The Ghosts Of Christmas Past

Published on by Scott Williams15 Comments

Penguin partyEvery 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.

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Casual Friday – Do We Matter?

Published on by Scott Williams5 Comments
110411_75159_0In 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.
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Why Intentions Don’t Matter That Much

Published on by Scott Williams13 Comments

English: A ' mask.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?

Published on by Scott Williams25 Comments

Real Men KnitWomen 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.

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What Would You Do?

Published on by Scott Williams4 Comments

I admit it, I liked Sister Act. So when I heard that one of the members of Sister Act 2 was in the band City High I decided to check them out. CH was a one-hit-wonder band of the early millennium who got famous for their hit “What Would You Do?“, a tragic melody about judging a stripper because she was turning tricks to feed her hungry child. The song is dripping with pain, including the line “ran away so our daddy wouldn’t rape us.”

I remember spending a week looking for a friend who was suicidal in the worst parts of Chicago in the early nineties. Dive after dive, bar after bar, knocking on hotel rooms with fifteen people living in one room, talking to hookers, visiting crack shacks and sleazy strip clubs. It is an experience I have never forgotten, a naive Canadian from the prairies walking down alleys alone at 3 a.m.

About a year ago I was at Main and Hastings in Vancouver, checking out Insite, the legal injection site on the meanest four square blocks in North America. As I left the building and turned the corner I almost walked into a beautiful little girl, no more than twelve or thirteen, shoving a needle in her thigh. If you have never been on Hastings just past Main on three or four square blocks of hell it’s hard to describe what it is like. Oh ya, you can watch the reality show based in Vancouver but nothing can give you that feeling of being in a human stew of 1000 junkies and prostitutes, the mentally and physically ill, Canada’s unwanted. There is a sense of adrenaline mixed with a bit of yuppie fear and caution. It is a wave, a tsunami, that pulses with a stench and vibrancy that must be experienced to be really believed.

It is a complex problem. I heard a politician say this past week that if the government would do it’s job than we wouldn’t have a drug problem. What an idiot. The power of using is far stronger than political will and addiction and addicts are problems that no amount of money or politics or even social services can eliminate. And to be honest, except for the Salvation Army , the Union Gospel Mission, the street nurses, and a few Christian groups, the larger community is really willing to get messy enough to effect change. East Hastings is a war zone and anyone who doesn’t think so hasn’t been there. It defies explanation and description.

These days, four days a week I hand out rigs, condoms, cookers and swabs to people trapped in addiction. I talk angusto people who have endured things I never imagined growing up. As a counselor you hear the most hurtful and damning confessions and stories. The lineup of human misery never ends. Then I drive home to my happy home in the suburbs where my amazing kids, a supportive wife, and a new grandson wait for me to show.

I have a friend Trista who lives and works at the intersection of Main and Hastings and is far better suited than I to speak about what goes on in her neighborhood. When I hang out with her I am humbled and embarrassed. Embarrassed that I pretend to be where the action is, and I become keenly aware of the fact that I don’t really know what is going on in the real world.

It’s very easy to criticize from the suburbs. Why can’t these people get a job? Why do they choose to live on the streets, abuse their bodies, and make the decisions they do? Why should I give money to the bum on the street when he’s only going to use it for drugs?

Many people who have grown up in the middle-class world cannot understand the sociology of growing up in a home where welfare is a generational inheritance, where the culture of neglect and abuse is so pervading that children grow up with no idea how to function in a society they have only seen on television.

“What would you do if your son was at home
Cryin’ all alone on the bedroom floor?
Cuz he’s hungry, and the only way to feed him Is to sleep with a man
For a little bit of money and his daddy’s gone
Somewhere smokin’ rock now In and out of lockdown,
I ain’t got a job now
So for you this is just a good time but for me this is what I call life”

Then she looked me right square in the eye
And said, “Every day I wake up hopin’ to die”
She said, “Nigga, I know about pain ‘cuz
Me and my sister ran away so my daddy couldn’t rape us
Before I was a teenager, I done been through more shit You can’t even relate to”

Mother_Teresa_of_Calcutta_6smWhat would you do? Almost every day I am reminded that before I judge the person in front in me I should realize that I really have no idea what they are going through, their pain, their challenges.

“Being unwanted, unloved, uncared for, forgotten by everybody, I think that is a much greater hunger, a much greater poverty than the person who has nothing to eat.”
― Mother Teresa

Weekend Musings

Published on by Scott Williams8 Comments

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

Published on by Scott Williams5 Comments

The Real Canadian Superstore adjacent to South...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…

Martin-Luther-King-Jr-9365086-2-402“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.”

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Love Me Or Screw You

Published on by Scott Williams5 Comments

acceptance

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

Published on by Scott Williams35 Comments

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.

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The Smell Of Rotting Fish

Published on by Scott Williams6 Comments

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

Published on by Scott Williams7 Comments

Smoke 1The 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?

Published on by Scott Williams5 Comments

Empire State BuildingTony 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

Published on by Scott Williams11 Comments

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

Published on by Scott Williams9 Comments

i climbed that

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.

Thomas Edison and his early phonograph. Croppe...

