attitude – Page 13

Guest Blogger – My Dad on Death and Dying

Published on November 21, 2012November 21, 2012 by Scott Williams2 Comments

My dad was an orphan whose father fell off a skyscraper a few days before switching jobs. Howie was one year old. His mother died when he was eleven, after being hospitalized for over six months. Dad was not allowed to see her because of hospital policy. He lived for a time with his older brother and sister-in-law, but grew up on the streets. He worked to provide for himself since he was an adolescent and eventually joined the military. Growing up my dad never had only one job. I remember vividly how he would come home from the Air Force and change uniforms to go work at the Liquor Store, then later somewhere else. He was not content to stay poor and raised us in a middle-class family. He has never complained about his life.

This is his blog post:

Have you ever been emotionally stressed or disturbed about how other people provided an unhealthy influence about death and dying and it’s effect on you?

To share thoughts on such an a topic as this is a little dangerous. The subject touches on influences inherited from family upbringing, relationships, personal theological beliefs, and what you have or have not been taught.

Also in a day when it is no longer fashionable to share personal feelings which might offend anyone there is no easy solution. If you have such a topic to write about, however, then you must disregard opinion and be honest with yourself and the reader.

First I want to share my thoughts on “death” and specifically “funerals”, then finish I will finish off by sharing my thoughts on “dying”.

My grandparents were “old school – don’t let anyone know your personal affairs, children should be seen and not heard, and don’t ever read a newspaper on Sunday, as it is the Sabbath” types.

On Death-

When it comes to death I believe it is a time of transition for the person dying and the loved ones left behind. For a person of faith some people, myself included, feel it is a graduation to a higher realm in heaven. For the agnostic or atheist it depends on the individual. On earth it is a time when a former life can turn into a legacy to be cherished by loved ones……or sadly in a lot of cases mean nothing.

Funerals is when it gets complicated. I really thought, and I still do think, that my relatives ideas for funerals was sick, inconsiderate, and almost retarded, when there were grieving children left behind. Tradition and “we’ve always done it this way” reasoning sometimes are a curse when it comes to planning funerals Of course children have no say in what transpires at a funeral because no one puts themselves in the child’s place or family tradition rules.

This is where I apologize in advance if I am offending anyone when I say that

The controversial tradition of having to have an open coffin for funerals is barbaric. It is thoughtless and can be very traumatizing and have lifetime psychological effects, especially on a child. I speak from experience. This was the case in both my wife as a little girl of 11, losing a grandmother, and in my situation as a child of 11 losing my widowed mother. My wife has several times shared her deepest feelings on this, and to discuss them with me again 61 years later still bothers her because her memories of grandma are as a cold corpse in a coffin, not a loving grandmother.

In my own life my memories of many nights at a funeral viewing and a lengthy funeral where I was seated 10 feet from my mothers open casket left indelible scars on my memory. I am still get bothered by this over sixty years later. It was one thing to suffer from viewing a cold grey corpse but the tradition of having to kiss the corpse sent shudders up my spine when I had to do this. Family tradition be damned…I will never subject my loved ones to remember me as a cold grey pasty corpse. I have already told my older brother, who was my guardian, that I will not participate in this tradition when he passes on and he totally understands, however his wife simply must follow tradition.

For me I want people to remember a smiling, youthful, mischievous, old person who enjoyed life to the fullest, loved taking risks, and believed family was everything.

I also do not want my loved ones to inherit an administrative nightmare as my brother and I did by my mother letting a friend be executor and a relative being her lawyer. This was a recipe for disaster. Being only 11 when mom died the estate had to be put on hold with the Provincial Supreme Court until I was 21 years old. Over the ten years the Executor friend, the relative lawyer, and the Supreme Court, literally financially raped our estate of 75 % of the value.

My wife and I have good wills – a living one , and a dying one. Both my wife and my funeral arrangements are paid for. I have ensured a trust company and my oldest son be co-executors. Believe it or not, and a lot of people won’t believe it, it’s cheaper that way than having Uncle Charlie or whomever take care of everything (who as Executor legally is entitled to 3% of your estate ) even though they do not have the skill or experience. It can, in fact, be substantially more expensive to have a relative assigned.

People do not realize the mammoth amount of succession laws and tax implications there are to deal with. An executor who is ignorant of this can cost your loved ones extra heartaches and money. If some children have loans from parents which are unpaid this can cause stress among siblings if no one like a professional trust executor (who gets paid the same as Uncle Charlie) is handling the finances. Nothing causes problems, divisions, and hard feelings more than inheritance money mismanaged.

As far as my attitude about the act of dying——–I would hope my heavenly Maker would tend to agree with me when I say I have a good relationship with Him. After providing several miracles in my life, two involving almost certain death I know he knows my name. I am not afraid of dying and I have a contentment about after my death, however I really don’t want to rush the experience or suffer. The only grief I have about leaving this world is the effect on loved ones.

As a guy who likes white water canoeing, roller-coasters, and who believes that age is just a number I would finish by saying I have had a blessed life and it has been a wonderful ride.

Guest Blogging – Complex Grief (scott-williams.ca)

Imagine Me Naked

Published on November 20, 2012 by Scott Williams15 Comments

Some time ago I was cleaning up at the little club I used to run, in preparation for the evening’s events. I had been sweating, washing floors and hauling furniture. I usually bring a change of clothing. But not that day.

No one had come in for over an hour. I figured I was safe. With this in mind, behind the bar I proceeded to drop my pants in order to change into clean clothes. At that precise moment a lady walked in and asked for a latte.

Never before have I felt so close to the bar. In fact, we became one as I sought to prepare the latte without letting on that I was wearing no pants. Socks, shoes, shirt, but no pockets.

It reminds me of this bit by Seinfeld:
“Why is it so difficult and uncomfortable to be naked? It’s because when you have clothes on, you can always make those little adjustments that people love to do. Hitching, straightening, adjusting. You know, you feel like you’re getting it together. But when you’re naked, it’s so final. You’re just, ‘well this is it, there’s nothing else I can do.”
That’s why I like to wear a belt when I’m naked. It gives me something. I’d like to get pockets to hang off the belt. Wouldn’t that be the ultimate? To be naked and still be able to put your hands in your pockets. I think that would really help a lot…”

It may shock you to know that I have been in counselling. Maybe not. I once had a counsellor tell me I needed to stand in front of the mirror naked for one minute each day in order to get more comfortable with ‘me’. I told this to someone and they went “eeeew”… which did not help much.

So with all this rolling around in my noodle I continued to grind the beans, praying all the while that I would not have to move. So of course the lady blandly asked where the sugar was, it being at right angles to where I was hiding. I reluctantly told her and proceeded to push my torso inside the small floor fridge as she walked to the condiments.

As she left the club I followed her behind the bar, keeping my beautiful barrier between us until she naively walked out.

Imagine me naked. Ok, don’t. No one should have to see that. Most of us, myself included, are not in love with our naked selves. I tease my wife that she “secretly dresses me with her eyes”. One of my best friends, Jordon Cooper, says I have a “face for radio”. I am no longer as insecure about my looks as I once was, but can still testify that for most of us, physical appearance has a significant role in determining our self-esteem. My wife once pointed out to me that I was squinting while looking in the mirror at our bedroom sinks. I had no idea I was doing this but apparently was squinting in such a pronounced fashion that Annette thought my eyes were closed – a subconscious reaction to a psychological malady. Body image is a life-long issue for most of us.

A few years ago, again while naked, I had an epiphany. I realized in the shower one day that I had been berating myself all my life and was unwilling to move forward, heal, and stop the body dysmorphia. Like so many of us I wasn’t thinking about my body because I was overly proud or seeking to show it off, I was in fact transfixed on the negatives and unwilling to let the embarrassment go.

It has taken me far to long to realize that this is just a shell and no matter how hard I try or how much I whine I am only going to get older, saggier, less flexible, and probably balder. There is little, short of surgery, that I can do to arrest the passing of time.

A shell. Maybe a fat shell or a ridiculously thin shell, a hairy or bald shell, a saggy shell or a beautiful one, does it really matter? Isn’t it time that we stop letting plastic, Photoshopped, insecure skeletons or fake vampires with no nipples dictate how we feel about ourselves? It doesn’t really matter what you look like if you are healthy and can learn to like yourself. For some reason my wife thinks I am good-looking and that needs to be enough for me.

Even if she didn’t, I’m tired of jumping through hoops for a shell.

