Why Most People Misunderstand Being Single

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Being single is not a bad thing. There are many reasons why a person may be single, and being single can also be more beneficial than many people might think.

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3 Tips to Keep Your Commitments to Positive Changes

3 Tips to Keep Your Commitments To Positive Changes

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Committing to change can be difficult. Often times people hold off on taking the first step due to it “not being the right time” in their lives. As a practicing Catholic, I look to Lent as a great time to make a positive life change. For many of us, whether religious, secular, or in between, there are many such meaningful annual milestones to look toward as a motivation for making positive change. In my case with Lent, I decided I would sacrifice alcohol and I would add a daily prayer practice. Perhaps a secular person might do the same with a birthday or a New Year’s Resolution.

All the same, annual milestones for positive change can be productive and healthy things to build from every year and can be chosen individually to best fit our individual motivations for positive and sustainable self-improvement.

As I begin this process in my case with Lent, my self-talk wavers between minimizing the difficulty of giving up a bottle of wine, as it’s not a significant immediate loss, and recognizing the social significance I’ll have to adjust to in the upcoming months possibly not partaking in alcoholic social occasions as much. It’s an opportunity to dedicate the saved money as such to charity and to explore a different way of connecting to the loved ones I share that wine with. My drinking companions are of course not obligated or expected to abstain from drinking, and I look forward to exploring what changes will be promoted in our relationship. I also thought about when I would have time to pray, I struggled to think about when I would get some quiet moments. Praying daily, something I have found to have a great positive benefit for me in the past, just as daily meditation or self-reflection might for a secular person, was not something that I had done in earnest since the diagnosis of leukemia in one of my children. Would my practice of prayer get put to the back-burner when life gets too busy? What would I even pray about? Having read that it’s at times best to have a prayer focus, I decided my focus would be on thankfulness and others who need support. I’d like the opportunity to give back and provide the dozens of prayer groups and countless individuals with the same type of support they gave me and my family during our trying time. The same could perhaps be said for self-reflection and meditation versions of this for a person that is secular. The psychological aspects of Lent are not to be overlooked, as each individual participating is embarking on a period of change. Many of us will quickly and completely quit drinking, smoking, or eating meat only to embarrassingly find ourselves lighting up that cigarette out of sheer habit the moment we wake up. Similar struggles to say a person, not of faith with New Year’s Resolutions. Let’s not forget the emotional longing – not eating meat on Ash Wednesday has reminded me how much I like bacon! Simple strategies will help to reinforce good intentions.

  • Make your intentions known and have a pleasant substitute for the item of abstinence. My sister knows I’m not drinking with her and she’s prepared to hold me accountable while she indulges. I’ll be sipping sparkling water as a replacement. A secular person with similar or different goals could find an accountability partner as such as well.
  • Use a calendar or online reminder to reinforce your goal. An Orthodox mother of 4 devised a brilliant calendar and freezer system to prepare for the additional challenges Lent brings for feeding her family. A person not of faith could do similar with resolutions for a new year or a month on a regular basis.
  • Set aside the time necessary for the goal. My personal goal of praying daily will require nothing but my time. I’ve decided to use my commute time to pray with an app. My lunch break and thirty minutes before bed are other times in my day, I can accomplish this task. Similar strategies could easily work with secular self-reflection or meditation.

Ultimately, Lent provides an opportunity to practice change as do many other secular annual milestones. Forty days of consistency from Lent can provide the boost needed to make greater strides in self-improvement, from our spiritual and secular positivity and fitness to our awareness of our social interactions and dynamics. You also do not need to be devotedly religious or religious at all to practice this change either.  [/av_textblock] [/av_one_full]

How to be Happy: Compare Yourself to Yourself

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As a therapist and a person, I hear time and time again “I just want to be happy” or “I’m not sure why I am not happy.” Upon further discussion it almost always leads to the other person comparing themselves to others around them. Whether it is a single person comparing themselves to all of their paired-up friends or a person in a dead-end job comparing themselves to people they know that are successful. Comparisons.

I’m not sure when humans as a species first learned to compare themselves to others around them but I bet it is similar to Darwin’s “survival of the fittest.” After all, how did we determine who the fittest was or how could we be fitter than the fittest if we first did not compare ourselves to our fellow humans?

This logic might have worked for us back when we had to run from wild animals, but like many evolutionary traits (like the fight or flight response!) they don’t have nearly as much use as they did way back when.

Now, in the modern world, we use that “comparison trait” to compare ourselves to others who already excel in one area where we are weak. Like my earlier examples of single vs. in-a-relationship or in a dead-end job vs. successful. This is not a very fair comparison at all since the other people already have something that you desire. Sometimes this type of comparing can lead to people working harder to surpass others, but more often it leads to unhappiness.

So how does this all relate to happiness?

I’m not sure we can do away with the “comparison trait” all together, but we can turn the focus more inward than outward.

Instead of comparing yourself to what others choose to show you, you can compare your current self to your former self.

Make your own happiness dependent on whether you are growing as a person and completing goals you set out for yourself. Every person is unique and has unique ways they grow. This cannot be fairly compared to the growth or success of someone else. It can be as big as taking a chance and asking someone out that you’ve had a crush on or as small as cleaning your house. Both examples create a sense of personal accomplishment that involves no comparisons.

