Category: attitude
Refusing To Let Go
I remember vividly the day my son Ben almost drowned in the ball pit at Chuck E. Cheese. Everything started out fine, until Ben decided he needed to carry his newly purloined favorite balls around in the pit. Its hard enough to walk in there with both hands for balance, it’s impossible with a hand full of balls.
Ben took a step and fell. He tried to wrestle up without letting go of the balls, but he couldn’t. He started to cry but still wouldn’t let go of the balls.
Have you ever tried to reason with a crying, sweating four year old drowning in plastic balls? I began but pointing out to him how much better it would be to actualize the balance ratios by dropping the balls and negating the negative balance issues. I reasoned with him. I counseled him to make decisions that were based on common-sense and not emotion. I told him the story about the rat who wouldn’t let go of the cheese and got trapped in the trap. I’m sure on some deep level he was cognizant of these masterful illustrations, but mostly he just balled his brains out and kept sinking.
Being the mature man I was I began to yell, “Drop the balls!”
NO!
They have this stupid rule at Chuck E. Cheese which states that adults are not allowed to go in the pit, so I sent his older brother Nate in there.
” Nate go save your brother!”
So he’s yanking and Ben is drowning and Nate is having problems and I’m yelling and people are watching and my wife is pretending she’s not with us….
And I’m thinking to myself, “eventually he’ll lose consciousness and we can drag his lifeless carcass out of there!”
Why would a kid clutch so tightly to something that cannot but fail? Why is it so tempting to grasp things that don’t really matter? Why can’t we see when we are drowning in our own stubbornness?
When people come to counseling it often becomes apparent that they are looking for permission, not input. They have decided on a course of action and do not want to let go, even if that journey is going to hurt them, ruin their marriage, damage their kids, or interfere with their future. Often it’s a “want my cake and eat it too” scenario. They want to have an affair, or they want to do something that will result in destruction, or they want to keep lying to themselves about their addiction or their psychological malady. It’s far easier, they think, to continue on the road they are travelling then it is to do the hard work of personal growth. I know a bit of how they are thinking because I have been there myself. I have wanted something so badly that I was willing to blindly rush forward, convinced that somehow, against all reason, things would magically work out.
I didn’t want to let go of that ball.
Or maybe the issue is that you are holding on to something so tightly, an attitude or a painful memory, a slight or an abuse, that you cannot imagine letting go of the ball. The ball is all you know, it’s what feels right even if it doesn’t feel good. It is unimaginably hard to let go of what you believe. It is painful to change, difficult to imagine that life can be different. Maybe you’ve been hurt before and dammit, you are not going to get hurt again.
Letting go of the ball is rarely easy, but if you don’t try you are going to drown. Someone like me can scream and plead and beg you to do it, but at the end of the day no one else can make that decision.
No one cares about your problems as much as you do. No one will do it for us.
Isn’t it time to let go of the balls? It is going to be monumentally difficult and take much more time than you thought it would but it is worth it.
Life is waiting for you.
Related articles
- Why Is It So Hard To Get Anyone To Change? (psychologytoday.com)
- Beating Anxiety and Depression Is Possible But It Might Be More Work Than You Are Prepared To Do (scott-williams.ca)
The Ghosts Of Christmas Past
Every year my family gathers around the television to watch the original story of Scrooge – The Muppet Christmas Carol.
It’s a story of regret, of choices made, of the wrong priorities. It is about the chance to see the ramifications of our actions, the opportunity to live life over again. Michael Caine is taken to see his wasted and destroyed life and witnesses the series of misguided decisions that served to create a ruined life. One especially poignant scene is where he watches his younger self give up the love of his life because of his lust for money and selfishness. As Scrooge watches the scene unfold, we can see the emotions playing out over his face. We can imagine what is going through his mind: What a fool he had been! How his life would have been different if he had married, if his heart hadn’t been hardened by the love of money. Perhaps that young man wouldn’t have become this wretched, bitter old miser. He realizes his life has turned out totally different then he thought it would.
Consider this: How would you like to be visited by the ghost of your past? How would you like to go back and relive your sins, your mistakes, the foolish choices that changed your life? How would you like to be forced to watch helplessly, knowing what the outcome is going to be, unable to do anything to change the result, feeling the sharp pain of regret at not having taken the other path, or at least wondering what would have happened had your choices been different.
For most people there’s really no need for a night-time visit from one of Charles Dickens’ three spirits, because we do it ourselves. We replay the past, again and again. We see it projected on the screen of our minds. We are experts at reliving our failures. I have often told people that there is no need to tell me my shortcomings because most of us are keenly aware of the many ways we do not measure up. We are encyclopedias of our faults.
Don’t you sometimes wish you could go back and talk to yourself at those key moments, talk to that person in the movie of your life, warn them, tell them where the road they’re taking will lead?
When I look back over my past I am keenly aware of the many times I have chosen what is easiest over what is best. I get paid to tell people how to live their lives and yet know that I have often fallen far short of what I would like to pretend happened. After I found myself a single parent twelve years ago I made a series of blunders and even lost friends in the process. I look back at that person and realize that grief and loneliness drove me insane. There they are, the ghosts of Christmas’s past. It took years and many mistakes to find my way back and there are people who still hold those days against me.
The question is, will I still hold those Christmas’s against me?
They say time heals, or so the story goes. It is easy to hold ourselves responsible for things we did when we were young, or childish, or stupid. For decisions made when we were in the midst of abuse. For bad moves that we cannot take back. For things said, even career moves, which were a result of our insanity and pain.
They say it is easier to forgive others than it is to forgive ourselves. There are few things more true, I have found. Unfortunately, however, it is very difficult to move forward when we still listen… to the ghosts of Christmas past.
Related articles
- 25 Reasons “The Muppet Christmas Carol” Is The Best Carol Of Them All (buzzfeed.com)
- Why Intentions Don’t Matter Much (scott-williams.ca)
- What Would You Do? (scott-williams.ca)
- The Memory Game – Living Life With A Limp (scott-williams.ca)
- Living My Life To Impress A Five Year Old (scott-williams.ca)
Casual Friday – Do We Matter?