Listening To Your Critics

Published on November 20, 2012November 20, 2012 by Scott Williams7 Comments

I met Al in college. He was awkward, clumsy, ugly and small. His mannerisms labelled him – loser. He had a sharp wit but that didn’t seem to matter. Al was an outcast.

I’m not sure of the reasons but a few of us decided to use Al for an experiment. We had heard a speaker talk about loving the unlovely so we decided, with somewhat dubious motivation, to use Al as our guinea pig. A sows ear to a silk purse…

So in typical Pygmalion fashion we began to convince Al, and everyone around him, that he was a winner. We told him he was good looking. we had pretty girls flirt with him. At the college sporting event we started a cheer – “Al, Al, Al”. It wasn’t long before the entire stadium was yelling his name. He ate it up. He became our team mascot, then our school mascot; our own personal Gurgi (from The Chronicles of Prydain, if you haven’t read it to your kids, why not?).

Something started to happen.

It wasn’t long before Al began to look different to us. I wasn’t sure if it was his dress or his manner but he had changed, and continued to change. It wasn’t that he became more like the rest of us, more like society. Al became more “Al” like. He realized that in spite of the media, in spite of all his previous experience, he was obviously good-looking – everyone was telling him so. Apparently he had a good body as well. He was popular, though he probably didn’t understand why.

And Al started to blossom.

It wasn’t long before Al really was cool, very cool in fact. He was hilarious, witty, engaging, even gregarious. He started to approach girls. A few didn’t turn him down. At sporting events he ran the crowd. It wasn’t long before our little Pygmalion was indeed the most popular guy at the college.

Mental health professionals tell us that our self-image is largely determined by the attitudes of those closest to us. If our friends think we are ugly we soon believe them. If they think we are amazing then this too will define us. It is for this reason that I have always insisted that my boys are winners, beautiful, talented, and incredibly humble. just like their dad.

So many of us have been belittled by spouses or friends so long that we have come to believe we are ugly, or stupid, or unlovable. Some of us have been in abusive relationships with someone who reminded us, often in subtle ways, that we are losers. For some reason our self-esteem has been ruined. We no longer think of ourselves as winners, as valuable. We have lost our “Al-ness”. We have succumbed to the inner and outer voices that demean and negate. There are probably people in your life who find their self-esteem from making you feel like less. They need to hurt you to feel good about themselves.

And some of them are closer than we realize.

I have that inner voice that reminds me of my failures and has a list of the ways I fail to measure up. You probably don’t need to tell me my faults, I have a complete index of my mistakes, most of us do. It is easy, the older we grow, to forget that we once loved ourselves, were once allowed to share our “Al-ness” without ridicule. Most of us have become so fearful of sounding arrogant that we can barely remember how special we are, or at least were.

A little Al can go a long way. You just need someone to believe in you.

Stop listening to your critics, especially if that voice sounds an awful lot like yours…

One Of These Things Is Not Like The Others (scott-williams.ca)
Why Sarah Cuts. (The ugly side of low self-esteem) (dr-carol.com)

Ashamed To Be A Guy

Published on November 19, 2012November 19, 2012 by Scott Williams7 Comments

As a counselor I hear many many stories about people’s sex lives, or lack thereof. Most people, once trust is built are willing to talk about pretty much anything. I will hear the typical complaints – men who have not taken the time to to understand and fulfill their partner’s sexual needs. Men who have been “cut off” for no apparent reason and cannot comprehend what they are doing wrong. Women who have rarely or never had an orgasm and believe (usually incorrectly) that somehow this is their sexual or gynecological failing (also almost never true). I have written about, and will continue to write about, the need to address these issues, especially when female sexual fulfillment is involved. A shockingly high percentage of women in therapy, for example, have had few orgasms that they have not brought about themselves. Another topic I address frequently is the relatively low percentage of men who have any idea what is going on inside their partner’s head and the impact of the female thinking process on their capacity to engage in a meaningful sexual way.

One issue I love to talk about, as distressing as it is to admit, is the overwhelming selfishness of the male orgasm. Earlier this fall I mentioned a group I do for couples wherein I challenge the men in the room to abstain from “finishing” for at least a month or longer while they wholeheartedly concentrate exclusively on servicing and nurturing their partner. As men we are not trained to think like this. None of us have ever heard such heresy before. Not climaxing during sex in absolutely foreign to the vast majority of us, virtually every male I have ever met.

But every once in a while even I am still able to be shocked.

Someone I trust once told me a story of a couple where the husband “needed” sex every day of their marriage. Every day. Pig. After the birth of their child it was, while she was still in the hospital recovering from a natural child-birth, and probably an episiotomy to boot, that he crawled up to satiate himself. What a sick bastard. What abuse. That man did not truly love his wife, and if you think I am being judgmental then so be it. That is not a real man, that is a sexual violator who has chained his wife to a bondage of sexual abuse from which she may never recover.

Men don’t need sex every day. They may want it but such a belief or custom is the sure sign of an emotionally shunted, selfish post-adolescent, with little or no self-control and even less respect for the woman he has dominated. He knows nothing about satisfying a woman, nothing about understanding female sexuality, and makes me so angry I would love to kick him in the balls until the abuse ends.

And that is my clinical therapeutic assessment.

Weekend Musings – There Are Victims And Then There Are Victims

Published on November 17, 2012November 17, 2012 by Scott Williams13 Comments

“A benchmark of emotional management and responsibility is the realization that our past can no longer be blamed for our actions in the present.“
Doc Childe and Howard Martin

Every day I work with people who are victims, real or imagined. They grew up in a bad home, someone has rejected them, the white man has dragged them down, people have taken advantage of them, they have been abused, raped, abandoned, the list is endless. There is no shortage of people to blame.

Usually the client or person I am talking to has legitimate issues. They are dealing with things that most people can barely imagine. They are trying, the best they know how, to find some anchor in a life that has been beyond their control. Many patients I have spoken with have gone through horror stories and are endeavouring to move forward. They are the reason I get up in the morning and go to work excited. They are my heroes.

Others are looking for something to pin their pain on. They cannot see any personal responsibility, they will not own their own complicity. They sit and we talk and it is always someone else’s fault. Often they have legitimate complaints but they wear their victimization like a crown and filter everything through with a pre-disposed diagnosis. This week I met with a young man who told me that the reason he could not pass in school was because generations ago people oppressed him. I reminded him that he was not in fact alive a couple hundred years ago and though he has had to suffer historic abuse and that has undoubtedly profoundly affected his life, perhaps the reasons he is failing in school have more to do with the fact that he is skipping and spending his considerable income on crack. He called me a bigot.

I come from generations of alcoholics and the pragmatically poor. My dad was an orphan whose father fell from a skyscraper during his last week of work before going to a new job. His mother died when he was 12. He completed grade 9 in school. He had no social safety net, no social worker looking out for him, no strong family to provide for him, no one to blame. So he didn’t.

Years later my father would stand before the Governor General of Canada and receive the military equivalent of the Order of Canada, our highest civilian honor. He had, in fact, finally finished his high school equivalency in his forties. He had worked his butt off to make something of a shunted life. He is my son’s hero. Wednesday he will be our guest blogger.

Every now and again I will have occasion to feel sorry for myself. Maybe things aren’t going smoothly or my friends have nicer houses or boats. Sometimes I wish I had a family with money and a house on a lake. But then I remember how fortunate I am to come from a heritage that simply would not give up.

As i sit here writing this it just hit me, I have never heard my dad complain about his lot in life. Ever.
Wow.

“People spend too much time finding other people to blame, too much energy finding excuses for not being what they are capable of being, and not enough energy putting themselves on the line, growing out of the past, and getting on with their lives.”
J. Michael Straczynski

Casual Fridays – Lessons From Life

Published on November 16, 2012November 16, 2012 by Scott Williams9 Comments

“Children have never been very good at listening to their elders, but they have never failed to imitate them.” ~ James Baldwin

I did not really grow up in a strictly religious home. My grandparents were alcoholics and they taught me different lessons than you would probably learn at “Johnny Church Member’s” grandmother’s house. By the age of eight or nine I knew how to play Bridge, Texas Holdem, Blackjack, Craps, 21, 31, 333, Follow The Queen, Stud, Baseball, Woolworths, and various other derivations of many poker games. I learned that you had to be at least thirteen before you can sneak beer from the basement. I learned that everyone drank, that only certain types of beer, always Canadian beer, did not taste like “panther piss”. I also learned that children didn’t matter. I learned that mouthy little kids like me were to be “seen and not heard”. I learned that drunkenness was a daily thing, not a special holiday activity. I learned how to swear. To this day I can pack more empties in the trunk of a Ford Fairlane than anyone I know.