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

Published on by Scott Williams4 Comments

Two Roads DivergeOne 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

Published on by Scott Williams13 Comments

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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ADD And Defining Normal

Published on by Scott Williams11 Comments

1212mentalhealth-RWWhen Mark Twain’s hero Huckleberry Finn was forced to study spelling for an hour every day, he said, “I couldn’t stand it much longer. It was deadly dull, and I was fidgety.” His teacher, Miss Watson, threatened him with eternal damnation if he didn’t pay attention. Huck admits it didn’t seem like such a bad alternative. “But I didn’t mean no harm. All I wanted was to go somewhere; all I wanted was a change, I wasn’t particular.”

If that had happened today, Huck would have been diagnosed as ADD, put on Adderall, and forced to attend school, while the book about his adventures would never have been written.

The American Psychiatric Association invented the term ADD in 1980 to give kids with hyperactivity, impulsivity, short attention span and easy distractibility a diagnosis. Who would have thought that 28 years later, the National Center for Health Statistics would report that over 5 million American kids (8%) between the ages of 3-17 would receive this diagnosis. That’s 1 out of 12, with about half of those on medication.

William Evans, PhD, with the Journal of Health Economics found that a huge predictor for the diagnosis of ADD was the age of the child with respect to their grade. In other words, younger children in a given grade, have more ADD symptoms than older ones.

No surprise there – younger kids clearly are more restless and less able to concentrate on a topic, or sit quietly in a classroom all day long. According to his research, “approximately 1.1 million children received an inappropriate diagnosis and over 800,000 received stimulant medication due only to relative maturity.”

Let me quickly point out, that I’m not opposed to medication to treat those with severe symptoms, but do 1 out of every 12 kids really have ADD?

I wish this was just about ADD, and though that clearly is the most grievous example; bipolar disorder, OCD, generalized anxiety, social anxiety and other diagnoses also illustrate the over-diagnosing, over-treating and over-medicating of psychiatric problems throughout America. The first psychiatric diagnostic manual, DSM-I, in 1952 had 106 disorders listed. The revised DSM- IV in 2000 had 365!

The National Institute of Mental Health has found that 26 percent of Americans (1 in 4) have a diagnosable psychiatric illness. The only word for that is “ludicrous”. A disorder of any kind is by definition something wrong, screwed up, malfunctioning.

A mental disorder is an irregularity in the functioning of the brain. If the brains of one quarter of the U.S. population are disordered then something is very, very wrong with the human mind. Or with our mental health system.

In a Wired magazine interview in January 2011, Allen Frances (lead editor of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual for Mental disorders –IV) blamed the DSM-IV itself. “We made mistakes that had terrible consequences,” says Frances. One of these consequences, the article notes, is that diagnoses of ADD have skyrocketed.

“Frances thinks his manual inadvertently facilitated these epidemics— and, in the bargain, fostered an increasing tendency to chalk up life’s difficulties to mental illness and then treat them with psychiatric drugs.”

Here’s the problem: The profession of psychiatry has taken on the role of defining ‘normal’ in our society. Even Webster’s dictionary defines normal as being, “free from a mental disorder”. As we purposely shrink the box called normal and it gets smaller and smaller, the abnormal universe expands to include almost everyone. But we say, “don’t worry, we can fix that with a pill and make you normal just like everyone else”.

My profession has not only redefined mental health by over-diagnosing and over-medicating an ever-expanding number of diagnoses, we are also taking away the hope of human nature by telling our patients that they are inherently “abnormal” and need to be fixed.

The psychiatrist’s office has gone from being the place no one would be caught dead visiting…to the place where a pill could fix anything. And psychiatry itself has gone from being stigmatized to glamorized.

Psychiatric conditions don’t come with an on/off switch, but rather occur along a continuum. High levels of any given trait may represent a severe psychiatric diagnosis requiring medication, BUT in small to medium doses, these very same traits can represent your greatest strengths.

On a scale of 1-10, what separates an ADD 7 from an ADD 10? Who gets medicated…..and why? How could one person use a set of “symptoms” as a springboard for success while another with the exact same symptoms needs meds and therapy?

How are CEO’s like Richard Branson (Virgin Airlines), John Chambers (Cisco), and Charles Schwab able to parlay their ADD into tremendously successful careers, while others are searching for a magic pill and a cure?

David Neeleman, founder of Jet Blue has said that if he found a magic pill to make his ADD go away, he wouldn’t take it. Creativity and innovation are hallmarks of those with ADD.

When a child first presents with symptoms, why aren’t we telling them that they are three times more likely to form their own business, will thrive in disruptive situations, will embrace adventure and are adept at multi-tasking, as opposed to giving them a diagnosis and a pill?

We must stop thinking how to give the “patient” what they think they want and start taking a look at what’s good about what they have. We must empower individuals to think it’s ok to be “not normal” and change the mindset that everything can be “fixed” with a pill or a few therapy sessions. We must help them understand that what they perceive as their worst trait, may in reality be their best.

“It’s time for a new order of business in mental health, based on the premise that when you try to conform to a perceived “normal,” you lose your uniqueness—which is the foundation for your greatness.”

by Dale Archer, M.D.