by admin | Sep 3, 2015
Excerpt from Mike Robbins book, Nothing Changes Until You Do
A Few years ago a woman sent me an e-mail suggesting that I check out the website of another author/speaker. She said he reminded her of me and thought we should know each other. I looked at his site and was very impressed by him and his work.
In addition, I quickly found that I was unconsciously comparing myself to him.
My gremlin started telling me how much better this guy was than me. Look at him, he’s a stud; funny, good-looking, and savvy. His site is way cooler than mine, his approach is more hip, and he has this whole thing figured out much better than I do.
After looking at his website for just a few minutes and listening to my gremlin, I found that I was feeling jealous, inferior, self-conscious, and deflated.
Sadly, many of us spend and waste a lot of time and energy comparing ourselves to others in this way. Feeling jealous is a natural human emotion. And it’s pretty common – especially given the nature of how most of us were raised and the competitive culture in which we live.
However, comparison can have a negative impact on us, our dreams, our relationships, and many of the things we hold most sacred.
Our personal and cultural obsession with competition and comparison isn’t new, although it seems to have intensified in the past few years with the explosion of social media, and how we share everything with on another in such a public way.
I personally enjoy being able to celebrate the exciting stuff happening in other people’s lives, and being able to share some of my own “good stuff” with others as well.
At the same time, it can be a bit of a double-edged sword.
While I’m often inspired by and excited about the success of others, especially those closest to me, depending on how I’m feeling about myself at any given moment, I can get easily triggered by their success and end up feeling insecure in comparison to them – especially if they accomplish something I’m still striving for.
On the flip side, I’ve noticed that this forum can also inspire bragging or feeling a sense of superiority when something goes really well in my life.
This is even harder to admit and confront. And while it may seem like the opposite of insecurity, it’s actually just the other side of the same coin. Heads, we feel superior, tails, we feel inferior.
Both are detrimental to our growth and ultimately our sense of peace, fulfillment, and joy in life. This is a negative ego trap – and there are no true winners in this game.
As Mark Twain said, “Comparison is the death of joy.”
by admin | Aug 27, 2015
“Avoid Advice Overload. You got this.”
When I started my blog I didn’t know it would become a business. I loved helping people and I wanted to make it a full-time job. Though I had no idea how to do that, my gut told me to try anyway. And so the adventure begins…
But like most great adventures, I was lost in the beginning, and when you’re lost, it’s natural to seek guidance. Well, I went a little overboard with my need to gather opinions. In fact, I collected so many confusing recommendations that I got totally overwhelmed and almost quit.
Today I want to share some of the worst advice I’ve ever received and how you can benefit by not listening.
Hands down, my biggest mistakes came from not believing that I had the ability to figure it out. And truth be told, I wanted someone to save me, to do the work for me. I think this is called Prince Charming syndrome. Whatever it is, I desperately wanted to be taken care of, not surprising since I decided to change my career in the middle of a huge health crisis.
As a result, I listened to potential investors, business partners and advisors. “Launch a non-profit, create a school, be a reality TV star, design state of the art tongue scrapers.” Oiy, I’m getting tired just remembering this stuff. I listened to consultants, agencies and think tanks. I listened to well-meaning friends and family (who had never launched a business). And oh boy did I listen to the media, critics and especially bad reviews.
Then one day, I stopped listening.
I remember the afternoon I took my entrepreneurial life by the ovaries and said, everyone OUT. I got this! Now mind you, I still didn’t know how exactly “I got this” but I was tired of the noise and I knew that I’d be fine if I got laser focused and listened to my inner wisdom.
Tweet: No matter what we’re struggling with, the more we look within for solutions the clearer the path becomes @Kris_Carr http://bit.ly/1M66wNA
Sometimes the only person who can save you is you. I’m not saying we shouldn’t get advice from others. Useful advice can be the difference between success and failure. But more often than not, too much advice kills our mission and mojo. There’s no way around rolling up our sleeves and doing the work. You may need some training (I did). You may fail and fall (I still do), but if you have the passion and vision, the path to success is easier than you think.