My grandmother was a poor gambler but didn’t know it. She thought she was an excellent player and indeed seemed to be so to an eight-year-old child. She understood the fundamentals of the game and would beat me every time we played. She would usually take my allowance. It was a very tender family.

By the time I was eleven or twelve, however, I began to win. Eventually two things dawned on me: First, she wasn’t that good. Second, she had taken a great deal of my boyhood money and it was time for her to go down. Somehow I convinced her that we should play for higher stakes and I began the carnage. Slowly, relentlessly, I drove her into the ground.

I looked at my grandmother. This was the person who had taught me how to play. She was the woman who had raised my mother. She was an old lady on a pension, and I took her for everything in her account. At eleven years of age I damaged her financially. I watched her sign a cheque in defeat. It was for hundreds of dollars. Did I feel guilty?

I remember thinking at the time, “this is the greatest day of my life”.

As I look back I wonder why I did not feel any remorse. My grandmother was not a nice person. She did not know how to express love, and one could argue she felt little as well. She was a bitter, angry little alcoholic who would later disown me because I won an argument, and not even an important one. When she found out I was engaged she commented, “I don’t know the woman but she must be a slut to marry him.”

I learned a great deal from my grandmother. I learned that family is not that important. I learned that it is easy to lie to cover up addiction, that beer was consumed before lunch for ‘medicinal’ reasons. I learned that bitterness worked. I learned that I didn’t matter. I learned that love was conditional.

As I ponder that part of my life, and the subsequent apathy I felt when she died, I realize that I, on occasion, feel ripped off. I did not have grandparents that I could love and cherish. My father was an orphan. The grandparents I had were not nice people.

I look at the grandparents that my children have and I’m thankful for all four of them. They each have brought something unique and wonderful to the table. My children love them all dearly. When the boy’s papa died last year I was saddened and thankful for his life and his legacy. I am jealous of the relationship my sons still have with their remaining grandpa and grandmothers.

And thankful. Very very thankful.

p.s. – next Wednesday my father will be joining us as our weekly guest blogger!

Entitlement – What The Hell Is Wrong With Us?

Published on November 15, 2012November 15, 2012 by Scott Williams13 Comments

CTV News released the new figures on consumer debt in Canada yesterday. In the report the writer points out that in the past five years, debt loads have increased 400 per cent more than the rate of inflation. “Debt’s outpacing us and continues to outpace us, so at some point in time there’s going to be a reconciliation,” Higgins said.

Entitlement

It is a word we are all familiar with. An epidemic of our own making. At least in North America we have spawned the most coddled generation ever known, and they are demanding Smart Phones and iPads and texting plans. Turn on the television and you can watch twenty-somethings argue that the new house they are contemplating buying does not have granite counter tops or ten-foot ceilings. Couples think nothing of spending thousands in credit on vacations they have not worked for. There is a pervading sense of entitlement, that we have somehow earned a lavish lifestyle built on credit payments.

The deeper issue here may just be an ingrained selfishness, combined with an unrealistic expectation of life. We assume we are going to have money and credit companies keep trying to prove us right. I have patients in their early twenties who are $60-70,000 in debt with little or nothing to show for it. This is consumer debt, usually at 19% interest or worse.

And it is not just the teens who are feeling the need for greed and self-indulgence. It is little wonder that my fifteen year old feels abused by life because he does not have an iPhone. His friend’s parents apparently have unlimited access to funds, in spite of the fact that they are single parents with multiple credit cards. Matt’s buddies have extensive and expensive phone plans with unlimited data. These kids feel hard done by if their parents do not pay for their $50/week paintball addiction or do not give them rides wherever they want and whenever they want. These same teens insist their parents buy them cars and trucks while they are still in their teens… and they usually get them. What the hell is wrong with us? Are we so guilt-laden from our divorce? So afraid of our children missing out? Are we so insecure that we need our child’s approval, or so desperate to be cool that we are willing to sell out a fundamental tenet of good parenting?

We are the problem.

I routinely ask my clients to watch shoes like Til Debt Do Us Part or Princess, both with the same host. While I would never tell a client to watch Dr. Phil or Oprah, I am convinced that Gail helps people deal with the reality of debt and financial bondage. The problem is, however, that the issue is actually a psychological and emotional issue as much as it is a financial one. What is it about us that we believe we are entitled to trips and toys and two hundred-dollar haircuts, handbags worth thousands and weekly trips to the spa?

And let’s be honest, reality television is not helping – rich, arrogant, young and beautiful people who have been surgically enhanced flaunting their money and low IQ’s so that our children can learn that they deserve the best and should dedicate their lives to things that do not matter.

Christmas is coming and the urge to spend what we do not have to impress our children and friends can be overwhelming. Commercials push and prod with amazing tenacity and we are all tempted to spend more than we budget. What are we hoping to accomplish? Do we realize the message we continue to send to our family when we indulge in such technological hedonism with little regard to the psychological ramifications of what we are preaching?

The issue is not neutral, but profound and important. I cannot help but feeling that we have sold our souls for a stupid phone.

Debt loads grow at fastest pace in 2 years (cbc.ca)
Canadian debt load grew at fastest pace in two years: report (metronews.ca)
Guest Blogger – “Living With A Narcissist” (scott-williams.ca)

Cheesy Counselling Stuff That Works

Published on November 12, 2012March 18, 2014 by Scott Williams13 Comments

Like most counsellors I have tried many ‘techniques’ in my years to order to help individuals deal with a panacea of mental health issues. I remember studying psychology in university and learning about the importance of clinical integrity, the need for evidence-based best practices, the importance of double-blind studies. I love to learn and enjoyed/enjoy learning about neuropsychology, serotonin, beta waves, the amygdala, freudian theories, behaviorism, etc. etc. etc. I still endeavour to learn something every day, if I can, and realize that my understanding and incorporation of therapeutic principles continues to grow (and hopefully mature). As I have said to my children, “I used to know everything, when I was your age.” The older I get and the more I study the less I seem to know. The world of knowledge continues to expand, and I realize now how little I understand.

Many years ago I would pride myself on my education and knowledge. Like all younger people I believed sincerely that though we are all equals, some of us were a little more equal. Helping people learn concepts, and apply them to life with success, can produce a heady sense of “humble” arrogance. It becomes easy to believe Nietzsche that people are the ‘herd’ or sheep, and you are a shepherd. I no longer believe that. I once would pride myself on my ability to impress people with knowledge and insight, now I am just humbled that people would come to see me.

There has also been a gradual, yet profound, change in what I teach people. For some reason very few of my clients care about my profound psychological storehouse of information (if I had one). They are less interested in my dazzling intellect than they are in what works. Many of them have been in therapy before, with varied results. They are tired of sitting across the desk from a psychiatrist who does not offer any insights but merely reflects their thoughts back to them. They are tired of hearing, “so what do you think?”

I have become a pragmatist. There I said it. I no longer laugh at neuropathy, or acupuncture, or breathing exercises. For some reason I had this ridiculous notion that people only needed to get smarter to get better. I was an idiot. I have come to realize that methodology is not as important, as Scott Miller suggests, as the relationship I have with my clients. Helping people find change and relief has become a great deal more important than my personal need to look good and sound smart.

These days I realize the power of things like STOPP Therapy, dealing with cognitive distortions, self talk exercises, realistic affirmations, and breathing techniques. I am reading a book on meridian tapping (EFT) and, in spite of the part of my brain that wants to yell “bullshit” I know that things like EMDR and acupressure really seem to help people. I’ve even known people who use primal screaming or laughing therapy and swear by it. I may be a little too Canadian for that, but if it works, mazel tov. I am in this world to help people and am now convinced I would stand on my head and spit nickels if I was convinced it worked.

When I introduce such concepts, however, I almost always begin by backpedaling. I know I am doing it, I know I should not do it, but on some level I’m embarrassed. Embarrassed that you have come to a counselor who you expect to give you brilliance and instead I’m about to teach you something a grade five could. I’m about to teach you something that you could google – in fact the information I am going to give you I just stole from a website that I used ‘White Out’ to hide the address so you won’t know I get much of my stuff off the internet.

I went to school for years, learned philosophies in their original language, studied with brilliant professors, and have thousands of hours of counseling experience; now here is something I read in Reader’s Digest, please pay the MOA on your way out.

