The Stone in Your Road

I often compare life to a journey along a road – our roads, while discrete, run parallel, intersect, and sometimes converge. At times we share our road, our journey with others – this time varies and it is valuable, for we have opportunities to learn, share, and enjoy.

But, our roads are ultimately our own – and although our journey is individual, one thing we all share is that, along our roads, we encounter stones.

These stones we come upon are both unique and yet common. The stones are unique to each of us, yet everyone has encountered stones. We often hear, as we talk about the stone we face in our road, someone else will speak up and say something like ‘I once had a stone a lot like that. And this is what I did,’ offering advice for dealing with the stone.

Sometimes, we can see a stone from a distance, especially as we’re walking along a particularly straight and easy portion of our road. As the road is straight, and level, and easy to walk, when we see a stone up in front of us, we often grumble, ‘a stone in my road’ – and many people fail to enjoy the road where they’re at – others say something like ‘that stone is far away, and I’m going to enjoy my time right now on the road and worry about the stone later’.

Each approach to this impending stone contains some flaws. The first, as we can see, is that the person cannot enjoy himself right where he’s at, because he worries about what lies ahead. This person cannot be happy because he’s always looking ahead for trouble. He might see the obstacle as a boulder while another person would see only a pebble.

The second person is just the opposite of the first. This person lives a carefree life. He doesn’t worry much about what lies ahead because he spends all his time right where he is and doesn’t look very often, and when he does he ignores upcoming stones. He might be surprised when he trips over the rock, completely unprepared.

Ideally, we are able to find a balance. Like everything else in life. Knowing what lies ahead allows us to plan, and living in the present keeps us from missing the good times in life right now.

So how much balance do you have in your life? Do you fret over what lies ahead? Do you ignore obstacles and hope they’ll go away? How do you deal with the stones in your road?

For the Love of Blog!

My wife has been encouraging me to write blogs – I have some education about blogs – I’ve been reading and leaving comments on various blogs. Writing is not my strongest point, but the more I blog, the better I think I get. I’ve been looking at different types of blogs, looking at various styles of writing, and looking at the frequency of blog entries.

I spend time ‘twittering’ – a place to leave various short comments. I figure this helps improve my writing skills.

Another idea I’ve thought about as I’ve begun blogging is meeting with others who regularly write blogs. Discussing different aspects of blog writing, I figure I could pick up some pointers to help my blog.

So recently I read about a meeting of bloggers this past Saturday. I show up at the coffee shop, looking for this group. Downstairs I see no such meeting taking place. There are people buying coffee – so I figure ‘I’ll go upstairs – that must be where they are’. And as I climb the stairs I hear laughter that sounds great, but also high pitched. I enter the room upstairs to find the blogging group – all women.

And I could have sworn it was just like the old time western movies – the scene where the cowboy walks into the saloon; the music stops playing and everyone’s head turns to see who the new guy is. It was then I realized that I’d completely misread the advertisement. But I had come this far – I was not going to turn and leave. It didn’t help that I was a half-hour late. I’d imagined a group of people, sitting and standing around talking about blogging so I didn’t think I’d be noticed.

Then I made some really stupid comment like ‘wow I’m the only guy here’. Brilliant remark. However, it was then the women bailed me out and welcomed me to their group. So, I sat down and remained quiet for the rest of their structured, well organized and informative meeting. It was the kind of meeting I’ve been looking for. And I’m smart enough to know I won’t make this mistake again.

Trusting the Universe

I used to say, on a regular basis, ‘if you are open to it, or when you trust The Universe, (whatever the person defined as ‘it’, such as looking for positive relationships, or new jobs, that sort of thing) The Universe will provide’. And I meant what I said, but, I think that I took that phrase for granted, or I wasn’t aware of what those words really meant. It was easy for me to say to others. I wasn’t the one who was struggling.

However, I have recently become very aware of what that phrase ‘if you trust The Universe, The Universe will provide’. I have worked in the mental health field for the past thirty years of my life, and over twenty of those years in the public sector. I worked with community mental health agencies, providing various counseling services to those who were indigent or had little or no insurance. I enjoyed my work and was good at what I did.

I had climbed the ladder of success, supervising more staff, and interacting with people from different organizations and companies to help improve relationships between organizations, and build cohesiveness. I continued to see some people, but not many. I had become increasingly dissatisfied with the politics associated with my work.

My wife regularly reminded me that I was good at what I did, and encouraged me to develop a full time private practice. I had been seeing people for counseling on a part time basis for about ten years. This provided me with what I called ‘my cigar money’.