In 2002 I was a single parent, hurting, lonely, visiting Winnipeg, the city of my childhood. Alone.I was at a conference downtown but felt a nostalgic need to drive for an hour in traffic to go back and remember. So there I was, driving down a road I had walked hundreds of times, decades ago. I had never been back. It was the time, elementary school, when everything was possible and I knew I was going to be significant.
Now years later, looking back on a shattered life and broken dreams, I drove back in time to my old elementary school. It was much as I had remembered it, only a great deal smaller. I remembered it as a happy place, a loud adventure full of girls and bullies and games and sports. But now, so many years later, I was back walking down empty hallways and bad preteen crayon art. I wasn’t sure why I was there but for some reason was drawn down those hallways, looking like a middle-aged creeper with too much time on his hands.
As I passed the trophy case I was struck by it’s emptiness. Someone had obviously been cleaning out the old pictures, painting and rearranging. Even today I still wonder if it really happened and still do not completely understand it’s meaning, if there even is one.
You might be able to guess what was in that window, it unfolded like a movie – There was only one photo in that display case that day – yellowed by age, bad haircuts and knobby knees. There I was, grade six volleyball team. Only one picture in that case, twenty or more years later. Why? It was a one in a million, a ridiculous proposition, a hollywood story.
I still don’t know why, or even if there is a why. I only know I was feeling alone one day, insignificant and small. And in the midst of that insecurity there was a gift, a single moment out of time and a reminder that I mattered. hundreds of teams, dozens of years, an old picture that could not fit in a small display case needed by this years teams. A ten foot picture frame with only one picture…
It is easy to believe we don’t matter in a world of superstars and the super rich. When we die will anyone remember us, mourn us? Many of us, as we grow older, ponder what legacy we will leave, if any. Many become discouraged by the brevity and seeming meaningless of life.
Do we matter?
I am inspired by the story of Rosa Parks, an average nobody who changed her world because she “was tired of giving in to white people.” Like many of us I get tired of hearing of yet another person born in privilege being noticed just because their family or circumstance gave them a platform. Rosa showed us that even a regular person can leave a powerful legacy if they live their life with integrity and purpose.
This spring I am spending a few weeks with my father editing his memoirs while basking in the sunshine. He too has left a powerful legacy of perseverance and integrity for the following generations though being an orphan who was not given many breaks in life. He may not ever be world famous but he is living proof that you don’t have to have a Harvard degree or reality television series to impact the lives of people in your world.
Do we matter?
Yes you do. Don’t settle for a mediocre life.
As Tony Campolo is fond of saying, “Most of us are tiptoeing through life so we can reach death safely. We grew up praying, “If I should die before I wake. Maybe we should be praying, “If I should wake before I die. . . .” Life can get away from you.
Related articles
- Casual Friday – I Had A Dream (scott-williams.ca)
Why Intentions Don’t Matter That Much
I love it when people tell me they are going to make positive changes in their lives. It’s amazing when someone comes to an important epiphany and decides to do something radical. The only problem is, in spite of the great intentions and hope for the future it doesn’t usually really mean much.
You know what the old maxim says…
It’s not that intentions are bad, quite the contrary. Having good intentions is foundational when discussing how to change your future, set goals, make progress, or do anything of worth. The problem comes when we begin to think that planning to do something is actually accomplishing anything.
I once had a friend with a huge day-timer. You could not have any conversation of length with this individual without him opening that big black book and explaining how many things he was planning on doing. He was a master planner. The fact that he never did anything but plan, however, soon led me to understand that he was substituting his many plans for actually accomplishing anything.
One of my favorite B movies is V for Vendetta. Who cannot love a guy in a Guy Fawkes mask using only the letter V to start virtually every word. It has that post-apocalyptic feel of a Fahrenheit 451 or Nineteen Eighty-Four, but with more knives and rhyming. In the movie, for the 98% of the population who have not seen it and never will, V goes about paying back those individuals who have used him for human experimentation and who are generally very nasty people who run a despotic world. At one point he shows up at an old acquaintances house who was involved in the Nazi-esque experiments and proceed to accuse her, with many words that start with the letter V, of the grossest crimes. She, in her own defense, explains to him that she really meant to do the right thing. Her intentions were otherwise and she had hoped that things would turn out differently. V responds in iconic fashion (and without any words that start with the letter V), “I have not come for what you hoped to do. I came for what you have done”.
I have not come for what you hoped to do. I came for what you have done. Powerful words.
In counseling we sometimes say it this way, “don’t just talk the talk, walk the walk”. It’s a cliché but like many time-worn maxims it contains an element of truth. If intentions do not translate into action they are worse than useless. They can, in fact, be detrimental.
I am reminded this early morning that I have only one life. I do not want to look back and wish I had done all the things I had intended. As Antonio Banderas prayed in the movie 13th Warrior:
Merciful Father, I have squandered my days with plans of many things.
This was not among them.
But at this moment, I beg only to live the next few minutes well.
For all we ought to have thought, and have not thought;
all we ought to have said, and have not said;
all we ought to have done, and have not done;
I pray thee God for forgiveness.
Do You Really Want A Sensitive Guy?
Women tell me they need a man to be emotionally sensitive, in touch with his feelings.
Two minutes later that same woman will tell me they want their man to stand up to them, to not let them always get their way. They want a strong, powerful man who is rugged and independent. They actually say that, “I don’t want to get my way.” (Am I to believe them?)
Well which is it?
I have written before of the influence of the myth of Prince Charming and the princess in popular culture. There is strong evidence to suggest that many women, for example, raised on Disney stories and fairy tales still yearn to be treated like a princess – adored, elevated, protected, honored by a strong and beautiful man. No where in Prince Charming’s resume does it require him to be emotionally available, or in touch with his feminine side.
