August Advice

30/12/2021

August Advice has moved! We're joining forces with Willows Counseling at 5540 North Academy Blvd Suite 210

08/12/2021

24/05/2021

Time travel is real and dangerous if not approached with caution.

When we travel into our past it is often to revisit old wounds, creating bitterness, despair, and the powerlessness that comes with being unable to change past outcomes. We are trapped by our viewpoint.

Reminiscing can be done from a grateful/restorative frame of "I learned from that experience" or "I survived that and am grateful" rather than the victim frame of "that ruined my life" or "I wasted my time/effort/love on that". Choosing your viewpoint is key to emotional health.

When we travel into our future it is often to "plan", which is a code for "I'm using my imagination and experience to fix problems before they happen". Our imagination is powerful and when fueled by anxiety or anger it becomes a personalized house of horrors.

We rarely look to the future for calm, we're afraid or excited. Mostly afraid, with excitement frequently turning to disappointment or depression when the imagined future does not materialize. This is the rigid future filled with criticism and blame. Again our viewpoint dictates our emotional experience.

Future planning serves our regulation best when it allows us to make small incremental changes in the present with lots of flexibility as our situation alters. This is the balanced future where there is only assessment and correction. This creates a sense of "control" over what we can control, the present moment.

Being in the present moment can be difficult, resulting in ruminations or predictions. More on that later.

Be well.

18/05/2021

Taking your child's mistakes personally, you will train the child to hide mistakes from you and deny them to themselves in the process. If you see mistakes as "Unhappy little accidents" you train the child to see them as learning experiences safe to share with you.

29/07/2019

Physical movement and diet are critical to emotional stability and resilience. Walk it off is often sound advice.

04/02/2019

We use Anger to guard our wounds. If you feel irritable or upset frequently you may need to talk about it.

Physicians have been taught to look for signs of hopelessness, sadness and lack of motivation to help them diagnose depression. But anger as a depression symptom is less often noticed or addressed.

31/01/2019

Much suffering is caused by living in our expectations rather than our reality.

29/01/2019

You cannot solve a problem you cannot describe. Use your words.. if you ain't got no words.. get some.

While many people believe that how we feel and express anger is hard-wired, some scientists suggest our experience and culture help shape it. One way to get a handle on it may be to personalize it.

21/11/2018

Pain is Life's way of guiding you away from harmful things and healing you from trauma. Anger is how you resist healing and change.

01/10/2018

A bit riskier are the lies we tell ourselves in order to continue using useless coping skills like anger and victimhood.

These lies are particularly dangerous as they keep us in unhealthy relationships and situations. These situations do not support our growth as they drain energy. Worse yet these lies seem to create an environment for the really big lies.

When we use these lies on others we tend to focus on their flaws and intentions. We use this to justify our anger, lashing our to feeling victimized rather than being proactive and adult.

The big lie. I'm not an addict, I'm not being abused, I'm not being abusive. This lie makes the most bitter self-realizations almost tolerable.

These lies normalize really destructive behaviors in our lives often with collatoral damage across every aspect of life., career, school, social life, and intimate partners. This is the sugar equivalent of eating cake and vodka at every meal, obesity, diabetes, and gout are certain outcomes.

When we use this lie on others we convert them to a label and not a person and this can justify a variety of very abusive behaviors. We no longer see the balanced person, "He's defiant" "She's just a brat". This belief system creates a blind spot by rejecting their point of view, experience and whatever your role might be in the problem.

29/09/2018

How much sweetener is bad?

The itty bitty lies. These things are a social lubricant.
On the low end, we might tell ourselves that our dietary choices are healthy and use a few lunchtime salads to justify our weekly triple mocha latte with 6 pump.. or that trip to drive thru joint of choice. Rationalizations keep us stuck, usually at the cost of guilt for not following through on our real intentions.

This is useless suffering in that it keeps us from acting in a healthier way so we cannot improve. These lies inhibit improvement.

When we use these lies on others we're making excuses for a behavior (Helicopter moms and enablers use this lie). avoiding conflict with them about their behaviors, giving them a pass as it were.

28/09/2018

Lies, Lies and more Lies.

Lies are like sugar for your emotions. The more bitter the emotion, (or feeling or realization) the greater the sweetener to make it palatable. Like all sweeteners, you can use enough to kill the taste and if you do the experience becomes almost pleasant... not a bad deal right?

Why is this dangerous?
Any experience that is sufficiently unpleasant we will strive not to repeat. For example the hot stovetop experience.
If you make the experience more palatable it decreases suffering and thereby the deterrent factor of the experience.

You just short-circuited Darwin.

02/06/2018

A riveting story of how domestic violence damages children and families.

30/06/2016

Let's talk about suffering, no one seems to want to but everyone does, pretty much from the moment you get rather violently pounded through a 10 centimeter tube or removed via cesarian section. Life requires effort and effort is certainly a form of suffering. I will paraphrase the book The Secret of Happiness to explain this idea.

Now despite the gloomy title below there is good news! There are two kinds of suffering you can engage in.

Useful suffering is the kind that resolves conflict, builds skills and increases your self image. It may benefit others as well. The primary impact of useful suffering is on the person doing it.

Useless suffering is any activity or thought process that distracts or evades resolving a conflict or attaining the items or skills you need. It is a pleasant distraction accomplishing nothing. Manipulation of the feelings and thoughts of others largely falls into this category.

Some emotions are useful suffering and some emotions are warnings our bodies give us that we are suffering uselessly. In the slide below I list a few of them below the line of things we "do", rest assured this list is not the be all end all. People are very creative in their suffering, it's quite amazing.

Suffer usefully and you will have Happiness.
Suffer uselessly and you will have Pleasure.
Know the difference. Know Peace.

Peace Love and Useful Suffering,

Vince.

27/05/2016

Self esteem and values how they work together.

Adhering to your values creates internal peace. Externally this will create conflicts when others want you to set aside your values to meet their needs.

When people need you do something outside of your value system they frequently paint a picture of an ongoing or looming emergency. This is a use of guilt, they literally shame you out of your value system. It's no wonder that we resent these emotional thugs.

Safe is one of my values. I keep myself safe from damaging things. In my situation (as an alcoholic) alcohol is something I have to be safe from, also fudge and frequently my own ego as it relates to weight lifting and keeping up with the 20somethings.

Further I want to keep others safe. This sounds like a great quality right? I've noticed that we're all gung ho to keep people safe from others or even from themselves. When i want to control people this way it is largely a crappy justification for not keeping people safe from ME and my desire to control them.

Recognizing that controlling others is harmful to them and to us is key to choosing to control yourself rather than them. If you're upset by this idea then you have to confront your desire for control of others. Ditch it quick..it's draining you of your energy.

In closing, when you're trying to keep someone safe from something you cannot control.. BOOM instant useless suffering. (In the form of worry, manipulation and frustration). If you choose behaviors and thoughts that keep you safe.. useful suffering from self control.. long term peace.

26/05/2016

A critical part of having solid self esteem is living within our values. INTERNAL values (see the Self part of Self esteem)

We all have internal values. When we live in accordance with those values we feel peace, when we violate those values we sacrifice that sense of peace. Mine are to be: safe, kind and honest. As a litmus test for being at peace they work fairly well.

The quickest way to find out if a behavior violates an internal value is to ask yourself. Do I need to explain why I'm doing this to myself or to others. If you need to justify a behavior to yourself that's an indicator that you're violating an internal value.

If you find yourself explaining your behavior by talking about what another person did, you're likely violating an internal value and recruiting some other idiot as justification. All we have now are two idiots. No one wants more than one, so stop that.