Living My Life To Impress A Five Year Old (scott-williams.ca)
New Treatments Improve PTSD Prognosis (everydayhealth.com)
Depression: How To Feel Like A Loser (scott-williams.ca)
Lies We Tell Ourselves #3 – He Is Perfect For Me. It Was Meant To Be! (scott-williams.ca)

Casual Friday: Does Anybody Out There Know Who I Am?

Published on November 9, 2012November 9, 2012 by Scott Williams9 Comments

Tony Campolo tells a story in one of his books about something that happened after World War II. There were more than 200 Frenchmen who returned to Paris suffering from amnesia. They had been in prison camps and were so psychologically devastated by their ordeal that they had lost the conscious awareness of who they were.

In most cases, their identities were quickly established, but after all that was done, there were still 32 men whose identities couldn’t be verified. The doctors who were treating them were convinced that their chances for recovery were slim unless they were connected with former friends and relatives and restored to their once-familiar settings.

Someone had an idea to help. They published photographs of the men on the front page of newspapers throughout the country, and gave a date and time when anyone having information about any of these amnesia victims could come to the Paris Opera House. Well, on the appointed day, a crowd gathered to view these war veterans who didn’t know who they were. In a dramatic moment, the first of the amnesia victims walked onto the stage of the darkened opera house, stood alone in the spotlight, and slowly turned completely around. Before the hushed audience, in a halting voice, he said to the crowd, “Does anybody out there know who I am?”

It is a profound question.

I mentioned on this blog that recently I had a Grand Mal seizure at work. Fortunately I work at a doctor’s office and two of the best doctors I have ever met were on the scene within seconds. At least that is what I was told. I don’t remember any of it. Apparently I also became physically violent at one point as well, although I wasn’t there to see it.

It is a scary thing to wake up on a gurney and not know what is happening. It is very similar to waking up from an operation with that foggy pseudo-understanding that something has happened and you should know what that is. You understand, on some level, that you shouldn’t be in an ambulance – it’s a work day. It gradually dawns on you that you don’t know where you are or for that matter, who you are.

I could not remember where I lived.

It is a bizarre thing to realize you do not know who you are.

Many of us spend our entire lives trying to find out who we are. We jump through hoops and do things hoping to be loved, only to find out that we have lost a sense of ourselves. We grew up believing we were going to be rock stars and multi-millionaires, at the very least healthy, wealthy and wise, but we aren’t, and we may not get there anytime soon. It is easy to build your identity on the wrong things, trying to impress the wrong people for the wrong reasons. It is no wonder than that so many of us have come to the conclusion that the real world is boring and life has little meaning unless we find it from within.

The older I get the more I realize that life does not hand you meaning, you have to grab it for yourself. The paltry drive to acquire more money and status is so entirely meaningless yet enticing. How many rock stars and celebrities have to kill themselves or end up in rehab before we as a people stop spending our lives wishing for something that does not heal our souls?

So who are you? As Billy Crystal says in the immortal Princess Bride, “Hey! Hello in there! Hey! What’s so important? Whatcha got here, that’s worth living for?”

Casual Friday – Stampy The Elephant (scott-williams.ca)
Beating Anxiety And Depression Is Possible, But It May Be More Work Than You Are Prepared To Do (scott-williams.ca)

Why Most Radical Change Is Bogus

Published on November 6, 2012November 15, 2012 by Scott Williams13 Comments

Have you ever promised yourself that you would get in shape? Ever made a new Year’s Resolution that you couldn’t keep? Have you ever tried to make a radical change in your life? Ever been on a crash diet?

Don’t even bother. The likelihood that radical change will last is so low that if I showed you the statistics on dieting you would order a pizza. Real change rarely happens all at once, and when it does it is almost always because you have been trying and fretting and hoping and failing at it for so long that you are ready. You hurt so much and for so long that you have to change.

With few exceptions the majority of us wildly overestimate our ability to make significant change over a short period of time. Real change is incredibly hard and ordinarily demands months and years of work. Most of us do not get healed over night. I am not denigrating those of you who may claim supernatural relief but for most of us God does not choose to deliver us from our ADHD, or our abuse, or our mental issues. The vast majority of us can not claim fire from heaven, or legs regrown, or our malignant tumor disappearing. For some reason we must do it for ourselves or it isn’t going to get done.

We all want monumental change and we want it yesterday. Unfortunately, however, change that dramatic is often artificial and impossible to maintain. Ask any spouse who has decided to call it quits only to be bombarded by promises from their estranged spouse that, in spite of nothing happening for decades, they have totally changed overnight.

I also believe in the tooth fairy.

As a counselor I regularly meet clients who brag that they are radically redefining themselves virtually overnight. In just a few days they have stopped smoking, started working out, become a vegetarian, stopped self-medicating, got religion, and are going to become a counselor. In my business we call this a “red flag”. Such change rarely lasts. These people have the best of intentions and are incredibly dedicated, almost too dedicated. They have not considered the cost, or the fact that real change must be long-lasting. Authentic growth requires an alteration in lifestyle and the development of new coping mechanisms. In order for growth to become permanent you need to fundamentally change the way you think.

Most of us have tried for years to ‘fix’ our lives. We have tried everything and usually failed. That’s perfectly fine. Most of us, myself included, have tried to do the best we could with the wisdom and coping skills we had. We were told by people who should know that this quick fix, that power diet, that ridiculous philosophy or flavor of the week guru would magically give us what we have so desired and sought in vain for so long. We have been so desperate that we were willing to try anything, no matter how preposterous.

Unfortunately your good intentions are meaningless. Don’t tell me what you can do, show me what you will do. If you are willing to spend significantly more time and effort than you first imagined, if you are willing to be humbled, challenged, and question your childhood beliefs, your coping skills, your thinking, and the bullshit you so firmly believe to be true – than authentic and lasting change is not only possible, it’s probable.

In the coming year I hope to share with my subscribers my course entitled, “Change your life 52% in one year”. It is about 1% solutions, small but lasting change – one step at a time. That is how change happens, little by little, day by day, month by month. Anything else is probably not real.

Don’t give up. Make small changes and stick with them. Talk to a counselor that doesn’t suck. Challenge your cognitive distortions and when you hear about the newest fad that is guaranteed to work – set your crap detector on stun. You’ve had enough disappointment.

You’re worth it.

6 Things You Need To Know About Changing Your Life (scott-williams.ca)
Living My Life To Impress A Five Year Old (scott-williams.ca)
Depression: How To Feel Like A Loser (scott-williams.ca)
Beating Anxiety And Depression Is Possible, But It May Be More Work Than You Are Prepared To Do (scott-williams.ca)

6 Things You Need To Know About Changing Your Life

Published on November 4, 2012November 4, 2012 by Scott Williams7 Comments

Clients tell me I am fond of telling them anxiety, depression, and other mental issues are not necessarily terminal illnesses. The other side of the coin, unfortunately, is that change is much harder than most people realize and takes a lot more time than most people are willing to invest. We all want to be better, stronger, more in charge, wiser, smarter, all together. We want it yesterday. We want the magic pill. As a counselor I am often frustrated by the lack of authentic commitment to change some clients have. If it doesn’t happen in a few months it is easy to become discouraged and ultimately go back to misery. Real change is hard.

Here’s a few thoughts I came across recently that people need to consider if they want to move forward:

1. To change, to become different, you must need to change; you must have sought change for a very long time. A whim, a stretch of bad luck, a passing desire, is not enough. You have to know precisely what you need to change. And you must also know what you’re willing to give – or give up – for it.

2. Glimpses of consciousness come at exceptional moments and are rare – for much of life, we remember only bits of things, moments at best. When you were a small child, you had all kinds of experiences: you learned your first words, you took your first step, but you don’t remember those moments. Yet you can take for granted that they happened. These moments, as dramatic but unmeasurable, take place every day.

3. There’s enough going on in any one hour, let alone any one day, to occupy your senses and your imagination and keep you from asking the bigger questions. For some that’s enough; they stay where they are and that is a happy ending. Getting to the end of each hour and each day is a sufficient accomplishment for them. But for others it’s like living in one room of a ten room house with the curtains drawn: for some of us, such self-limitation is a small, slow death.

4. Some parts of our lives leave only a trace while some cut a swath through our essential selves; you must decide which this is and act as you need to act. Ask your later self: what do you think I should do? Listen carefully. Your later self will answer and will tell you the hard truth.

5. With good change comes triumph: the realization you’ve been drinking skim milk all you life and suddenly taste cream. You’ve been living in the straw house and finally move into the brick one where the wolf can’t get at you. Nothing is more terrifying than hope. It’s an investment: you always run the risk of losing it entirely. But it’s useless to hang on to it and pretend it isn’t there. And if you believe in something that turns out not to be true, you think, there will be nothing so terrible as finding that out. Just because you’ve become tired of emotion, or outgrown it, doesn’t mean it’ll be simple to free yourself from it. It must be dismantled, not ignored.