There is a significant dichotomy at play in the dominant female heterosexual culture. Women confess all the time that they are looking for both traits in their man – strength and vulnerability. There is something attractive about a guy who strong and self-contained (if you don’t believe me wait until my upcoming article on How to Pick Up Vulnerable Twenty-somethings). A man who is powerful has long been an aphrodisiac. Most men of my generation were raised to emulate such guys – Eastwood, Arnold, Pitt, Stallone. Today many woman also are attracted to a man who can cry, is sensitive, and can even pretend to be a glittery vampire and lie beside you all night not asking for anything, only staring at you sleep. It is a tall order.
It is no wonder then that men are experiencing an identity crisis like never before in history. A generation often raised by females, guys today are not sure how to behave. We are still supposed to have muscles, though we now shave everywhere. We are supposed to have both masculine and feminine characteristics (not my contention but it seems that way to the average construction worker). Our fathers did not help around the house (though mine did), did not share their feelings, did not watch Househunters International. In fact, our predecessors didn’t do much around the house at all. My grandfather came home from work everyday and proceeded to drink himself sleepy. For all I know he may not have had actual feelings about things, it never came up. We had dress codes and opinions, not feelings. For thousands of years men knew who they were and what was expected of them. Women weren’t happy but we really didn’t seem to notice and if they did complain it was because we thought it was “their time of month”. It was easy to be a man, in peace time.
It’s hard to be a guy, really. I had the amazing opportunity to be a single parent for most of my children’s young lives so I learned the hard way that I can actually cook, do dishes, read and do homework with the kids, go to parent-teacher night, and talk about feelings. I am almost certain that I would not have learned those lessons if I hadn’t been forced to.
There is no training for men. We have had difficulty looking to male role models from our past. We have not been able to talk about our struggles until recently and now we have no idea how. Men are emotionally immature but in our defense we have had little practice. Recently I was out for drinks with my eldest son and a few close friends when I made the mistake of saying something to the effect that it’s cool that we can get together and talk about deep issues. My son turned to me and said, “Dad, we don’t talk about this crap when you aren’t here!” It’s true. Social protocol has dictated, for literally thousands of years, that we do the exact opposite. Men who gush are weak. Effeminate men or even those in touch with their feelings were ridiculed.
So please be patient with us. We are undergoing a cultural and anthropological shift that is unparalleled in history.
Most of us still are trying to figure out what a clitoris is.
Related articles
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- The Biggest Complaint I Get About Men, Hands Down! (scott-williams.ca)
- Prince Charming Doesn’t Come With A Checklist, Just A ‘To-Do’ (allthosesmallthings.wordpress.com)
- The Suffering of Men & Boys. (elephantjournal.com)
Weekend Musings
On the weekends I tend to take a lighter look at life. I was thinking…
A real man is a woman’s best friend. He will never stand her up and never let her down. He will reassure her when she feels insecure and comfort her after a bad day. He will inspire her to do things she never thought she could do; to live without fear and forget regret. He will enable her to express her deepest emotions and give in to her most intimate desires. He will make sure she always feels as though she’s the most beautiful woman in the room and will enable her to be confident, sexy, seductive, and invincible.No wait… sorry… I’m thinking of wine. Never mind.
Casual Friday – I Had A Dream
Have you ever tried to phone the Real Canadian Superstore? Let me save you some time. They are not in the phone book under the white pages, neither are they under any of the ordinary denominations in the yellow pages. That’s power. They don’t even need to let you get in touch with them. They know you’ll still come shop there. That arrogance is amazing. So after I finally found a number under pharmacy, I asked when they are open. The nameless automaton on the other end of the phone only said, “the regular hours”. Regular hours. The guy just knows I already know when they are open. And the sick part was, I did. That’s power. That’s arrogance.
They could care less if you like them. They have you and they know it. I despise that attitude. I hate the idea that someone has control over me. I want to believe I am in charge of my own destiny – that my decisions, not some power monger, determine my life. Of course on the same hand I like to play the victim so I have someone to blame when those decisions don’t turn out. I want to control my life – but I don’t want to be blamed for it. I also need to believe that I matter. With their cattle lines and impersonal service Superstore reminds me every week that I do not.
At the time of this writing I have been living with a decision I made some time ago to step out of the limelight. Since adolescence I have been a showman, craving the spotlight, performing for the crowds. Obviously I would have never admitted such a thing so overtly before, I spoke in altruistic platitudes about using a certain temperament or gifting or opportunity. Looking back it amounts to virtually the same thing.I have, from youngest years, believed I would be significant. There was always this carrot of notoriety just outside my grasp. I spoke yesterday of desperately trying to fit it. So much of what motivated me stemmed from this insane need to be ‘someone’. So much of my personality was wrapped up in this subtle egoism. That is not to say that I do not struggle anymore with obscurity. Every time I sit down at this computer to write I question my motivations. I can feel that snake coiling just beneath the surface, even now. Stepping away from full-time public speaking has been the best and most frustrating journey I have ever been on. I would contend that I have learned more about myself and my world in this time than in any other period of my life.I have found obscurity.Perhaps it is more accurate to say that I have finally admitted to myself that I am ordinary and unimportant by almost every societal barometer that matters in prevalent society. It’s ok, you don’t have to encourage me, I’m fine.
This has been good for me. It reminds me of those lines from one of my favorite ‘B’ movies, The Replacements, when Keanu Reeves, a replacement quarterback is confronted by the spoiled and arrogant star quarterback of the pro team who he has just replaced:
Eddie Martel: This doesn’t change anything Falco! I’m still an All-Pro quarterback with two Superbowl rings. You’ll never be anything more than a replacement player.
Shane Falco: Yeah. Yeah, I can live with that.
We all need to come to grips with who we are, not who we pretend to be. It’s tempting to spend your life chasing after something only to find out that when you get it, it really wasn’t what you needed after all.
