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Category: Personal Growth

WHAT ABOUT HER?

October 8, 2014
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| Categories: Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships

In my last blog I wrote about some things women do that, although they seem nice, have more to do with dependency and smothering than loving. I imagined some women reading the article and thinking, “Well, I wouldn’t be so clingy if I knew he actually loved me.” It’s a fair statement for many women. I’m talking about the “chicken and egg” cycle where he wants sex and she doesn’t and she wants conversation and he doesn’t and who knows who did what to whom first? This blog is an article about what he does that turns her off and a few things he can do to turn her on. A common complaint I hear from men in my office is that they had a good sexual relationship with their wife before they got married or before they had children and now they resent feeling like they have to beg for sex or stand on their heads while they mow the lawn before she feels ready. They really don’t understand how they’ve contributed to the problem. Here you go guys. Think about this list before you dismiss it as being dumb or a bunch of psychobabble. It’s likely that, making...

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HOW CAN BEING REALLY NICE DRIVE A MAN AWAY?

September 28, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Personal Growth, Relationships

Well there’s nice and then there’s too nice. We should all be nice people meaning polite, sensitive to others, helpful when we can. Some women, hoping to get or keep a man, take it too far. Here’s a partial list of the too nice behaviors that come to mind: 1. You hate football but pretend you like it and act really excited about a game whether it’s in your home or one of his friends has invited you to their home. You make lots of little snacks, fill the fridge with beer or whatever you think they like to drink and are so cheerful it appears that you may have had a lobotomy in the past twenty-four hours. You greet each one of his friends and partners, if they have them; with so much enthusiasm it’s clear you’re faking it. In fact, you’re so faking it that it’s obvious and you're such a great cheerleader you drink too much, talk too much, cheer too loud, because you believe this is going to make him love you more. Actually it’s pretty repulsive behavior because you’re taking up all of the air in the room. It would be better if you said...

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A MAJOR REASON PEOPLE DON’T GET WHAT THEY WANT

August 19, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships, Transitions

I hear about this every day in my practice. A wife wishes her husband would take her somewhere without the kids, a husband wishes his wife would get up and have a cup of coffee with him before he leaves for work. A woman or man is very unhappy with their job yet they stay, nose to the grindstone, just waiting for the weekend. In all of these cases and many more, the major reason people don’t get what they want is because they don’t believe in themselves. They often think they do but when I review with them what they do to get those needs met I’m always struck by how easily people throw in the towel, give up, say it can’t happen. That’s because the conscious part of their mind tells them they are worth it because the conscious mind knows that’s the right answer but somewhere buried in the subconscious mind is an old message, from a parent or a teacher or a school peer or someone else they were exposed to early in life who told them that they weren’t good enough, that they should accept what they can get because they’re not really good enough,...

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TOO YOUNG TO KNOW

July 31, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Personal Growth, Relationships

That extremely thin women weren't considered beautiful or fashionable, even by the fashion world, until a model named Twiggy became very popular in the 1960s. The majority of women in this country were born after 1950 so they're too young to know the history of "skinny vs. fat." The advent of skinny being sexy hadn't existed before Twiggy. I know because my nickname in high school was "Broom." No one thought I was attractive. I think I paid my first date to take me to a high school dance or maybe I blackmailed my brother into doing it.  Everyone thought I was too skinny. Then came Twiggy and she made skinny beautiful. So, without doing a thing I went from being "Broom" and unattractively skinny to an overnight sensation (O.K. That's an exaggeration but you get my point). With a flip of the advertising industry I could stop being embarrassed and start being cool, which, it turned out wasn't that much fun anyway. In the 1950s Marilyn Monroe had the "ideal" body and was considered one of the sexiest women on the planet. Marilyn was a size fourteen. Today she would be considered chubby or even fat. Here is a...

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DEPRESSION, WHAT IT IS, WHAT NOT TO SAY TO SOMEONE WHO HAS IT

July 2, 2014
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| Categories: Anxiety, Depression, Life Stress, Parenting/Children, Personal Growth, Relationships, Seniors, Transitions, Trauma

Here is a link to a blog article about depression and what well intentioned people shouldn't say to anyone who is depressed. The interesting thing about what not to say is that most people will be tempted to say at least one of the eleven listed because they seem so, well, helpful or distracting or humorous. None of these eleven statements are helpful to people suffering from depression. Depression can be situational or a person may have a genetic predisposition for depression and, in either case, there are better things to do. For one, encouraging a depressed person to share with you what they're feeling then listening and responding with empathic statements like, "It sounds like you're having a hard time right now," or "Tell me how you're feeling so I can try to understand." Taking the time to listen without comparing what they're saying to what you feel or your Aunt Gertrude feels can be very comforting and even helpful to a depressed person. Here's the link to what not to say: www.medicalbillingandcoding.org/blog/11-things-you-should-never-say-to-someone-with-depression  

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IS IT WORTH FIGHTING OVER?

June 24, 2014
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| Categories: Personal Growth, Relationships

Nothing is worth fighting over. Fighting has zero sum positive attributes. If you feel angry that means you did or didn’t notice you were hurt or afraid or both before you got angry. Anger is a “masking” emotion and there’s always something behind it. Imagine primitive man parting the tall grass and coming face to face with a tiger. If he feels his fear he’s likely to become paralyzed by it just before he becomes a satisfying tiger lunch. If he moves  quickly past the fear so it doesn’t even register (until later) and finds a way to fight he has just gotten a nice rush of adrenaline that will allow him to survive (since he probably can’t run away fast enough). In today’s world anger is a pretty useless emotion although there are some times when anger helps; your boss has passed you over for a raise three times and you’re afraid you’re going to lose your job if you bring it up to her. Getting angry and then controlling the anger will likely allow you to be assertive and self-promoting in a one on one meeting with her where she feels your energy, which isn’t threatening since it’s...

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