What can you offer the world? Hint: plenty!
What message do you have to share? Why is that message important to you? (This is essential because when you forget, your work suffers). Where is the need for your service, product or expertise? How can you deliver it in a unique way? Hint: Be yourself and test your crazy ideas. Are other people charging for the same knowledge or talent you have? If you can’t answer these questions yet, no worries. Just allow them to get the wheels turning and the creativity flowing.
This isn’t the moon landing, there’s no need to overcomplicate your vision. No matter what we’re struggling with, the more we look within for solutions, the clearer the path becomes. Needing to take action is inevitable, but it doesn’t have to be aimless or confusing.
When it came to my health, I ultimately decided to tune out the fear mongering noise and start taking care of myself. Not everything I tried worked, but the more I checked in with my inner guide, the less likely I was to waste my time with the latest fad. As for my business, my focus became clear and simple: write useful-fun-awesome stuff, give lots of it away for free, and occasionally charge for the rest. This allowed me to support my readers, my family and a whole bunch of other families—my Crazy Sexy Team.
by admin | Aug 17, 2015
by Kim Schneiderman
As a psychotherapist in private practice, I can’t help but notice that Facebook is wreaking mischief in some of my clients’ personal lives.
One client caused a family scandal when he established privacy settings that prevented some, but not all, of his relatives from seeing his status updates. A 14-year-old client gave up Facebook for Lent, yet still managed to become entangled in a high school “de-friending” drama. A third client “disallowed” her arch Conservative brother from commenting on her statuses after he started arguing with her politically liberal friends. And finally, a 20-something client tried to gauge the temperature of his on-again-off-again girlfriend based on how often she “friends” or “de-friends” him.
Indeed, social media offers the online universe a whole new arsenal to offend, snub, flirt, spy on, and make public declarations about those we “like” and those we don’t. Given the growing ranks of users, it’s hardly surprising that Facebook is making its way onto the therapy couch.
“I absolutely agree that Facebook creates stressors,” said Stacey Nunez, a Manhattan-based psychotherapist, noting that many of her 20-something female clients have severe anxiety and depression as a result of their Facebook usage. “They cyber-stalk ex-boyfriends and fantasize about what these people are doing in the photos,” she explained. “It often creates false expectations as well as low self-esteem, which in turn creates difficulty connecting when placed in a face to face situation.”
Research appears to back this up. According to psychologists at Edinburgh Napier University, Facebook stresses people out. In a study of 200 students, researchers observed a correlation between stress levels and the number of Facebook “friends.” Apparently, the more friends a person has, the more one worries about missing important social information, offending contacts, rejecting user requests, deleting unwanted contacts, being entertaining, or using appropriate etiquette for different types of friends.” Additionally, Facebook can engender lifestyle envy.
Lest the media be confused with the message, one might argue that Facebook isn’t necessarily creating drama, just reflecting subtle relationship dynamics that lurk beneath the surface. Social media is, after all, a modern form of storytelling, predicated on people’s desire to share their stories in moment-to-moment sound-bites and colorful narratives. Where else can I follow the daily chronicles of my childhood friends and long lost relatives, or enjoy the chapter-by-chapter unfolding of my friend’s sojourn into single fatherhood?
But by pronouncing precisely who likes and doesn’t like who and who is doing what, Facebook tells us in black and white letters and full-color photos what we might otherwise read between the lines and perhaps wish we could ignore.
One thing is for sure: Facebook can be a virtual breeding ground for aggressive and passive-aggressive behavior, especially for those who haven’t mastered the art of direct communication. One client complained that, following a few arguments, her husband publicly vented his frustrations in their marriage by making generalized critiques in his status updates – eg. “I don’t understand why some people always over-react.”