Close to his death Martin Luther King preached his famous sermon, “The Drum Major Instinct”. As usual, he said it better than I ever could…
“Tell them not to mention that I have a Nobel Peace Prize. That isn’t important.Tell them not to mention that I have three or four hundred other awards. That’s not important. Tell them not to mention where I went to school. I’d like somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to give his life serving others. I’d like for somebody to mention that day that Martin Luther King, Jr. tried to love somebody. I want you to say the day that I tried to be right on the war question. I want you to be able to say that I did try to feed the hungry. I want you to be able to say that day that I did try in my life to clothe those who were naked. I want you to say that I tried to love and serve humanity. Yes, if you want to say that I was a ‘drum major, say that I was a drum major for justice. Say that I was a drum major for peace. That I was a drum major for righteousness. And all of the other shallow things will not matter. I won’t have any money to leave behind. I won’t have the fine and luxurious things of life to leave behind. But I just want to leave a committed life behind. And that’s all I want to say.”
Related articles
- Casual Friday – How Long Have You Been Alive? (scott-williams.ca)
- Casual Friday: Does Anybody Out There Know Who I Am? (scott-williams.ca)
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Love Me Or Screw You
Like many of us I can look back on my life and see a variety of pitiful attempts to fit in. As a little child I have vivid memories of my grandmother telling me that ‘children are to be seen and not heard’. I remember being demeaned by relatives for being hyperactive and aggressive. Today I am sure I would have been deemed ADHD and medicated.
Love me, hate me, but please don’t ignore me. The classical class clown. I would do anything to be noticed. In some ways it was easy, I was blessed with a certain level of athletic prowess. I could always make an impression with a ball in my hands. But it was never enough.
Like most of us, I have spent my life trying to fit in.
My grade three report card actually says, “Scott thinks he runs the class and frankly I’m getting sick of it!” It didn’t help that school came easy and so I was bored. Being bored leaves you a lot of time to irritate the teachers and I am nothing if not persistent. I don’t remember much of those early years, but I do remember spending most of grade four in the hall. The principal and I were on a first name basis. Back in those days teachers didn’t get danger pay.
I am a very imperfect person who, for many years, has spent his time trying to help other people deal with issues that I struggled with as well. For many years I felt like a hypocrite who had to pretend to be something I was not.
I’ve been trying to be real, but it’s hard. We’ve all been burned. I am told often that I am not very normal. I don’t act, look, or dress according to the caricature of a staid and mature authority figure. For many years I wore this mantle like a badge of honor, secretly relishing my status as a maverick. It was easy to justify any sort of behavior, whether appropriate or completely asinine. Hey, if I can’t fit the mold, then screw the mold.
This is no longer something I am proud of. I have had to come to peace with my personality and not use it as an excuse any longer. What has been painfully difficult for me to come to terms with is that marginal personalities and maverick leaders need to humbly assess their own effectiveness and admit that we tend to marginalize others because we are unable or unwilling to listen, to affirm, and to appreciate that people’s perceptions can have value. Those of us who have fought a lifelong battle to be free and come to grips with our uniqueness are often too quick to take offense when those whose opinion we usually honor smacks up against our hard-won acceptance of ourselves. It becomes easier and easier to arrogantly shoot back that ‘we have come to accept that we are different and you better start accepting it too’.
In the struggle to appreciate our own worth and our exceptional contribution, it is all too easy to stop listening, stop learning, stop growing. There has been a failure on my part to consider that I alone am responsible for monitoring my behavior and the way I interact with others. I must not use my temperament as an excuse for immaturity or belligerence. In the same way that others need to come to grips with my uniqueness and special gifts, so I also must grow up in my conversations and relationships. Those on the fringes know better than most that feelings are easily hurt and we don’t have the luxury of trampling over the feelings of others with a ‘damn them all’, ‘love me or screw you’ attitude. Restraint is called for. Maturity is not optional. It is a lesson that I continue to learn, often suffering the consequences of my marginal temperament. I cannot expect people to understand my heart when I damage with my mouth.
I Need Sex Every Couple Of Days
No I don’t.
I would like sex every couple of days. I would also like chocolate, and bacon, and candy every few hours. That doesn’t mean it should happen.
If I hear of another whiny, manipulative male guilting their partner with this again I’m going to scream. I have been wanting to address this issue for some time but realize that this blog does seem to be hard on men. My hope is that heterosexual men will figure this out.
Almost every day I have women tell me that if they don’t have sex with their man every two or three days that he will whine and complain, even become abusive. So they give in. When I hear that my heart breaks. What a horrible reason to share the most precious gift you can give to another person. Disgusting.
What the hell is wrong with these men? Do they care, even a little bit, about their partner, or are they such slaves to their hormones that they don’t consider the needs and desires of the person who loves them the most? Do they understand female sexuality at all? Do they think whining or threatening is a turn-on for women?
Women need to understand that men do not have to have sex every few days. We get horny, it’s true, but so what? Should we as adults give in to every single urge, every craving, every impulse we have? Should we manipulate and exploit women just because we have a desire? My wife can turn me on just by being in the room, she’s gorgeous (I know that’s shallow but she does drive me wild). Her smile, her touch can still drive me crazy. Is that, therefore, license to invade her personal space, force myself upon her, and manipulate her to do something she had no intention of doing just because I’m a man and dammit, she should have to? Am I saying that I’m weak, I’m pathetic, I’m a slave to my emotions? Even though I teach my children to say no to their base instincts apparently I will never say no to mine. Pathetic. It is no wonder that so many women tell me that they have lost the magic, the desire, for sex with their partner. It is no shock, therefore, that so few women experience regular orgasms with their men.
This issue strikes at the heart of respect, understanding, and selfless love. It speaks to the selfishness and lack of honor that many men have been raised to feel about women. As I said in an earlier article we were raised to believe that sex is really about the male orgasm. Most men actually believe that is the purpose of sex.
They are so wrong.
Related articles
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The Smell Of Rotting Fish
When I was a kid my dad took me fishing on Primrose Lake, a private military lake that is used for target practice and inaccessible to the general public. My dad pulled a few strings and before I knew it we were fishing between bombardments. It was incredible. The fish practically jumped in the boat. It took twenty minutes for three of us to catch our limit of big, big fish. The cleaning took far longer than the catching.