6. So change. You know you have to make your life different from what it is; you know you must not stay where you are unless you are willing to risk misery to yourself and to others who love you; you know you have the courage to do it if only you can rid yourself of the weight of the judgment of others. Your integrity must outweigh their censure and your dignity and fierce love of life must triumph over their most well-intentioned needs to keep you fastened to an existence that is no longer your destiny.
by Gina Barreca

6 Things You Need To Know About Changing Your Life (psychologytoday.com)
Living With A Perfectionist… Good Luck! (scott-williams.ca)

The Biggest Complaint I Get About Men, Hands Down!

Published on November 2, 2012November 21, 2012 by Scott Williams19 Comments

Many men are not emotionally available. We have discussed this in previous posts, see below. I get that. Many of us do. What I am learning lately, however, is how incredibly important emotional connection is. It is becoming abundantly clear to me that most couples who have been together for years and years do not seem to connect anymore on a deeply, friendly, and intimate level. It’s not something abusive or intentional, it just happens. You have seen the other person naked a thousand times (hopefully), know all their habits, and those special little character traits have become annoyances. You find that you cannot connect like you did when you were dating. If you were perfectly honest you would probably have to admit that this person is no longer your real best friend.

You love your partner, but the “spark” is gone.

I am firmly convinced that the spark is emotional, not physical or sexual.

Although not uniquely a gender issue, it is women who will usually tell me they long for an emotional connection that has died. This is primarily for two reasons:

Most of my clients/patients are female. By far the vast majority. This has been the case for so long that I tend to identify better with women emotionally than men. My redneck, Scottish ancestors would be so proud.
Woman are typically vastly more in touch with their emotions. In fairness, however, I was never really taught to connect on an emotional level. My generation of males did not grow up to value emotional vulnerability. We work out our issues alone. We have caves. I grew up believing that emotionally sensitive guys were barely guys at all. Clint Eastwood did not cry after beating someone up when I was a kid. He wasn’t in The Bridges of Madison County yet, he was still doing spaghetti westerns. I grew up wanting to shoot people, not cuddle. On the other hand I watch females engage naturally, automatically share emotionally, and tune in to another’s emotions almost flawlessly. Where did they teach this?

As a counselor who has had hundreds of great female teachers I have observed that men (I will generalize from here on in so please excuse) generally are not emotionally mature and rarely, unless they get paid to do this kind of stuff, learn emotional wisdom. Men have not traditionally valued emotional connection, post-marriage. We are excellent chameleons who can flawlessly invest ourselves emotionally when romantically infatuated; but it is another thing altogether to expect us to “share our feelings” after we have become relationally comfortable (lazy). Talking to you about your feelings, or worse, my feelings, requires an actual effort for men – I kid you not. Seriously. Really.

It is no wonder than that men, once the gloss of the romance has tarnished, subconsciously assume that they can go back to life as it has been their entire life (the media has not helped in this regard. Men over thirty are still portrayed in sitcoms and movies as emotional neandrathals who have to be mothered and nagged to do anything relational. The emotionally sensitive male is almost always the gay guy or the metrosexual twenty-four year old who gets physically manhandled by every female. Notice the message this sends to men).

The women I speak to tell me that they are willing to put up with just about anything, short of infidelity. The one thing they say they need the most though, and the one thing men generally give the least, is emotional connection. It’s an epidemic in my counseling world. It is the single most problematic issue women talk to this counselor about, hands down. Maybe it is just a big issue on the left coast of Canada, but I sincerely doubt it.

It is easy to take shots at men, we are used to being told we are the weaker, stupider, insensitive, uncoordinated gender by the popular media. The truth is, however, perhaps quite different. We have different skills, important ones, that we caught or were taught. Men are not stupid. Women are not smarter than men, it’s simply not true. The research is overwhelming conclusive in this regard. What is true, I am convinced, is that women are emotionally smarter than men. This problem is compounded by the unfortunate fact that most men don’t even realize there is a problem. They don’t believe they are emotionally unavailable as much as they think that women and effeminate men are too emotional.

And for many many men, that is the same as weakness. Suck it up and be a man.

So why do I keep writing about this topic? I am convinced that the solution is not more belittling or denigrating. Telling men they are stupid, or shallow, or insensitive, is only going to further the problem and polarize the combatants. It is my dream that men who read articles like this will wake up to the fact that it isn’t penis size, or earning potential, or even looks that my clients are looking for. They are looking for understanding, connection, and they want their best friend back.

If you are a woman reading this, please teach your guy. He doesn’t mean to be a caveman, most of us have never seriously considered the importance of emotional connection. We hear you talking, but we can’t hear it if it isn’t presented in guy-speak, by someone who is humble and willing to butter us up a bit. Sorry, but that is the truth.

The Myth of the Strong Silent Type (or Never Date Someone Who Is Emotionally Unavailable) (scott-williams.ca)
Prince Charming? (scott-williams.ca)
How To Pick Up Vulnerable Women (scott-williams.ca)
Dating the Bad Boy (scott-williams.ca)

Guest Blogger – Rule of Stupid on Self Blame

Published on November 1, 2012November 1, 2012 by Scott Williams21 Comments

Today’s guest is Rule of Stupid, an amazingly honest, fearless blog with the best header picture I have seen. Check him out!

Scott has kindly invited me to write a post for his blog. The invite came from a post Scott wrote, and in particular a phrase he used about fears we have – “if people really knew us, if we really acted in an authentic way, that no one would like us”. The phrase “if you really knew me you’d hate me” haunted me for years and I’m going to try to share some of my story in the hope it might help any readers.

I had a troubled time growing up. My mother was dysfunctional, my father had left when I was a baby and we were poor. When my mother re-married it was to a dark and brooding man who brought a lot of pain and abuse.

The trouble is, when parents inflict trauma on a child the child has to cope, but doesn’t have any coping strategies. Every message, biological and cultural, tells the child that parents look after them, and that parents are, to all intents and purposes, God – all powerful and always right.

So when parents bring pain, the easiest way to make sense of this is to put the blame on the self. “Parents are good, but they hurt me, so I must be bad.” This is the coping strategy that often results from bad parents.

Sadly, a strategy that pays off so young is incredibly hard to shake. In fact the strategy soon becomes invisible – we don’t even know we are doing it – so it just becomes the norm. We then grow up with a permanent sense that everything bad that happens is somehow our fault.

This is the origin of the all to common “if you knew me you’d hate me” mantra. The self-blame has morphed into a blame that pre-empts our mistakes – it is now a general attitude to ourselves.

Another tragedy is that the belief can create the reality. If we think we are rubbish we will shy away from making friends – then our loneliness will increase our sense that we are rubbish. On the flip-side, we can horribly over-compensate and become brash and insensitive – “people won’t like me anyway, so I won’t care about them either!”

We come to operate in so many ineffective ways that our lives can become one big, self-fulfilling prophecy of loneliness and misery.

So how did I get out?

First, I have to say it took years, and I can’t write a fifty-page post. Instead I’m going to try and summarize the most helpful thing for me.

Love.

For me the love that saved me was my wife. For others I know, however, it has been love of music, a friend, writing – the object doesn’t matter. What matters is that we find something outside ourself that we want so bad we’d do anything for it. Even be ourselves!

When I first picked up a guitar I fell in love, and I remain in love today. I loved music so much that I played in front of others. I discovered that I could confess to them in song, both showing myself and still hiding myself behind the safety of the phrase ‘it’s just a song’. While still terrified of the world my passion for music saw me take to the stage. I learned to talk between songs and found parts of myself that people liked.

For a while I was a musical clown, creative and funny, and I enjoyed it. Then I met my wife – and she wanted more than a funny guitarist. I couldn’t hide behind a mic any more.

But again, I loved her enough to try, to risk, to dare. I slowly, painfully revealed more and more of myself, and as I showed myself to her, so it became natural to show those things to others.

No-one has ever rejected me for my honesty. My friendships have only ever grown stronger.

I once believed many things that are not true. One was that everybody else had it sussed out except me. They didn’t. Everyone struggles.

A second was that once I had it figured out, things wouldn’t hurt any more. They will. Pain is part of life for everyone – but so is pleasure. Hide from pain and you lose pleasure too.

Another was that there was some magic trick, some arcane knowledge or potion, some secret that would make me alright, take away the pain, give me confidence. There isn’t one.