Another psychotherapist, who asked to remain anonymous, disclosed that a client who works as a professional photographer broke up with his girlfriend after she repeatedly questioned him about pictures of other women he posted on his site. Even after the relationship ended, she continued to harass him by “friending” mutual acquaintances of theirs and making sarcastic remarks about him on their Facebook status updates and photographs.
“I find that Facebook can have devastating effects on the younger set, especially 13 through early twenties”, explained Dr. Sandra Mann, a Manhattan-based family therapist. “The socialization of teenagers when they’re undergoing rapid brain development and learning social skills that will take them into adulthood is hard enough without faceless assaults. The lack of empathy that comes from not observing body reactions to comments are most troubling. Even the slightest rejections can rock the strongest egos.”
In my private practice, I’ve observed that Facebook can be particularly insidious for clients coping with divorce and family feuds, regardless of age. One client whose large extended family split into factions after a nasty inheritance scandal told me he gets re-traumatized every time he sees his estranged cousins commenting on his neutral cousin’s status updates, and vice versa. “I don’t want to see picture of these people and their kids. I want nothing to do with them,” he said.
The grass also appears to looks greener on Facebook for clients with low self esteem who report that their lives don’t appear to measure up to their friends who have better spouses, lifestyles, and careers. A single client of mine who recently turned 30 felt conflicted about the engagement announcements and wedding pictures of so many classmates.
“It’s all relatively new, and humans have adapted from horses to autos; letters to phones,” explained Dr. Mann. “The next generation will figure out how to protect themselves better. It’s the clean-up from this first iteration that will be most troubling.”
by admin | Aug 6, 2015
Ask for help, and then, for crying out loud, accept it!
It’s important to ask for help from your highest source. We all must remember that our highest source has our back. And that source will often send good people our way as help.
If we turn away from these good people, we are literally turning away the help sent by our highest source.
Here’s the funny piece. We think we are being independent when we decline one’s help. Actually we’re being so independent that we fail to see the good side of asking for help.
A highest source reminds us that we have fabulous connections in our life (already in place!) And they will be the one’s to provide the help.
It’s as though our highest source is saying, “Hey, no worries, I will give a nudge to your wife or your boss or your best friend or your mechanic or your pastor… I’ll let them know that they have the exact gift you need…so hang in there for a day or so and I will send this lovely person with their gifts your way. I know you will welcome him because I sent him.”
That’s your highest source at work.
by admin | Jul 31, 2015
I just returned from an invigorating trip to California to study the Enneagram with Dr. Robert Holden and meet all the amazing people he attracts to his seminars. I follow Robert because he IS love. He teaches love, he is love, he understands love. He is the real deal. To get a flavor of his voice, we’ve included a blog post from his website as well as a link: www.robertholden.org.
What you focus on most often becomes familiar, and what is familiar feels real to you. — Robert Holden, Ph.D.
My training in psychology, with its almost exclusive focus on pain, is a very common story.
It also reflects a tendency in our society to focus on negatives.
Doctors, for instance, study illness, not health. Business leaders analyze failure, not success. Economists study cost, not value. Philosophers mostly debate original sin, not original blessing. Christians talk endlessly about crucifixion, not resurrection. Mental health organizations publish books on “Understanding Depression,” “Understanding Stress,” and “Understanding Bereavement,” but not on “Understanding Joy” and “Understanding Love.”
The media is full of journalists suffering from an addictive, antisocial, obsessive-compulsive need to communicate and make up bad news. Literature and art is full of depressed poets and painters—can you name three joyful poets?
What you focus on most often becomes familiar, and what is familiar feels real to you.
In our society, we focus on pain before joy, tears before laughter, and fear before love, so we gradually grow blind to our inner, ever-present potential for happiness. I remember well how my lecturers frowned on happiness.
What they taught me essentially was: “If you find that you’re experiencing happiness—don’t worry—you’re just in denial, and the pain will soon return!”