We filled our freezer with fish that summer. Summer also brought holiday time and before long we were off to the family camping trip, thoughts of Primrose Lake far behind us. What we didn’t know was that, just before we left, someone had accidentally pulled the plug on our huge freezer.
Two weeks later.
We got home and the house reeked of bad fish. Why, we wondered, was that odor so pronounced? It didn’t take us long to find our way downstairs and finally open the now completely defrosted freezer… full to the brim with brine and water and dead smelly fish.
What to do?
It was tempting to just close that lid and walk away. We could have dressed up that freezer, even painted it a new color, but that wouldn’t have changed what was inside it. We could have hired a psychotherapist to talk to the fridge, maybe a pastor could have come by and cast a demon out of the thing. It would not have mattered. Dress up that thing any way you want and the fact remains that it still is a freezer full of rotting fish. No amount of therapy could have changed that.
That’s alot like me… like you. I try to make excuses for my problems and blame someone else but at the end of the day the fact remains that it is still my mess-o-fish. It is not my ex-wife’s problem or my kids or my parents, it isn’t even my ex-bosses issue – it is mine alone. At the end of the day I can blame whoever I want, it’s still my problem.
So why is this so hard to accept? Perhaps because blaming other people relieves me of some of the responsibility. Many of us have been through horrific situations wrought by dysfunctional and abusive people who scarred us for life. Unfortunately, however, they are not going to fix us. Most of them will not even feel responsible. No one else is going to help us heal.
Other people may be to blame, but that doesn’t really matter much, now does it. It’s up to us to find a healing, a solution, or a way of coping. It may seem far easier to go through life wounded, blaming others for my issues but at the end of the day I am the only one who is going to miss out of this one life, this one chance at happiness and wholeness.
There is an iconic scene in the movie American History X where the skinhead Derek Vineyard, after being gang-raped by his once cohorts while in prison, has a visit from his African-American high school principal. The principal, Bob Sweeney, who has watched Derek self-destruct as he blamed everyone else for his pain, says, “There was a moment, when I used to blame everything and everyone for all the pain and suffering and vile things that happened to me, that I saw happen to my people. Used to blame everybody. Blamed white people, blamed society, blamed God. I didn’t get no answers ’cause I was asking the wrong questions. You have to ask the right questions.”
Derek turns to him and asks, “Like what?”
Sweeney replies, “Has anything you’ve done made your life better?”
That is a profound question. He knew Derek had pains and hurts, grudges both valid and vile. Like many of us Derek had been damaged by someone or something. Violated. Carrying that hate and that pain was all that he knew. How could he possibly get on with his life after what had happened to him?
Some time ago I wrote a letter to someone who had hurt me, never intending on sending it. The next morning my wife saw it before I could get up and mailed it, as a courtesy. A few weeks later I got a phone call from that old friend. He could not understand why I was angry.
Think about it. For seven years he had not been carrying that pain I felt almost everyday. For seven years he had been perfectly happy and content. He didn’t hurt, only I did. It hadn’t ruined his life.
Has anything you’ve done made your life better?
Think Differently To Break Bad Habits
The best strategy to break a bad habit such as smoking, eating too much, drinking excessively, gambling, shopping excessively, and so forth is to not develop the habit in the first place! I know…easier said than done but prevention is really the very best way to avoid the formation of bad habits. As problematic habits unfold nipping them in the bud in the spirit of prevention is so very important if you can do it. by Thomas G. Plante
However, for so many people the train has already left the station and the bad habit is now fully formed and causing all sorts of troubles and distress. So now what? What do you do once these habits have solidified? Most people rely on willpower and motivation. This is a big mistake in my view since willpower and motivation vacillate and are totally unreliable day-to-day and over time. We really need to let go of the use of willpower and motivation to deal with long-standing bad habits. It just doesn’t work for the long-term. Rather, we should use social engineering which is a much better strategy for sure. Basically, can you create an environment for yourself that forces you to change behavior for the better? Can you socially engineer your bad habits out of existence?
Let’s take a few examples. Perhaps you are a couch potato and don’t exercise much if at all. If you get an active and fairly large dog that needs to get walks in everyday it will force you to take lots and lots of walks. If you struggle with eating too many problem foods at home you can work to keep the challenging food items out of the house. If you struggle with internet pornography use you can put filters on your computer. None of these solutions are perfect or easy but if you put enough barriers in place (especially those that you can’t dismantle very easily) you are likely to make good progress over time on your bad habits.
The problem with changing bad habits for most people is that they rely way too much on motivation and will power when they should be focusing more on prevention and social engineering strategies.
So, what do you think?
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Casual Friday – How Long Have You Been Alive?
Tony Campolo tells a story about how he challenged his students at Eastern College by asking them, “how long have you been alive”? They responded by reciting their birthdays, almost without thinking. Then he turned to them and asked again, “how long have you really been alive”? He went on to tell of a time that as a child, he stood on the Empire State Building and for a few brief moments, as the wind whipped his hair and the panorama overwhelmed him, felt fully alive. Then he turned to his students again and said, “now, how long have you been alive?”
Some years ago I went skydiving with my friends Fergus and Wendy in Fort McMurray, Canada during an impending rain storm. It was one of those days when you could see the vistas of the horizon and watch the heavy grey clouds roll in like a blanket. It was undoubtedly not a pristine skydiving opportunity but we were anxious to get in a jump, despite our best interests. As we rose to meet the sky the clouds extended over us like a cotton canopy. We leveled out at approximately 6500 feet and flew just under the clouds. I climbed out of the door and held on to the top rim. The wind in my hair I watched the plane skim just under the unbroken cloud. On a whim I reached up and wiped my hand through the fluffy billows, splaying them behind me. For that moment, I was truly alive.
So much of life I have not lived really alive. Days meld into days without end, seasons come and go. It is easy to just exist but not really live. The older I get the more I understand that my life is so short. It’s very easy to live day after day like time doesn’t matter, wasting hours, even months doing nothing notable, nothing meaningful, taking people and situations for granted.
