEED PARENTS FOR FRIENDS, THEY NEED PARENTS

March 31, 2014
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| Categories: Families, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth

It's nice and even good when parents and children get along and enjoy each other. Unfortunately, sometimes it's a parents responsibility to take care of their child even if the child is angry and won't speak to the parent or locks him or herself away in their bedroom for awhile, when the parent parents. For instance, if your child asks if they can go spend the night with a friend, do you call the friend's parents to see if there's going to be an adult in the house? NO? Hmmmm, no wonder so many kids can tell me all about the parties with the alcohol and drugs they consumed over the weekend. Not your child? Don't be so fast to decide that. I work with kids from good families with loving, hard working parents. Children are children. They are not adults even when they are throwing a fit to convince us they are. Their brains aren't even fully developed yet. They don't always exercise good judgement. That's where you come in. It is your responsibility to make sure your child is safe and your child isn't safe if he/she is at a party where there isn't a responsible adult in...

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A DIFFERENT WAY TO LOOK AT CHANGE

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

Most people in relationships will try to change if their partner nags, yells, threatens divorce, or refuses to speak for a week. They'll change for a short time but they won't really change because they resent you and they resent how mean you are to them. They don't think of what they could/should be doing to foster a good relationship. That would require taking responsibility for the problem which they can't do because they, in my example, don't have a problem. You have the problem. You can change yourself. A different way to look at change is to think of your partner as someone who wants to please you (even if you don't believe it) and approach your partner as if he/she were your best friend. Isn't it interesting how nice we are to friends and how rudely we can behave toward our partner because we have rationalized to ourselves that they deserve it. Then think of something you can offer your partner by way of change. For instance, if you are very unhappy about your partner turning into a couch potato to watch ball games all day on Sundays, and you feel lonely and uncared for, try offering something...

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WHY DIETS DON’T WORK

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

O.K. You've heard it, read it, said it to yourself, yet you continue to do it, so I'll tell you again, just in case you didn't believe it: DIETS DON'T WORK! That's not to say they won't work for a few weeks, months, or even a year or two but eventually they don't work and the dieter feels frustrated and like a failure. So why do people continue to put themselves on diets? I think it's because they don't know what else to do. We live in a culture that is fixated on physical beauty for women and for men. A desirable body size in this culture isn't the body size many people inherited. If everyone in your family is big boned and leans toward the plump side, you might find that's your body type as well. And haven't we all heard about "six pack abs?" Admittedly men seem to be more visual than women but women have their biases as well. So people who find themselves not fitting into the "beautiful people" category are often not happy with themselves. And an odd thing happens to people when they don't like their body size. They often use food to make...

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STOP DREAMING ABOUT MONEY AND START DREAMING ABOUT LIVING

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

“The effects of rampant materialism are, according to research, pretty damaging to the human psyche. An international survey of over 90,000 people published in the journal BMC Medicine found a direct correlation between wealth and depression. Wealthier countries recorded higher levels of mental illness, while citizens in poorer countries were happier and better adjusted.” From Ben Cohen, Why Wanting to Be Rich is a Form of Mental Illness, Huff Post, 04/12/2012                   It’s true. Sure money is great, and it will buy you lots of stuff, if you need more stuff. Of course you’ve already realized having more stuff is having to maintain it, clean it, store it, repair it, and so on.                   Did any of us ever really need that blender that sits on the counter top taking up space and gathering grease splatters? Yes, you made juice and all kinds of cool things for a week or two and now it just occupies a square of your kitchen counter and glares at you, since you just don’t have time to stop and actually put things into it and then, turn it on and then drink whatever it is and then clean the entire thing, blades...

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EFFECTIVE TREATMENT FOR DEPRESSION

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

Exercise! Wait, hold on, don’t stop reading yet. Why? Because in double blind studies, exercise has been shown to be an effective treatment for depression. It isn’t just a way for your therapist to insure you’re not spending the day in bed. It really works. If you’ve been to therapy for depression, your therapist has probably advised you to exercise, you’ve nodded your head in agreement and many of you have gone home and done nothing.   So, what’s the problem? Depressed people don’t want to exercise. They’re depressed! A depressed person might have trouble getting up, getting dressed, and putting one foot in front of the other. That often feels like all the exercise a depressed person can tolerate. But it really does work, so now what?. This is what: it’s that old putting one foot in front of the other routine. Don’t think you have to join a gym or work out for an hour every day or go swimming or ride your bike five miles. Think about it this way: 1.   If you have stairs, walk up and down them when you don’t have to, beginning once a day and then increasing to five times a day....

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CATASTROPHIZING

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

Is a big word meaning making things big when they don't need to be. In other words, if your boss had something to say to you about a situation you need to change or a deadline you haven't met or something else, and you feel sick to your stomach and stay awake half the night, worrying that you're going to lose your job because of it, you're catastrophizing. You're predicting a catastrophe when there isn't one. You might not like that you've disappointed your boss but it's unlikely you're going to lose your job over it unless you've messed up in a lot of other ways as well. If you have a fight with your partner and you predict it's the end of the relationship, you're, yes, catastrophizing. If your child gets a bad report card grade and you punish that child because you fear that child will never get into college, you're.... Yes, you get the idea. It's kind of like what Jeff Foxworthy does with his, "You might be a redneck if..." scenarios. It goes like this: You're catastrophizing if: 1. You didn't get a pay raise so you see yourself as never being able to retire. 2....

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