So, with my wife’s full support and encouragement, I quit my job and on April 1st of this year, began working full time in my private practice. A big step for me. I have ‘issues’ around being secure in life, and one of my definitions of security is financial independence.

I was very scared. Not at first, because I still had money coming in from my previous job. But, after that ran out, I started losing sleep.

But, I have continually remembered, ‘trust The Universe and The Universe will provide, and Provide Abundantly’. At times it’s been difficult for me to do this. But, my wife has been very supportive and has gently reminded me that The Universe does Provide. And as I have trusted this, The Universe is Providing to me. Abundantly.

There are times when I still struggle. And I remind myself trusting The Universe is a process, and I am growing. I hate all this growing sometimes. It’s so good for me, but it can be so painful. But, no matter what, I wouldn’t change what I’ve done.

So, I say this with as much love and meaning as I can, understanding a little more about what I am saying, ‘trust The Universe, and The Universe will provide’.

Law of Attraction

People talk to me about ‘why do I always seem to wind up dating some loser’, or ‘how is it that I always pick friends who take advantage of me?’

I believe in the law of attraction. What you, me, any of us focus our thoughts, emotions and energies on in this Universe, we attract to us. People who worry about ‘finding Mr. or Ms. Right’, or ‘am I ever going to find a job I’m happy with’ are sending out into the universe negative energy – their focus is on what they don’t have, and this attracts more of what they don’t have. However, when they focus their thoughts and energies on what they do have, such as ‘I have good friends now and I know I’m going to find Mr. or Ms. Right’, or ‘I am grateful that I have a job and I’m looking forward to the day when I have a job I’m happy with and in’ their energy shifts, sending out positive energy into the universe, and attracting more of what they have. This can be difficult because we live in such a negative world. It seems to me that a lot of people are so pessimistic about life, and if everyone around them is negative, they often take on those same attitudes, which only attracts more negativity.

Changing how you think and focus your energy is not an easy task, especially if you’ve been in this same thought and energy pattern for a while. However, it’s not impossible. One of the things I have found to be helpful, in my life and with others is creating a ‘gratitude list’. This list, which you spend at least 5 minutes every day writing, is a list of those things you are grateful for. The list doesn’t have to be ‘big things’, like, ‘I’m grateful for my car’ (although that can be something to be grateful for), it also includes those everyday things. ‘I’m grateful for this day’ or ‘I’m grateful for breaks at work’. Finding things to be grateful for can be difficult at first, but think of the small things – ‘I’m grateful for having shoes to wear’. Over time your gratitude list will grow – you’ll be focusing on what you have, not what you don’t have, and you’ll begin attracting more of what you want.

It’s about trusting The Universe.

Do the people around you have positive attitudes? Do you draw from the energy of those around you? Do you feel you give off good energy?

What’s up with us guys?

In my time working with couples I’ve seen a pattern – not with every couple that has come to me for counseling, but this one pattern repeats itself...in couple after couple.

It goes like this:

Of the two, the wife or girlfriend has been the most unhappy – reporting that she’s been unhappy with some aspect of the husband’s or boyfriend’s behavior and tells me she’s tried telling him she’s unhappy, but he’s not heard her – she knows this because he’s not acknowledged to her that he’s heard her, and hasn’t changed his behaviors – I then think, ‘well, maybe she’s not telling him what she’s unhappy about very clearly, or she’s giving him ‘mixed messages’ (she tells him she’s unhappy with his behavior one time, and then she’ll give him a message that what he’s doing is ok); but, when I have asked her what she’s done to tell him she is unhappy, she has usually been pretty clear and consistently giving him the same message – ‘I don’t like it when you do ____’ (fill in the blank with a behavior)
She’s been unhappy for a while – usually 6 months or more.

The husband or boyfriend is stunned that she’s unhappy with him. And usually he’s been pretty happy in the relationship.

Now, if what I’ve just said sounds sexist, I’d agree with you. It does. Except, with a lot of couples, it’s also true.

So, I spend time helping the couple communicate in a clear way. One person says something to the other, and, especially when therapy is just starting, I’ll ask the other person what they heard and ask them to repeat the message back. Which brings up another interesting thing – often times, we guys completely miss what’s being said to us. What are we thinking??? So, when, in this case the guy repeats back what he heard his wife or girlfriend say, and it’s really off the mark, she becomes frustrated, often time looking at me and usually says something like, ‘see? He never listens to me!!’ Meanwhile, the guy sits there with this hangdog look on his face, clearly indicating he didn’t get the message.