I had a pretty brutal car accident last year. I was in Saskatchewan, visiting friends and attending a wedding. I broke a few ribs and totalled one of best friend’s cars. Everything initially seemed to work out fine. It was a little later that I realized I was quite shaken by the experience and afraid to drive. I had to use some of the cheesy stuff I teach patients to work through it. Things are fine now but I was left with a pervading sense that I am mortal. Last month when I had a grand mal seizure I was again reminded that we are finite beings and need our lives count. Like you, I still have some things to do and want to make my life count for something.
I want to be awake and alive. I want to fan my had through a few more clouds.
If I close my eyes I can see myself clearly from a distance, standing in the doorway, the solid bank of clouds, looking up – then pushing my hand into the solid mass. There is joy on my face. Truly alive.
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The Key To A Great Relationship
There are several keys to a great relationship. Here’s the one that has transformed my marriage.
Humility.
Not my humility, mind you. My wife’s. She is the humblest person I have ever met. Admittedly I was initially attracted to the fact that she is immensely hot (I know that is shallow and sexist) and seemed to tolerate me being around, but the more I have come to know her the more I credit the success of our relationship with the fact that she is relentless in her pursuit of compromise and making me happy. I am often hesitant to even mention something I would like to eat or possess because I know she will make it happen. She inspires me to want to try harder and be a better husband. We cannot even have a decent argument without her apologizing for something. It is hard to stay mad at someone who is trying so hard to make you happy.
She does not read this blog so i get no ‘suck up’ points for this, in case you were wondering.
As I write this I am conscious of the fact that many readers do not have this experience. This has not always been my experience either. For years I lived with passive aggression, emotionally shut down, non-communicative narcissism. Many of us have. It is easy, when things are going poorly, to believe that this is the way everyone is, this is absolute reality. It isn’t even though it feels that way.
I have learned a great deal from both experiences. I have come to understand that my personal self-worth, happiness, and completeness cannot be based on another fallible person. I have lived far too long trying to make other people love me, and failing. I have based too much of my self-worth on whether or not my spouse likes me at any particular moment. I am endeavouring, and I am not there yet, to find my security from within. I have this crazy idea that I need to get to a place where I do not need anyone to feel whole.
In counseling I will often tell patients, “Don’t date until you don’t need to”. I profoundly believe this. We need to get to a point where we do not need someone else to fill that hole in our heart. Only then are we complete enough to love someone else without being needy, without needing them to “complete me”. It is a great deal easier to live sacrificially, think of the other person first, and live humbly when I don’t need her to stroke my tender, insecure, needy little ego.
“When we’re incomplete, we’re always searching for somebody to complete us. When, after a few years or a few months of a relationship, we find that we’re still unfulfilled, we blame our partners and take up with somebody more promising. This can go on and on–series polygamy–until we admit that while a partner can add sweet dimensions to our lives, we, each of us, are responsible for our own fulfillment. Nobody else can provide it for us, and to believe otherwise is to delude ourselves dangerously and to program for eventual failure every relationship we enter.” Tom Robbins
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It’s Not About Success
Some time ago my family was rock climbing just south of the border. We were having a great time when a teenager and his girlfriend stopped to watch and make conversation. As they stood and watched my eleven year old attack the rock face the guy began commenting loudly as to his performance, skill and faults. He started critiquing everything; criticizing my son while at the same time bragging about his rock climbing prowess. He faulted my kid for using a harness and rope (only beginners needed the security of a rope). He explained in great detail how my child was taking the easy route whereas he would only go up the hardest possible course. This went on for some time until I turned to him and said, “I hear you doing a lot of talking, how about doing some climbing?”
Suddenly I was barraged with a steady stream of excuses. He didn’t want to get sweaty; he hadn’t brought the proper footwear; he wasn’t sure he had the time; blah, blah, blah. Being the compassionate, mature person that I am, I turned to him and said, “What’s the matter, you chicken?”
You can look like the greatest climber in the world, own the best equipment, have an expert harness and shoes, but until you get your butt off the ground you’re just a spectator.
Many people have that approach to life. Sam Malone (from the sitcom Cheers) summed it up for us when he said, “It’s not whether you win or lose, its how good you look while you’re doing it.” It’s all about appearances. It’s all about looking good, smelling good and acting good.
There is something wrong with that, and it’s bigger than just an issue with climbing rocks. In counseling I see it all the time. People want the appearance of change but are not willing to pay the price for it. They are still looking for the magic pill.
Let me be honest with you. If you have complex emotional or psychological issues you cannot be fixed in eight sessions. You should be able to see marked improvement but you have taken years, even decades, to get where you are. One session of EFT or EMDR is probably not going to sort you out. The best cognitive behavioural therapist in the world can’t “fix” you in a few sessions. Anyone who tells you differently is selling something. Seriously. Real growth is built on things like perseverance and failure. That’s right, failure. Ask anyone who has battled a serious addiction problem. Most of us quit dozens of times before it took. If that wasn’t your experience than count your blessings.
Overcoming depression, anxiety, trauma, etc. is usually built on a series of failures. You tried to get up early today and you couldn’t do it. You try again tomorrow and probably screw that up to. So you keep trying.
It’s not about success, it’s about momentum. When you are dealing with depression or anxiety, ptsd or bpd, it’s not all about one good day, or one great win. Good things come to those who keep showing up.
History is replete with illustrations to prove this. It’s Edison’s anecdotal story of saying that he found hundreds of ways to not make a lightbulb. It’s the single parent who gets up one more day and does what is right. It’s the student that, in spite of hardship and pain, keeps showing up to school. Momentum is that person who fights and fails and gets up one more time. It’s that definition of success which says, “falls down seven times, gets up eight.
As the saying goes – ninety percent of success in life is just showing up.
