David O Saenz, PhD, EdM, LLC- Licensed Psychologist

04/16/2026

If you’re mothering them, attraction dies. If you’re motivating them, you’re dragging a passenger.. You want self-governance: they run their life and are happy with it, regulate themselves, and follow through.

Not perfect—just accountable and self responsible. Anything less turns love into a job you never applied for.

Never carry someone else's water!

04/08/2026

What This Actually Means

Most people spend their lives saying:
“I don’t want this job”
“I don’t want to feel like this”
“I don’t want this relationship dynamic”

But they never answer the only question that matters: “Okay… so what DO you want?”

And because they don’t answer it, nothing changes.

What’s Really Going On? Your brain needs a target, not a complaint.
And when all you give it is:
what’s wrong
what’s frustrating
what you’re trying to avoid

…it has nowhere to go.

So you stay stuck in the same patterns, thinking you’re trying to escape them—when you’re actually rehearsing them.

The Straight Truth: You don’t get a different life by rejecting your current one. You get a different life by defining and moving toward a new one.

Bottom Line

Complaints keep you circling the problem. Clarity gives you somewhere to go.

Right now, the question isn’t:
“What do you not want anymore?”
It’s:
“What are you actually building?”

03/14/2026

THE LAW OF HOLES IS A BLUNT MESSAGE: WHEN YOU’RE IN A HOLE, STOP DIGGING BEFORE YOU MAKE IT DEEPER.
Most people don’t. Pride, fear, and momentum keep the shovel moving. We defend, argue, and push harder—anything but pause. Every swing deepens the problem, makes it worse.

The first act of wisdom isn’t solving the hole. It’s putting the shovel down. Only then can you look around and decide how to climb out.

03/07/2026

I'm deeply pained and worried about what appears to be a looming WWIII. The images of genocide in Gaza and the West Bank, Iran-US-Isreal, Pakistan-India, Russia-Ukraine, etc. Children and families displaced and starving, young men killed by battles created by wealthy old men, and in the end, there has farely been a resolution that worked long term.

03/04/2026

02/07/2026

SACRIFICE IS NOT THE SAME AS LOVE

Healthy love involves choice, reciprocity, and limits.
Burying yourself is none of those.

If your giving requires:
• chronic exhaustion
• resentment
• self-betrayal
• silencing your needs

…it’s no longer generosity. It’s robbing yourself of life to protect someone else from themselves.

01/28/2026

Miguel, a naturalized citizen to the US, built his grocery store and found safety and financial security where other Latinos failed. His cousin Umberto arrived undocumented, but Miguel refused to help and even supported ICE.

He rose alone, leaving his cousin—and others—to fend for themselves.

Umberto struggled, and while Miguel became more successful, he began to both "kick the ladder" and worse, work quietly with ICE to expose the newer "illegals".

"Ladder kicking" refers to the act of blocking, discouraging, or refusing to help someone who is trying to advance after you’ve already succeeded. The metaphor comes from climbing a ladder: instead of pulling someone up behind you (ladder pulling), you kick the ladder away so they can’t follow.

In short, it’s success hoarded at the expense of others’ mobility!

I saw Miguel:
1. Decline to lend money or share savings with family
2. Telling relatives or friends that certain paths are “too hard” or “not for people like us"
3. Using personal connections for his own gain
4. Supporting systems like ICE

Essentially: ladder kicking is about keeping opportunities, resources, or knowledge to yourself in ways that directly or indirectly prevent others from advancing.

To those not familier, this is not uncommon among people of color, and actually, every racial/ethnic group in the US.

01/19/2026

A "broken picker" can lead to very poor relationship choices, such as choosing someone who is emotionally immature, or who doesn't know how to fight fair or repair a relationship. Even a partner who is a slob or an extreme perfectionist can create stress if their daily living habits are too much. Someone is belittling, overly critical, controlling, etc., can, over time, develop into serious deal breakers that even love can't conquer.

If you get on the wrong train, get off at the next station; the longer you stay, the more expensive the return trip will be. — Japanese proverb Many people lack the courage to change direction no matter how painful the choice to stay can be.

10/17/2025

How do you “furnish” a rut? You add to it, you give it oxygen and water it by ruminating on it, adding to it, etc., until it outgrows the initial incident (i.e., “Did you have a bad day, or did you have a stressful minute and blow it up to fill the rest of the day?)