But that isn’t bad news – it’s the best news you can have – because if there’s no secret, no hidden magic, then healing is available for everyone. And it really is!

So here’s the bad news.

It’s going to hurt.

My wife and I argued. I went through some very dark depression. We struggled and we hurt – but we kept going, thank God. That’s the only secret – if it’s even a secret – that you keep going.

Breaking the belief that we are ugly inside, shameful or that people will hate us is both the easiest thing and the hardest thing in the world. There is only one way, and that is to find out – to show yourself, to dare, to risk. It is scary, it is painful, but it is also beautiful, liberating and like slowly seeing in colour for the first time.

More than anything I can say with absolute confidence, with the knowledge of experience, that the pain of facing the fear is less than the pain of suffering under the fear without end.

You are not china, you are not fragile – you have survived everything so far, you have survived what gave you this pain! You can survive being the real you and when you do you will rejoice in it.

Coming Tomorrow: The Biggest Complaint I Get About Men, Hands Down!

I Wanted To Change The World

Published on October 31, 2012October 31, 2012 by Scott Williams14 Comments

I remember when I was 14 trying to smoke. My buddy Brent and I stole a pack of cigarettes from my mother and went off to smoke them in hiding, in case the smoking police caught us and told our parents. It was very urbane, we lit up and started to suck. We were coo, for about a second until the smoke reached my lungs and my body went, “not in here!”. I felt like I’d been hit in the chest by a baseball bat. We both hacked and barked and I almost barfed, and after about 30 seconds it calmed down and I looked at Brent and said, “Pretty smooth huh?” (I’d seen that on a commercial). I think Brent was going into cardiac arrest.

We worked away at that vile thing, hacking and gagging and my eyes were tearing up and flushed and my throat felt as though I’d been eating the sidewalk. But we were looking cool. That was until I turned green on the way home, and threw up on my bike, and drove into a ditch, and hit my head on my steering wheel, and threw up again all over my pants, and kind of passed out for a bit on the road to the air force base.

But it was a small price to pay for cool, right. And after a few dozen I didn’t get sick anymore and I was set. Course I couldn’t play sports much anymore and I stunk and it took my dad about 3 minutes to catch me and apply the hand of justice to the backside of reproach. But I was cool. I belonged and I was better than other losers who couldn’t handle their smoke.
A lot of us pridefully try to fit in, in order to be someone.

You never get a second chance to make a first impression… so they say…
As a result many of us are hungry to impress other people.
We want so bad to make a splash. Just look at the Academy Awards. It has become a contest to see who can wear the most outrageous outfit, people dressing up like birds for heaven’s sake.
Why? To stick out in the crowd, to be noticed and admired. “Love me- hate me, just don’t ignore me.

Many of us feel we have marginal personalities. We wonder if we will ever fit in, especially when we look around at those who seem to fit in far better. It leads us to perform. We are great performers, you and I. We have pretended to be many things, many different people. We have learned to fit in, to say the right things and impress the right people. Many begin to rationalize any behavior that will allow them to look successful or healthy. We lie. Though we are supposed to be adults, no longer tossed to and fro by peer pressure, the fact remains that we are all still trying to fit in, to be loved, to be adored.

I have tried to find my identity in many places, and many of those places were destructive. Girls crave love and attention so much that they settle for anything that even resembles it, mainly from guys looking for only one thing. Guys crave status and respect and when they cannot find it they are fooled by its illusion in pornography and casual sex. Lonely people longing for approval fall into the world of drugs and alcohol, and insecure people strive to get to the top, only to find their identity lost when they finish second. It is the reason for the latest trend whereby young girls of twelve or thirteen give blow jobs out as free gifts at house parties and school dances.In each case, people are looking for love and acceptance, identity; for the fulfilled life. They long to rise about their own mediocrity and worthlessness and soar like the eagle; but instead they wind up more confused as to who they are, and where they fit into the world. We have all felt the shame of insignificance, and left wondering if life is even worth it. We have all dreamed of being a ‘someone’, of being loved and adored. We have all longed to be special.

And if the truth were told many of us are convinced, beyond a shadow of a doubt, that if people really knew us, if we really acted in an authentic way, that no one would like us. I once heard a speaker say, “If you really knew me, you wouldn’t come to hear me speak. But that’s ok, because if I really knew you I wouldn’t talk to you!”

That’s our greatest fear, isn’t it? If I let you inside, if you knew that even though I get paid to be mature, be wise, be profound, say smart things, if you really knew what a screw-up I am, could you still care for me? Could you love me if you knew how ordinary I was, how black my thoughts can be, how insecure I am, how convinced I am that I am ugly? I’m a great person until you get to know me. How can I believe that someone could think I was special, love me for who I am, without any of my masks, if I can’t even learn to like myself?

The older I get the more convinced I am that this is the greatest and most difficult journey we will ever take – the road to self acceptance. As the monk once said, “When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world. Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself.”

I still want to change the world but maybe I need to start closer to home.

When I was a young man, I wanted to change the world.
I found it was difficult to change the world, so I tried to change my nation.
When I found I couldn’t change the nation, I began to focus on my town.
I couldn’t change the town and as an older man, I tried to change my family.
Now, as an old man, I realize the only thing I can change is myself, and suddenly I realize that if long ago I had changed myself, I could have made an impact on my family. My family and I could have made an impact on our town. Their impact could have changed the nation and I could indeed have changed the world.

Author: Unknown Monk 1100 A.D.

The Body Image Revolution: How one image started the conversation

Published on October 28, 2012October 28, 2012 by Scott Williams15 Comments

Something revolutionary happened this week. A woman posted a photograph of herself in her underwear on the Internet. Although there are thousands of pictures of women in their underwear on-line (and in magazines, catalogs, television, billboards, etc…), this picture was different. It was different because this woman is fat (not my word).

Stella Boonshoft is an 18 year-old student at New York University and she loves her body. She is proud of her body and she wanted to use her body as an agent of change. She struggled with hating her body for much of her life. She was bullied and tormented as a child and adolescent. And she learned to make peace with her body. So she posted a semi-nude picture of herself on her blog and opened a nation-wide conversation about body image, misconceptions about health, and acceptance. She is extraordinarily courageous.

Stella posted this picture of herself along with the caption:

“WARNING: Picture might be considered obscene because subject is not thin. And we all know that only skinny people can show their stomachs and celebrate themselves. Well I’m not going to stand for that. This is my body. Not yours. MINE. Meaning the choices I make about it, are none of your f*cking business. Meaning my size, IS NONE OF YOUR F*CKING BUSINESS. If my big belly and fat arms and stretch marks and thick thighs offend you, then that’s okay. I’m not going to hide my body and my being to benefit your delicate sensitivities.”

Our nation has been leading a crusade against fat people. Rather than encouraging people to love our bodies and care for ourselves in healthy and nurturing ways, we encourage fat-shaming- a phenomenon where we blame people for their nerve to inhabit fat bodies. If you are fat, you are told to deprive yourself in an attempt to manipulate your body to be thin by whatever measures necessary. Health is secondary to thinness. Now, many people will argue that you cannot be healthy if you are overweight. This is simply not true. More and more research is emerging showing that not all obese people are unhealthy and that being overweight (according to Body Mass Index [BMI] charts) may actually be protective in certain ways (this is called the “Obesity Paradox”). In addition, being thin by any means necessary has significant health risks as evidenced by people who struggle with (and too often die from) anorexia nervosa and bulimia nervosa. I believe that leading a healthy lifestyle, which integrates movement and a well-balanced diet of whole foods, is more predictive of an individual’s health than his or her BMI. Yet we stigmatize an entire group of people based on their body size under the pretense that this must mean that they are unhealthy. The stigmatization and bullying of fat people only leads to body-hatred and disordered eating behaviors. Think about it: if you hate your body, does this really motivate you to treat your body well? It usually results in the very antithesis- increased sickness and poor health. It was disheartening to read the comments on some of the blogs that featured the story about Stella Boonshoft. Although there were some supportive comments, the bullying and cruelty were hard to bear.

Fat-shaming simply does not work. If it worked, we would not be in the midst of an “obesity epidemic.” As a clinical psychologist, I work with patients of all different sizes (some considered underweight, average weight, overweight, or obese according to BMI) who struggle with accepting their bodies. For many people, how they feel about their body determines their mood and their daily activities. I hear from people who think that they are too fat to go to the movies, walk through the park, check out the new museum exhibition, exercise at the gym, or attend a party. People have stopped living their lives to the fullest because they feel that their fatness prevents them from being a productive member of society. They feel unacceptable, offensive, or less than because of their body size. And feeling this way does not make them any thinner.