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The Memory Game – Living Life With A Limp
One hen, two ducks, three squawking geese. That’s how the memory game begins. It’s a simple, “repeat after me” from one to ten. I will often do it with groups as an icebreaker or an anxiety enhancer. I stole it from a Johnny Carson episode. Yes I am that old.
The game can be played in two different ways, eliciting two very different responses. In the first case, take for example the time I played it with a local high school assembly. The gymnasium was packed and I asked for a volunteer, someone who thought they had a good memory, someone who wanted to challenge me to a game. I told the volunteer (senior jock with attitude) that it was “you against me and I will beat you because I never lose”. I pointed out that it was a competition and instructed the audience not to help him in any way. Other teens soon started teasing, and the tension in the room started to rise. I think the kid made it to “four limerick oysters”.
Sometimes, however, I play the game with anxiety groups or when I am doing speaking gigs for tired executives. I will introduce the game but also mention that it’s perfectly fine if others help out because it doesn’t really matter, and no one ever gets to ten anyway. We are all in this together, after all. I remind the audience more than once that there is no pressure and I will say the statements along with them in case they get confused. Most groups give up at seven or eight. It’s fun and a good laugh.
Do you see the difference between the two games?
Most of us can do quite well when things are going our way, when we feel no pressure, when we feel supported. It’s another thing all-together to be at your best when you are not feeling well, or feel singled out, or are stressed or under pressure. Change just a few variables and most of us, myself included, will run into trouble. Do that public presentation with a head cold or a Fibromyalgia flare up and what was intended to be a great opportunity becomes a waking nightmare. Add emotional or relational pressures, insecurity or abuse and it becomes harder and harder to make good decisions.
Most of us live life with a limp. We have been wounded in ways we dare not describe and have developed coping skills that worked in crisis and fear. Some of us have felt the sting of trauma and abuse and feel like something inside of us has been broken, or killed, or maimed beyond repair. People don’t understand why we do some of the things we do but they have no idea what you have endured. It’s easy, therefore, to view the world as a hostile place and trust no one. Letting someone in just brings pain. We develop masks to hide our true feelings and emotions. It is probably fair to say that we are not necessarily playing at the top of our game. I often comment that most of us, by the time we are middle-aged, have seen our fair share of trauma. There are few optimists in their forties.
Growing up many of us felt belittled or abused. We still struggle to trust anyone or let anyone in. When I am confronted I know it is difficult to stay objective – I have a little boy inside of me that is easily wounded and wants to fight back or run away or make excuses. I have spent a lifetime trying to come to terms with that little guy but it’s an ongoing issue in most of us. We walk with a limp – the constant nagging understanding of our weakness and the temptation to treat all of life with distrust. It is easy to become bitter. It is difficult to let go of the past and the dysfunctional coping methods we once used so effectively. It is hard to move on when we have to drag one leg.
Robert Frost famously penned, “Two roads diverged in a wood”, a poem (The Road Less Traveled) many of us have committed to memory. We hear it at conferences and in platitudes about choosing a life that makes a difference, about not selling out. I was reminded today that the real journey of life is not the physical or economic one, but an emotional and spiritual one. We all have choices to make, choices that will profoundly affect our lives and the lives of those we love.
A limp is not an excuse to live a bitter life.
I can still choose, in spite of my situations, my past, and my problems to endeavor to find hope and help.
I have come to realize it is a great deal easier to grow old and ugly than it is to choose wholeness.
In fact, its way easier.
“People can be more forgiving than you imagine. But you have to forgive yourself. Let go of what’s bitter and move on.” Bill Cosby
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When Intuition Is A Curse
When people come into my office and tell me, very early in a conversation, that they are ‘intuitive’ and ‘can see into people’ I often wonder if they have had trauma. The longer I do this for a living the more I realize that some of us developed our insights into humanity as a protection mechanism. We never knew, when dad or mom walked into the room, whether we were safe or in danger. We had to develop the skill for knowing how to react around instability. We constantly had our radar on. To this day, when we walk into a room, we are keenly aware of how people are feeling and reacting. We have a ‘bead’ on people and think it’s a gift. For some people a gift born out of a curse.
Trauma does weird things to people. Some other day I will talk about the link between trauma and hoarding, or people who can’t seem to finish projects, or those who go from romantic relationship to romantic relationship and consistently make bad decisions. People with trauma often repaint their house too often, or have spending or drug addictions, or have difficulty making decisions. Most trauma survivors become control freaks. Trauma has a way of twisting us emotionally and relationally, of creating fear and insecurity.
A few days ago I went to Swiss Chalet with a close friend who is a 6th Dan Master at his martial art. As we walked to the restaurant I was not worried about being jumped or attacked. I was hoping. When I’m with my martial arts buddies there is little danger of violation. My radar is turned off. The world is a safe place and I am not even remotely worried. Most people grow up in a world that is safe, and therefore have no pressing need to become discerning when they are at home or on the playground. For them the world is a safe place and they have no need for emotional radar.
A few years ago, in a trauma group I was leading, a woman shared about her afternoon and the fearful event she had endured just prior to group. She was in a McDonalds parking lot when two men in hoodies, with the hoods up, approached her in the twilight. As a victim of trauma she was keenly aware of danger and had struggled all her life to trust men, especially strangers. Some time in her past she had been attacked by men, beaten and raped. That late afternoon in the parking lot her radar came on and the meter went through the roof. As she walked across the parking lot she felt her pulse quicken, she began to sweat. She started to panic. In her mind she imagined violations galore and began to catastophize and soon found herself running to the door of the restaurant, in a state of extreme duress. She grabbed the door, threw it open, and fled into the bright lights.
From where she was in the restaurant she watched in horror as the two predators entered the restaurant, pulled down their hoodies and…
… they were ten or eleven year old boys who were completely oblivious to her presence.
One the primary characteristics of PTSD and trauma is something called ‘hyper-vigilance’.