Happiness appeared to have no value, other than that it offered a temporary respite between periods of pain and trauma.
It was defined simplistically as the absence of pain.
Other messages I received included, “Happiness is superficial, pain is deep,” “Laughter is a common symptom of manic depression,” “Smiling a lot means you’re suppressing a hidden pain,” “Optimism is often unrealistic and delusional,” and “Talking to God is the first sign of a nervous breakdown.”
Of greater concern to me, though, is the large body of thought within the psychology profession that suggests that happiness is in some way a dysfunctional behavior in light of all the suffering in the world.
The idea is: “If you have normal blood pressure living in our troubled world, you’re not taking it seriously enough.”
There have been several recent studies that have tried to suggest that happiness is only an avoidance of real issues, a selfish coping strategy, or a superficial form of escape.
This thinking doesn’t take into account that your happiness is an inspiration, a gift to others, and a way out of suffering.
When I asked my lecturers why we didn’t study happiness, they usually challenged me to look at my resistance to embracing my pain more fully!
The most common explanation given, however, for why happiness, love, peace, and God aren’t studied by psychologists is that they cannot be measured as easily as fear and pain.
In other words, they are inner potentials that don’t show up on laboratory apparatus designed to measure externals.
Just because psychologists choose not to focus on joy, however, doesn’t mean to say that joy doesn’t exist. We can refuse to look at the sun, for example, but that won’t make it go away.
Excerpted from his book, Be Happy
– See more at: http://www.robertholden.org/blog/focus-on-happiness/#sthash.YujgCsZJ.dpuf
by admin | Jul 23, 2015
Original post here.
Whatever the reasonmay be, the majority of single moms I know don’t have great things to say about their ex.
I am not going to stick up for the deadbeat men that leave their kids high and dry. I’m also not going to defend good dads who are pushed away by crazy moms.
Today, I am going to stick up for the fatherless boys in the crossfire.
No matter what you think about dad, when you say phrases like, “I hate men” or “men are terrible” or “you’re giving up on men,” your son is in the crossfire and his life will be negatively affected by it.
Take a step back and see it through your son’s eyes.
Momma, talking negatively about men doesn’t set a good example! Your son is young now, but he knows one day he will grow up. When you talk poorly about men, even hateful sometimes, he gets confused about what or who he is supposed to become. He doesn’t want to become someone you hate. It’s hard for him to distinguish between your love for him and your anger at dad. This confusion literally stacks the odds against him becoming anything of value to the world.
Is it logical for your son to desire to become something you hate? Odds are your son looks up to you. You are the main person taking care of him. Despite any rough spots, he loves and respects you and desperately desires to become a great man.
Momma, what can you do? Provide your son with extreme clarity by asking this question:
What kind of man do you want him to be?
If you want him to become a man who reflects the fruits of the spirit love, joy, peace, patience, kindness, goodness, faithfulness, gentleness and self control (Galatians 5:22-23) then they have to be modeled to him.
Momma, please don’t confuse your son and leave him with no hope of knowing what a real man is. Instead, invest in him. Teach him the behaviors a woman respects and the reasons why you think these characteristics are good. Give him hope everyday that men can be loving, peaceful, patient, kind, good, faithful, gentle, and have self control; even if his dad was none of the above.
Not all boys are destined to be failures… what you say matters!
No matter what has happened to you, it’s your decision what you will do to the future man you’re raising. The responsibility for turning your son into a man you love or hate is in your hands.
Need help figuring this stuff out? We are building a resource library on our website www.TheMomsCoach.com. Blogs, webinars, programs, and podcast dedicated to HELPING MOMS RAISE GREAT MEN!
by admin | Jul 17, 2015
Two blog posts ago, I had a metaphor going comparing a computer crash to “bottoming out” in life and upgrading our operating system to a new way of being.
But first, we had to become willing to have a new operating system.