We need to learn to accept and love our bodies, to stop hiding and disengaging from life because our body weight isn’t considered “average.” From love-not hatred – comes nurturance and health.

by Alexis Conason, Psy.D

The Body Image Revolution (psychologytoday.com)
Stella Boonshoft: Why I Took This Picture — And Put It On The Internet (huffingtonpost.com)
Stella Boonshoft Becomes Body-Image Hero After Posting Bikini Picture on Her Blog (people.com)
552,000 likes and counting: How one plus-sized woman became a body-image champion (theglobeandmail.com)

Casual Friday – Stampy The Elephant

Published on October 26, 2012October 26, 2012 by Scott Williams8 Comments

My son Nathan came to me and admitted he had been slacking on his homework. One of his high school teachers never read his assignments and after a while Nate caught on and decided to test her. He stopped doing the assignments and instead began writing about his fictitious pet, Stampy The Elephant. For over two years he never once completed a home assignment, and the teacher never caught on.

Nathan is no fool and recognized he would have to be subtle, tell no one, and give every appearance of doing his assignment. Without a doubt he spent more time endeavoring to evade this work than he ever would have spent doing the assignment. He was careful to include the name of the assignment in the first line. The assignments looked unremarkable and Stampy’s name did not usually appear in the first few lines.

Here are a few examples of sentences in actual assignments he turned in:
writing on World War One:
World War One was really cool because me and Stampy played in the rain, it was a weird day.

on the sociological effect the war had on Canadian cities:
World War One wasn’t in Montreal because that’s where me and Stampy were.

on exercise:
People like to walk, because that’s what me and Stampy do. I hate Charlie (a classmate looking on) because she says mean things to me right now. She probably doesn’t even like Stampy The Elephant.

on rampant consumerism and the effect on Canadian culture:
I’m going to buy a nice car. I think that would be very exciting. Canada has many problems that could be solved if Stampy and i had a nice car.

Looking back, and talking to Nathan some time later, I have come to realize that Nate was learning important lessons about life. That teacher taught him several things that she wasn’t aware of. She taught him that effort doesn’t matter because it is all about looking good. Nathan learned that teachers are lazy and easily manipulated. When he told me about it I knew as a good parent that I should force him to do his best even if no one is looking. As a parent I wanted to encourage him to do his best, take his education seriously, and strive for excellence.Part of me wanted to challenge him to be a young man of integrity regardless of who noticed. But part of me wanted to see how long he could get away with it.

To this day he has a low opinion about teachers, in spite of the fact that he is training to be one very soon. I will often hear remarks about how little they work, how they don’t really care, how they are not the brightest. Of course most teachers are hardworking, dedicated and committed; and I have sought to correct any misconceptions. It is hard, however, to argue with the elephant in the room.

“Example is not the main thing in influencing others. It is the only thing.”
― Albert Schweitzer

“We never know which lives we influence, or when, or why.”
― Stephen King

And Therein, As The Bard Would Tell Us, Lies The Rub*

Published on October 25, 2012October 25, 2012 by Scott Williams15 Comments

I had a Grand Mal Seizure (tonic-clonic) last week. Apparently 10% of people will have one in their lifetime. My neurologist was explaining this to me last week and flippantly commented, “So if there are ten people out in that waiting room, one of them will have a seizure.” My wife, not missing a beat, said, “So as long as Scott is in the room we should be ok.” I love her.

The seizure took place at the medical clinic where I work. I have been told that I smashed my head against the wall, tried to bite my good friend and doctor, attempted to spinning back-kick another doctor, developed a case of Turrets, and basically held the medical office hostage. There is some speculation that I stopped breathing at one point. I woke up on a gurney, then in the ambulance, than at the hospital. I have significant short-term memory loss and have no remembrance of the situation. Weird.

Every so often we are reminded that we are not immortal. A little over a year ago I had a major traffic accident on a prairie road in the middle of nowhere. Other than some broken ribs, I walked away unharmed. After that accident I spent some time reflecting on the fact that my life was spared because I turned left (into oncoming traffic) instead of the logical choice, right. I spent a few months practicing the techniques I teach others, and was able to glean some healthy insights.

People have asked me since if I learned anything from these experiences. I have. Coming out of the hospital, after two days in the overflow wing that I shared with three female senior citizens I learned that old women really snore, and do vile things to a bathroom if left unattended. I also learned that I have been taking time for granted and have become lazy. When I am tired it is far easier to watch television than do something productive. It is tempting to waste my life on things that don’t matter. I am a driven person, but can truly be lazy between dreams. The older I grow the easier it is to sit around, skip my martial arts classes, and sit around with a remote control in my hands. Because I have a bad knee it is a simple thing to find a pseudo-sensible reason for my lethargy. And the clock continues to tick.

These are lessons one would expect to learn from any near-death or feels-near-death experience. The world is replete with stories about how the accident survivor felt they had a fresh start, a new chance and opportunity. This is, it would seem, a natural and hopeful response to these things. What I didn’t expect was to lose my short-term memory. I didn’t expect to forget where I lived, where my son’s bedroom was, how to put a key in the lock, and virtually all the meaningful experiences I have had in the recent past. I cannot remember Thanksgiving three weeks ago. Apparently we went out to the lake the next day for a picnic. I could not remember how to check my email, how to Skype, how to do case notes at work. I had no idea how to edit this blog. I actually phoned Godaddy and had them walk me through it. The first morning back at work I had four clients I apparently knew well but could not, for the life of me, remember their names.

It all started when I woke up in the ambulance. I felt normal, clear, and wondered why I was so vigorously strapped to the gurney. They asked me the normal questions – name, address, did I know what happened… I got the first one right. I knew my name, why would you ask me something like that? My address, what is my address? Something felt wrong. It was as if I had a space in my head where my address was supposed to fit. It is hard to explain to someone who has never experienced it.

I am back at work today. It only took me thirty seconds to remember which key opened the front door. I watched my wife drive away (my license is suspended for thirty days) and then nonchalantly stood by the door. And the clock continued to click. It eventually came to me, all of a sudden, that it was the weird flower key that stuck out like a sore thumb. I got my inner office door opened in only two tries.

This is very frustrating. I still remember what I have learned, still can engage clients in counseling. In some ways I am more in tune with counseling than I ever have been. I feel like I am at the top of my game, until you hand me keys. I will not remember certain details, and will not know I do not know.

This is very hard on my ego. I get paid to be smart, to be present, insightful, intuitive, engaging. If i let myself dwell on this, it will be easy to become anxious, or depressed, and begin to panic. And therein, as the bard would tell us, lies the rub.*

I teach people everyday to control their emotions before they become controlled. I am an evangelist for CBT, REBT, DBT, psychoanalysis, etc. I believe with my whole heart that this stuff works. Of course it is one thing for me to believe this works for other people.

It is another thing altogether to believe this works for me.

“Physician heal thyself.”

Losing The Narrative (andrewsullivan.thedailybeast.com)

*stolen from “Inside Man“.

Why It Sucks To Be Canadian

Published on October 24, 2012October 24, 2012 by Scott Williams39 Comments

Growing up in Canada has many advantages. Canadians really are the most polite people you will ever meet. It is somehow hardwired into our DNA to say “excuse me” and “thank you”. Traveling to other countries it is always a bit of a culture shock until I realize that waiter who has no manners and is talking so gruffly is not actually upset or rude. We are a very sensitive people.

When I lived and worked in the United States I found the people to be wonderful, even if I never did come to understand the appeal of biscuits and gravy. I mean seriously, that is disgusting. The Americans I knew were quite convinced that they lived in the greatest country in the world and were proud to tell me. This is a very un-Canadian way of thinking. In Canada we believe we are from the greatest country on earth, unless you might find that offensive. And actually, when I think about it, even saying this is quite pushy and if I have offended you, please forgive me. I’m sorry.

Growing up I was taught that self promotion was arrogance and a humble person never brags. Humble people, we believed, made fun of themselves and were self-deprecating. We are not flag wavers. Telling someone else that your country is better than theirs is considered the height of bad form. Psychologically Americans and Canadians are very different animals. Canadians have grown up in the shadow of the giant. We tend to define ourselves by what we are not, as opposed to what we are.