And what she said to him usually isn’t very complicated. It may be something as simple as ‘you never tell me you love me anymore’. After I remind her that ‘never’ is so absolute, and is probably inaccurate, she then adjusts her statement to reflect ‘I can’t remember the last time you told me you loved me.’ And that she wants to hear him say ‘I love you’ at least once a day. I continue to explore with both their views about each other, and what they want from each other; it is clear to me the guy wants the relationship to continue. He doesn’t want it to end.

So, I’ll assign homework. Something for each of them to do to improve their relationship. I’ll remind each of them that no one is perfect, that there will be mistakes made regarding their homework, but the important thing is whether or not they are at least partially doing their homework.

When they come back, usually they both report being successful completing their homework assignments. And here’s another area where we guys screw up. The guy comes back, proud that he’d done what his wife or girlfriend had asked him to do, and expecting the relationship to be ‘on the mend’, and moving back to ‘being normal again’. The wife though, says something like, ‘I’ve been asking for this for the past 6 months – you doing this just one week doesn’t prove that you’ve really changed.’

So the guy is hurt and pissed. But, is able to recover and recognize that one week doesn’t reflect permanent change. So, they go back out to work some more, and have success; It’s hit some snags, again usually us guys have messed up a couple times, but for the most part it’s been successful.

Now here’s where we guys screw it up, again. After about 3 or maybe 4 weeks of showing her that, except for a few slip ups, changes have been made, and the wife or girlfriend hasn’t ‘gone back’ to how she behaved in their relationship before ‘problems’ existed, the husband or boyfriend gets really angry and says something like ‘I give up’.

Brilliant. That really helps the relationship, and is exactly what she wanted to hear. Not.

My experience as a couples’ therapist is that in the relationship, the female usually complains about something wrong for an extended period of time before being ‘fed up’, while we guys, if we don’t see change pretty quickly, we’ll say ‘it’s not fixable’ and begin moving on.

Again, I want to say this isn’t true in every relationship. But it is a pattern I’ve seen over the years. So guys, does this pattern sound familiar to you? Is it a pattern you’ve been able to overcome? For guys who haven’t run into this, why do you think that is? What do you think you do that these other guys could learn from?

Does Going to a Counselor Mean We Are Breaking Up?

I often see couples for counseling. I’ve heard any number of people say, ‘I tried couples (or marriage) counseling, but it didn’t work for me’ or, another common statement is, ‘I won’t go to a couples’ counselor because I’ll be told we need to split up and I don’t want to hear that’ – On very few occasions in my past 30 years of work have I recommended people ‘split up’ and not continue their relationship. These are times when I have been very concerned about the safety of one or both people, and there are no indications the relationship is going to become safe. Under these conditions I have suggested the couple not remain together for safety reasons.

Of the couples I see, typically one person wants counseling and the other person is, at best, ‘riding the fence’ about staying in the relationship. Usually the person seeking counseling has been happier in the relationship and is surprised his or her partner is unhappy and considering leaving, although this is not always the case.

One of the biggest factors that impacts whether the relationship is going to remain intact is how ‘done’ or ‘finished’ the dissatisfied partner is. Usually one person feels as though he or she has been telling the other person ‘I’m unhappy’ for some time, but doesn’t feel their partner is listening; or if he or she is listening, isn’t doing anything to address their concerns. By the time they’ve scheduled an appointment and get into counseling, the relationship is in crisis.

Usually the person who’s unhappy will say something like ‘well, I’m willing to give it one more try, but if it doesn’t get better quick, I’m gone’ - an ultimatum, which is not good and doesn’t bode well for the survival of the relationship.

I assign ‘homework’ to couples. I do this because they are spending only one hour of each week in my office talking about the relationship. Homework lets people begin improving the relationship during the rest of the week. It also forces the couple to focus on their relationship and each other. Homework can also move the relationship to a new level very quickly. When one person repeatedly doesn’t work on homework, it can become very clear right away whether that person is motivated to improve the relationship. While that can be very painful, it also begins to bring closure that may be needed for the relationship.

On the other hand, when both people work on their assignments and begin making the relationship a priority, their dedication to their partner is obvious. Sometimes the effort shown by each partner renews faith in the relationship. My job from that point is to help them retain that focus, let go of past hurts and resentment, and help them move forward – together.

My suggestions – listen to your partner and respond to what he or she is saying to you. Ignoring it won’t make it disappear, and in fact it only helps the problem get bigger.

Have you been to couples counseling? Do you think it helped your relationship? Care to share your story?