We put pop-up blockers in place to divert negative thoughts, and we became mindful of where we navigate online by asking ourselves – Does this serve me? Does this fit my core values?
So let’s now delve into the use of our new browser:
We use our browser to manifest or find what we’re looking for (of course with the help of our pop-up blockers and navigation skills). When we get clear on what we want, envisioning it and identifying it with our browser, we create and co-create a life that we love.
A life that ultimately serves and help others.
And we do that in conjunction with our last, but certainly our most important new feature: The Help system.
We cannot create a life that we love alone, not without guidance and help.
We most certainly try, but our circumstances become far more manageable when we ask for help from our Higher Power, be that God, a spiritual community, your Highest Self or Mt. Rainier. This feature we can use whenever, wherever, and for whatever occasion.
The Help feature assists on all levels of the new operating system:
Identifying “stinkin’ thinkin’” – we can ask for help.
Staying aligned with our values – we can ask for help.
How to make the best use of our new browser – we can ask for help.
It’s a simple metaphor, I know, but that’s its purpose. To simplify something that seems complex, so we can use it as a tool.
Congrats on your new operating system. And if you feel like yours has become overburdened, reboot.
You have everything you need to acquire and use a new operating system in order to master your life.
by admin | Jul 9, 2015
by Coach Debby
While working with a young writer, I was reminded of a time in my 20’s when I realized I would never be perfect.
It was a heart-wrenching experience filled with shame. It was like being stranded on a desert island with no food or friends. I mean it when I say it left me feeling totally cut off from everything and everyone.
Perhaps I took my evolution too seriously?
Most likely. I was an excellent college student at the time. I was earning my income as a waitress and giving a few bucks to the Humane Society each month to keep me from going to hell.
Certainly I would wake up perfect one day. Right? I was busting my tail everyday!
Nope. It didn’t go that way. I never “arrived.” And this helped me empathize with my young student after I pierced her soul with my comment, “We give it our best, but we hurt ourselves when we expect complete perfection.”
She came out of the corner swinging. “I didn’t just give it my best (add sounds of hysteria to get the full affect, here) I wrote an A+ paper! Everyone loved my paper!”
Truly, she could have received an Oscar for her dramatic performance in my office. That still did not make her perfect.
She was a good writer. She received a good grade. But what she wanted was a perfect score; she needed it to confirm she was a good person.
I could see in her eyes that her personal worth was totally on the line.
Isn’t it funny how we twist our performance and our worth into crazy little knots of extreme unhappiness?
One of the best reads to help me with this issue is by John Welwood, Toward a Psychology of Awakening. He explained how our bodies, “store experiences” until we reach maturity and can process our raw memories. We will never perfect our way of being, but in time, we come to terms with who we are.
According to Welwood, we give up our “old identity” and belief of being worthless sometimes decades after a crucial event takes place.
That was the case for me. I had to tell my stories to a safe individual and get clear about my past in order to understand that life unfolds.
There is no rehearsal and rarely do things turn out perfectly.
Perhaps the big key is realizing that we want to be SEEN in the best light possible because it covers up something icky from the past.
Truth be told, we are all quite lovely.
We deserve to feel good. But it can’t happen when we are playing for a perfect score. If we need our accomplishments to replace our feelings of lack about ourselves, it is a definite pointer to our past where a difficult memory resides.
I am reminded every day that I will never get it all right. I’m not perfect. But just like everyone else with an imperfect past, I am worthy.
“Never forget that once upon a time, in an unguarded moment, you recognized yourself as a friend.”
― Elizabeth Gilbert
by admin | Jul 2, 2015
by Todd Alan
It’s happened to me more than once – a systems crash on my computer where I’ve lost everything. And every time it’s happened, I discover that nothing I lost is ever really missed. Even though there were things I would rather have kept, nothing was totally necessary to move forward with my life.