Three Ways in which to do this:

  1. Start a happiness journal/log and log 3 things you were grateful for that day. Do this for a month and see what happens.
  2. Have a bunch of hobbies you never have time for? Make a list of hobby goals (for yourself!) and set out to accomplish them. ie. learning to cook, learning a new language etc. Make sure it’s easily measurable so you can compare your progress and growth!
  3. Comparing yourself to others looks-wise? Make fitness goals and keep track of your progress. Fitness goals are a good choice because they are about YOU and are easily measurable.

There you have it–whether or not you choose to focus on internal or external happiness is on you.

 

4 Tips To Have A Great Date

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I hear these comments fairly often in my practice:  “I’m not good at dating,” “I never know what to say” or “I can’t get past a 2nd or third date.” I also hear from my couples that their date nights are “boring” or “lacking connection.” Dating isn’t so much about what you say, but more about how you listen. Like Dale Carnegie wrote about in his classic book, How to Win Friends and Influence People, focus on being interested, not interesting. Although this advice was more about being a good salesmen, it can be applied to any relationship you have in your life. Everyone genuinely wants to feel understood and appreciated and nothing makes a person feel more understood than sincerely listening to him or her. If you keep this in mind, it can take some of the pressure off of you to feel like you need to have a bunch of interesting things going on in your life to share with the other person.

Based on John Gottman’s decades of observing people, here are 4 tips on how to have a great date, whether it’s a first date, 10th date, or a date with the spouse you’ve been with for 10 years!

Tip #1 Ask open-ended questions

There is a fine balance between asking a question that is too open such as “What’s up?” or “How’s it going?” People tend to give one word responses to those questions, possibly because they aren’t sure you want to know the full answer. Instead ask questions that are still open but more directed, such as “How has your summer been going? Have any plans for vacations?” It might be a good idea to ask questions about goals or visions of the future.  This will allow you to get to know the person’s aspirations and dreams. Be careful to watch your audience and gage if your questions are uncomfortable for the person and find the right level of disclosure.

“How’s your summer going? Have any vacation plans?”

“If you could have a job in another field, what type of job would you want to have?”

Tip #2 Listen to the person’s answers and find commonalities

As you ask open-ended questions, listen to the person’s answers and share something you have in common with what they are saying. People are more attracted to people who can relate to them and to those people with whom they share common ground. After you share a bit about yourself put the conversation back to them. Share enough to establish commonality and then ask a follow-up question to what they said earlier.

“Oh, you’re a teacher? My roommate is a teacher. He’s getting pretty stressed thinking about this upcoming school year. What do you do to prepare for the beginning of the school year? Maybe I could give him some tips from you.”

If your date had said he or she had returned from a vacation in California, a follow-up might be: “I love California, it’s such a diverse state, something for everyone! When I went there a few years ago we saw the Redwoods, I remember they were so tall and majestic. What did you see when you went there?”

Tip #3 Paraphrase what the person said and show non-verbally that you are listening

If you paraphrase what the person said, it shows them that you are listening. This is also helpful when asking questions or when mentioning a commonality.

“You seem to really love your job! How did you know you wanted to be a veterinarian?”

“You used to live in Lincoln Square? I love that neighborhood and spend a lot of time there! Have any gotta-go to places?”

Another helpful thing to do that shows people you are listening is to nod briefly or respond with a verbal cue “uh huh, yeah?, hmm.”

Tip #4 Let go of your own agenda

Try not to focus so much on the outcome of the conversation. It’s hard to focus on listening when you are trying to come up with your next interesting question to ask the person. Instead, focus on what the other person is saying in that moment and ask follow-up questions to further your understanding of what they are saying. Look for those emotional cues where you can empathize with what they are saying.

Above all, just listen to the other person with your full attention. Your ability to draw people out with a general curiosity about them will go further than if you were the most interesting person in the world.

 

Acceptance and Commitment Therapy Portrayed in Grey’s Anatomy Scene

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Does anyone out there watch Grey’s Anatomy? If not, no judgment, if so, no judgment. I was catching up on episodes when I came across this scene that was so on the money with a type of therapy I use in session that it inspired me to wrote a post!

To set the scene for those who are not familiar, (or who have not seen the episode–SPOILER ALERT!!) Amelia, whose brother just tragically died, tells Owen that she is handling it very well and is doing “amazingly.” She also admits to have gotten some prescription drugs that she might take (she is a former prescription drug addict) due to not being able to “manage” her emotions anymore.

Owen (in a very Acceptance and Commitment Therapy kind of way) explains that grieving after the loss of a loved one is very “normal” and that feeling sadness/pain is a part of life. Instead of allowing painful emotions and feelings to happen and moving through the pain, he realized that they both run from their pain. She takes prescription medication and bottles up her emotions. He enrolled in the army again and leaves the country on duty. He expressed that they are supposed to “feel, love, hurt, grieve” and they are “supposed to break” and that that is the whole point of being alive. Owen, I couldn’t have said it better myself!

Clients often say to me in session, “I wish I never felt sad again” or “I wish I never felt heartache again.” That’s all fine, but personally, I would choose to feel painful emotions. If we allow ourselves to feel pain and work through it, we give up the struggle with the painful emotion and are better able to move past it. If one never feels pain or unpleasant emotions they also block out the ability to feel the pleasant ones such as joy, love, and happiness.

Who would have thought– all that insight in one Grey’s Anatomy clip!

Note: This clip seems to no longer be available on Youtube. Sorry!