That night in group we talked at length about her fear, born in trauma and pain. It was the beginning of a journey for her, one that takes far longer than people want to admit, filled with counseling and discomfort and setbacks. A journey to freedom. As we say in counseling – trauma trumps everything. What that means is that if you have experienced severe trauma that depression or anxiety you are feeling may not just be because you have situational issues right now that are bringing you down. You need to deal with your emotional trauma, before it ruins the rest of your life. It is a difficult journey but a necessary one. Get help. Talk to a counselor who understands trauma and doesn’t suck.
You’re worth it.
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Casual Friday – The Speedo
It starts with what Augustine calls “undeceiving ourselves”.
Recently we were at the West Edmonton Mall and there was one lone holdout to a grosser time. One man wearing a Speedo.
Men. If you read nothing else on this blog please hear this. If you wear a Speedo we need to be honest with you. It’s gross. It’s disgusting. It’s pretty much naked… and not in a good way. We can see your basket is full, no matter how small or impish. It’s time to let it go… to undeceive yourself.
You aren’t French. Let it go…
Many of us, myself included, have spent a lifetime learning to undeceive ourselves. Some of us grew up believing things would turn out differently. We believed in the fairytale ending that was promised, but not delivered.
I never talk publicly about my ex-wife, until today. We were together since I was fourteen and she was my god. I worshiped the ground she walked on and even today have difficulty thinking ill of her. I loved her to distraction. She had only one glaring flaw, she was completely closed off emotionally. People who knew her for years admitted they had no idea who she really was. She didn’t show emotions in public. She didn’t show emotions at home. By the time she ran away with one of my best friends I was a needy, pathetic, love-seeking man-boy. I kept the kids, the house, most of her clothes. She didn’t seem to want anything. Especially not me.
When she left I had no idea she had a problem, any problems for that matter. I assumed she was completely happy, I know I was. It didn’t seem to matter that I could be away on a speaking gig for a week and come home to someone who didn’t seem to realize I had been away. In my needy way I served and served, pathetically trying to be loved. When she finally left she wrote me a nine page letter. I believed every word of it.
I spent a great deal of time sorting myself out. I learned how dysfunctional I was. I had presumed I knew what my wife was thinking and feeling, but I was profoundly wrong. So I spent countless hours researching women – their emotions, their sexuality, their philosophies. I endeavored to become a student of the opposite sex. I went to counseling, with a very bad counselor. I tried to be mother and father to my boys. I learned to undeceive myself, it took years. By the time I met my someday-to-be wife I had sorted some things out. I continue to sort.
After more than a few years I am married again to a woman who reminds me everyday that I am loved and appreciated. I am no longer needy, although I deserve little credit. It is much easier to become healthy and whole when you have an amazing and brutally honest mate cheering you on. I believe profoundly that I need to share the message with women that not all men are pigs. Not all of us are emotionally unavailable. There are men who are willing to do whatever it takes to love you well, they just need to be taught. We are not dumb, we are simply not paper-trained. I also feel that there is a message for men. We were not raised to understand women, or each other for that matter. It’s time for men to suck it up, grow up, and live sacrificially.
The most important lessons are not learned in the classroom. The most important lessons are learned in pain.
I still believe in fairy tale endings. In real fairy tales, however, my tale is a little beaten up, more honest, and balder.
I still do not believe in Speedos.
He Probably Had It Coming…
Let me start out by saying I was raised to never hit a woman… ever. I think husbands and boyfriends who hit their spouses are pigs and cowards. Please do not write me and accuse me of treating the subject of violent men flippantly. Take a look at this blog and ask yourself if I let men off the hook too lightly.
Lately, however, I have been noticing an equally disturbing trend in domestic violence – wives/girlfriends beating their spouses.
I was commenting about this to someone recently and they immediately went on the offense. They started out by saying “he probably deserved it.” They went on to say further, “well what did he do to her?”
Seriously?
I find it intriguing that when I have been involved in domestic situations where a woman is battered those questions never come up. Ever. They are political suicide to ask, bordering on slander. Only a misogynistic douchebag would hint that a woman had it coming. Yet it seems perfectly acceptable to ask when the victim is a man.
I would have to admit that I hear of an alarming number of situations involving a battering wife/girlfriend. It’s shocking and something you never talk about. After all, what kind of man would complain? Is he a wimp? Surely she was protecting herself.
This is overt sexism and absolutely unacceptable. I have heard of men being hit with the car, beaten with cast iron, knives being thrown, kicked between the legs, faces slapped on a regular basis. I personally know several men who are afraid of their spouse, demoralized and emasculated. In counseling these men question their masculinity, even their sexuality. They cannot talk to any friends about this, for fear they will be belittled or accused of violence themselves. One man told me he feels “physically, emotionally, and sexually violated” by his wife. These same men were taught to never hit a woman and so complain that they have no defense against violence. They somehow have come to the conclusion that, in order to be a “real man”, they must take it and keep silent.
Recently I have also had clients who are in a lesbian relationship and feeling the sting of physical and emotional violence. They are also unsure of how to handle the situation. They have also struggled to be heard. Transgender people have long felt the sting as well. We all know about the abuse of gay men.
It is a horrible thing when relationships end in violence, and it is certainly no more acceptable for a woman to be physically violent than a man. I am seriously afraid that someday a man will retaliate after being struck by a female – then beat her up – charge her with assault – and win. This could open up the doors to rampant abuse and violence.
It’s time to stop the cycles of violence wherever they occur.
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If You Love Your Woman For God’s Sake Don’t Do Housework!
I heard on the radio that a recent study has found that women who do an average of 4 hours a day of housework have a 30% less likelihood of getting some kinds of cancer…. 30%. For God’s sake, if you love your woman, don’t do housework! If you really love her, leave stuff out, don’t pick up after yourself, use more dishes. Forget about being emotionally available, pee on the toilet seat!
We men have known for some time now that women should be doing all the housework. It was just a matter of time before science assured us that we have been selfless in our desire to help our women be all they can be. What man wouldn’t want his sweetheart to have a full and rich life? So show your love, let her do what obviously she was created to do! Science proves it! Don’t you love your girl enough to help her stay healthy!
Quit being selfish! Don’t do housework!
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