As a Canadian it is very difficult for me to admit that I believe Americans raise their children with a much healthier sense of self and self-esteem. Canada is a country of 35+ million people who don’t like themselves. In all my years of counseling in Canada I have yet to meet more than a handful of people who actually like themselves and would describe themselves as having good self-image. That is at least in part to my contention that to even say you have healthy self-esteem in Canada is extremely difficult. If I tell a group or an individual that I like myself I somehow feel dirty, conceited. I usually follow this up with a joke that makes fun of myself. This is a very Canadian experience.

Obviously people from other countries have issues with self-esteem as well. The purpose of this article is not to elevate or minimize another culture. I am simply implying that the Canadian experience is, on some level, very twisted and unhealthy. I have struggled my entire life to come to grips with my feelings of worth and am only now, well into my forties, willing to admit (with a little Canadian trepidation) that I am coming to like who I am. Just writing those words remain difficult for me, however. Stating publicly that I like myself is fighting against generations of self recrimination and sociology.

Religion has also had a hand in making it difficult for people to have a healthy self-image. I did not grow up in a very religious home but every summer at bible camp I was reminded that “everything good is from God” and the intended converse, “everything bad is Scott.” My Baptist camp counselor told me that, “Without God I could do nothing and there is nothing good in me.” I was “born in sin”. I have since grown up to understand those statements in perspective but I distinctly remember feeling like a dirty wretch every summer at the altar call.

I am Canadian.
I am trying to like myself but feel bad telling you this.
I have secretly always believed I was ugly although I wondered if I was good-looking.
I am paranoid about people thinking I may be arrogant.
My parents told me I was a winner but I thought that it would be conceited to believe them.
I have spent my entire life struggling with self-esteem.
If you tell me I am a loser I am prone to believe you.
I am Canadian.

It’s time to let ourselves love ourselves. You are amazing. You are beautiful in spite of what you see in the mirror. You are fine just the way you are. Amazing. More brilliant than you know.

“Something inside you emerges….an innate, indwelling peace, stillness, aliveness. It is the unconditioned, who you are in your essence. It is what you had been looking for in the love object. It is yourself.”
– Eckhart Tolle

“It is not the mountain we conquer but ourselves.”
– Edmund Hillary

Depression: How To Feel Like A Loser

Published on October 8, 2012October 7, 2012 by Scott Williams26 Comments

I hate walking. We have a corner store at the end of our block (seven houses away) and I have, on occasion, driven there for licorice. This made the advice from the counselor even more problematic. I was depressed and the thought of walking it off was a million miles away. If I didn’t want to walk when I was healthy, why would I consider it now?

They sit across from me, and tell me a story. They have been to see counselors for depression and were given what seemed to be helpful advice, “Do something”. Take a walk, get out of the house, socialize, join a group, go to church, or join a gym.

Seriously? Anyone who has had serious depression can tell you that this is terrible advice. If someone is having difficulty getting out of bed, is feeling despondent, is wondering if life is worth it, is too exhausted to have a shower; what is the chance they will go for a walk tomorrow morning?

There is no way you could do the things he/she asked you to do. When you went to the psychologist you had depression. Now you have depression and you feel like a failure.

Thanks for nothing.

I would like to suggest that It is a serious error for clinicians to give such counsel to a patient who is seriously depressed and has had difficulty coping and functioning on the most basic level. It is perhaps the most misused advice about depression that I have encountered. People who are struggling with intense depression cannot ‘do’ much of anything. It is a miracle that they made it to their appointment for counseling.

In therapy I often tell patients that dealing with depression begins with what is easiest. So what can they ‘do’ that has huge gains for little effort? Dealing with depression correctly starts with changing the way we think about what is going on. I tell the patient, “Change your mind and your ass will follow”. It is almost impossible to change your circumstances when you are starting out. Getting out of bed is a major chore; going for a daily walk is laughable. Most people cannot, or will not, engage in regular physical activity when they are clinically depressed.

The second mistake is trying to start by changing how you feel. Emotions are the least reliable and most difficult thing to change. Some nights I feel like working out so I think to myself, “I should get up really early tomorrow and do some martial arts, maybe write a few blog posts, and make a big breakfast for the family!”

That all sounds completely doable in the evening. When the alarm goes off at some ungodly hour the next morning, however, I rarely ‘feel’ like getting up. What was I thinking? What a ridiculous idea! It seemed like such a smashing idea the night before; when I was already awake. A great idea, in fact, in theory.

I am learning that doing something only when I feel like it, especially something that requires discipline or commitment, is a horrible way to live one’s life. I never ‘feel’ like going to the dentist, or taking an eight-hour martial arts test, or paying my taxes. Unfortunately the tax department ‘feels’ like making me pay anyway.

So what can you talk about in counseling for depression then? When patients come to see me I tell them that most likely nothing significant will change in the first month. All I’m going to ask them to do is talk; about their situation, their past, their attitude; their coping mechanisms. In turn I will talk to them about our propensity to employ cognitive distortions, how to stop their mind from ‘going there’, mindfulness, radical acceptance. We will look at the ‘why’ questions, find out if there has been trauma, and help them address their dysfunctional thoughts, feelings, and actions.

The interesting thing is, about a month or two into therapy the patient will come to a session and report that they are starting to see improvement and change. If I ask them why they will often say that they are not sure. Things just ‘happened’. This is because they have begun to view life through a different lens and cope in different and functional ways. There are many counselors who will tell you that this strategy works, even if it doesn’t seem to initially make sense. For some reason talking to a good counselor can change your life. If you’re like me, and I know I am, you will probably never get enough counseling to like going for walks though.

I’m not a miracle worker…

p.s. – if you are a counselor/therapist why not consider writing a guest blog about your unique perspective, an interesting experience, or what you are learning. I have learned so much from others who have shared their heart and skills with me and would appreciate any input you might have.

Beating Anxiety And Depression Is Possible, But It May Be More Work Than You Are Prepared To Do (scott-williams.ca)

We Believe In You

Published on October 6, 2012March 12, 2015 by Scott Williams12 Comments

It took me fifteen years to get my black belt in Sun Hang Do Martial Arts. Some people do it in four but apparently I am a slow learner. That and the fact that I took a ‘break’ for ten years. I had been only a few months from my black belt exam when my life fell apart. Soon after I rebroke my knee, and because of the state of mind I was in, didn’t think I could come back. For ten years I avoided people I knew at Sun Hang Do and lived with regret. Getting a black belt was something I had dreamed of since I was nine or ten years of age.

A dream that had died.

A few years ago, however, I ran into an old friend and martial arts master, Dave Kinney, who encouraged me to try again. Coming back was difficult, humiliating, and more physically demanding than I would have believed.

But I am a stubborn person.

Last May, fighting off two weeks of Mononucleosis, I showed up for the infamous black belt test. As the eight-hour test was about to start, Dave’s brother, and another amazing guy, Brian Kinney, came up to me and said he wanted to help me have a good day. He opened his wallet and produced a business card with a dime taped to it – a memento of a talk I had given during another black belt test twelve years earlier.

A memento that he has kept in his wallet all these years. Another brilliant martial artist and friend, Kumar Bandyo, still has his as well.

Sometimes it is easy to wonder if you make a difference in this world. The martial art I take part in is dedicated to changing the world. That morning Brian reminded me that anyone, even me, can make a difference.
Brian is the third member of Sun Hang Do that has told me he still had his dime, and the only one to produce it. Thanks Brian, that really touched me.

Here is the story I used, not my own, so many years ago. After telling it I handed out a business card with the dime taped to it, the Sun Hang Do Logo on the front, and the words, “we believe in you.”

In 1965 the quarterback for the Green Bay Packers was a guy named Bart Starr. He was a great football player but more importantly, he was a great dad.

He had a son, his namesake, Bart Jr. Every time Bart Jr. brought home a paper from school with good marks, or did well in life his dad would write him a note that said something like, “Son, I really believe in you. I’m proud of what you’re doing. Keep going, I love you, Dad.” And then he’d take the dime and scotch tape it on a piece of paper. That dime to his son began to be a symbol to him of his dad really believing in him.

One weekend the Packers went to St. Louis to play the Cardinals, and Bart Starr played the worst game of his entire career. He was intercepted three times, literally lost the game for his team. He flew back to Green Bay, got off the plane and went home, totally deflated and feeling down.

He walked into his bedroom that night and on the dresser was a note from his son. It said, “Dad I really believe in you. I’m proud of what you’re doing. Keep going, I love you….. Bart. And taped to the note ….. was a dime.

When you feel like you are losing and no one cares, when you wonder if you can make it; it’s good to know someone is cheering you on.

Here’s your dime.

Category: attitude