Which got me thinking…
A computer crash is a fantastic metaphor for bottoming out in life. How desperately we cling to our vices, our “humorous” sarcasm (code for depression), our unhealthy relationships and self-deprecation only to find out, once we ditch it, that there was nothing to miss there at all.
Overwhelmed in our circumstances, overburdened with responsibilities, intoxicated with our substances and our stories, we do eventually crash…and most of us crash hard.
Any attempts to return to our old ways or use our old system is futile. At some point, we hopefully realize it’s not going to work for us anymore. It’s a completely broken system.
So what do we DO when our system crashes? We upgrade to a new operating system or a new way of existence. With a new operating system, we get a fresh start – new desktop, new files, new browser.
Our goal then is not to bog it down with the pop-ups and viruses and extraneous crap that destroyed the last one.
We need pop-up blockers to stop negative thoughts. We need smarter navigation to steer clear of viruses. When we encounter old, negative thoughts, we replace them with positive ones. When our navigation starts to veer off course, we ask ourselves – Does this serve me? Does this fit my core values?
It’s true we can’t just go buy a new addiction-free, character defect-free, neurosis free, negativity free “operating system.”
But we can become willing to give the old one up.
We get a chance to reboot. And once we become willing and decide that we want to reboot, we really do have a new operating system full of pure potential.
by admin | Jun 25, 2015
by Kavita Patel
Today I want to tell you a story about my client Kelsey.
Kelsey is a powerful woman who works to raise millions of dollars for nonprofits. If you were to meet her on the street she would have the kind of outfit you would love to have put together. When she speaks she is eloquent and you immediately know how smart she is.
Overall, she definitely has her life together.
Kelsey was introduced to a guy through a friend, and they are long distance (she lives in NYC and he lives in Austin). When she was visiting Texas a couple of months ago to see her mom, they decided to meet and have dinner. They had a great time and he asked when she would be back. She said probably in May.
So, this past month when she went back, Kelsey was even more excited to go on a second date with Ben. She wanted to get to know him better by asking questions and revealing more of who she was. More than anything, she just wanted to feel comfortable being herself.
As soon as we got on the phone for our last session, she launched into how embarrassed she was and that there were multiple times on the date she felt really stupid.
At the beginning of the date he asked her to put a collar straightener into the collar of his shirt and she didn’t know how to do it.
During dinner they were talking about social media and Ben said he doesn’t really like being on Facebook because it can be distracting. Kelsey responded with, “Yeah me neither” meanwhile she had been “stalking” him on Facebook for several months since their last date.
At the end of the date when she wanted to say something flirty what came out was, “Thanks for the intellectual stimulation.”
That last one was where I started laughing. Knowing who she was, it was hilarious what came out of her mouth out of nervousness at the end of the date!
Kelsey said to me, “I know it is funny! But I felt so stupid. What do I do now? I feel like I totally embarrassed myself . I just wanted to be myself and this is how I reacted.”
I said to Kelsey immediately, “You didn’t do ANYTHING to screw this up. I actually think the fact that you felt stupid several times during the date was REALLY good. Often you can look so put together that men feel like ‘Why would this woman need me?. She’s perfect. She’s got it together.’ The fact that you were flustered and embarrassed at times was so good.”
Being willing to look stupid shows your humanness and realness. It softens you.
I explained to Kelsey that the more she can feel stupid in life the better, because it is an indication of her getting outside of her comfort zone. It is a way for her to let go of control (which I know we all love) and let her guard down and let someone see who she really is, which is a smart, loving, flawed human being.
On this date, Kelsey actually revealed parts of herself in a more spontaneous way than she ever had.
Have you ever watched a speech that someone gives, whether it be at a wedding or something formal?
The speeches that touch your heart and move you are the ones that show someone’s humanness, imperfections, goofyness, and honesty.
In those moments they are risking looking stupid (not looking perfect) and that is what moves people.
It is the same on dates. The more you let yourself make mistakes and look stupid, the better. When you are with the right man he will see that as the most endearing quality you have.
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