One thing guys have a really difficult time doing is leaving their taskmaster at the door, and this creates a ton of relationship and marriage conflict. How?

Guys – in their masculine energy – are used to employing their “task orientation” skills to get things done: at work, at the gym, navigating, fixing cars and whatnot. Problem solving skills can be used effectively, but often not so well in a marriage or relationship. It simply doesn’t work.

Women are very different creatures, and guys forget this. Relationship harmony requires checking that taskmaster or “accomplisher” at the door. Those roles are fueled by a certain masculine energy that can oppress and suffocate a lot of women, or relationship partners in general. I see this in reverse just the same: women can easily fall victim to not knowing when to leave their taskmaster at the door.

The problems with this? Again, it can be oppressive to the other relationship partner, it can cause anger, and it communicates criticism and judgment towards the partner who is “not on board” with the program. Often, women (who bring more yin that yang) are about “being”, versus men who are about “doing.” Men’s yang energy (read:”bright positive masculine principle” in Chinese translation) can create an imbalance when guys don’t know how to contain it, or check it at the door when they get home.

The sweet spot is the balance in between. Guys can develop their awareness to balance the forces, and to employ the “taskmaster” or masculine energy at will when it’s needed: in the boardroom, in the bedroom, etc. Knowing how to hang out in the “being” place a little more is tricky for many guys.

Your relationship or marriage can benefit with the development of both the “being” and the “doing” experiences. Therapy or counseling can often help with the emotional development and expression of those energies, and to figure out where the blocks, and then to remove them.

Divorce tends to be emotionally gut-wrenching for the people who go through it (not to mention those around them). But most couples don’t realize that divorce can also be among the most ruinous financial moves anyone can make.

Sure, you could bet big and lose on a single stock or money manager. Or your small business could go bankrupt, taking your life savings with it. But divorce and the costs that often come with it — from legal bills to the sudden need for an additional residence — affect far more people.

Gary Vaynerchuk seems to know a thing or two about passion. His book – “Crush It” – details the application of his passion, and how he built his family wine business into a multimillion dollar empire. In a talk tonight at Changing Hands bookstore in Phoenix, AZ, Gary thought that finding one’s passion lies in what they consume. In response to an audience member’s question, Gary said that to find one’s passion for work, he might try looking to what he was already consuming – t.v., media, hobbies. What was he already doing?

I think that says a lot, because when work isn’t work, it’s flow. Time seems to take a backseat, and one’s passion and creativity get unleashed. The passion begins to flow, and the line between work and play seems to blur.

I’m interested in two things: finding what you love to do, and then figuring out how you stop that forward progress. What negative messages and roadblocks do you experience on your way to meeting that love?

Sometimes the “I’m not good enoughs” or “Someone is already doing that – I can’t do what they’re doing” get in the way. “Time is limited” or “I need more training” or any number of other folkish aphorisms get in the way. An invisible ruler starts to dictate behavior, comparing yourself to this and that.

Passion is there, where you listen to it or not. Passion for the work you do, or for the people you help. Passion for the play that you invest in, or in the relationships you built. Passion for the new ideas that germinate in your brain, or passion for the way you do seemingly trivial or mundane tasks.

(Taken from “Mentality” for men monthly newsletter, October edition. Sign up at www.phoenixmenscounseling.com)

The compromising of trust is such an infectious and widespread problem, especially in intimacy and relationships. Distrust corrodes relationships, breaks down friendships, prevents career advancement and creates a schism within ourselves that widens over time.

In intimacy, the number one problem I hear women discussing is how they don’t trust their guy. They may be holding onto distrust from past incidences, or they may be reacting to things that you’re doing to stoke that distrust today. But the barriers that distrust creates block real intimacy, sexual connection and the chance to deeper and strengthen a relationship or marriage.

There are a myriad ways in our culture to erode that trust: other women, a sexually repressive culture, divorce, excessive behaviors and addiction. In our culture, men are taught to stuff their feelings and emotions, which automatically both magnetizes us to those “erosion behaviors” and sets the stage up for distrust to come.

Questions to consider in the building of trust:

• Are you a man people can trust and rely on?
• Do you make a practice of doing what you say, when you say it?
• Would others say you compromise their trust at times? How so?
• How do you deal with others emotions? Can you listen and accept them when others are down and need support?
• Do you focus your emotional or sexual energies on other women, and not your wife? (e.g. thinking about other women, excessive masturbation, pornography, even flirting with other women)

A theme that I refer back to is the idea of values vs. behaviors. Are you practicing what you preach? Are your deeper values producing behaviors in the world that line up and are consistent? If not, what prevents them from mirroring your values?

Values could be anything like these:

• You see a vision of a strong and healthy relationship in your life, which may be different from past relationships
• You believe in truth and honesty, and seek to communicate those values through your behaviors
• You want people to know, like and trust you – do you give them reasons to do that?

If you’re in a relationship now, or would like to be, I’d invite you to open this discussion up with your wife, girlfriend or partner. Talk about the insecurities that come up, and the blocks or potential threats to building that trust. If you want to build more trust, ask your partner how you could go about doing that if you suspect your relationship could benefit from more trust.

Without a rudder, it becomes really difficult to steer our boat. We get tossed about on the seas, swing this way and that. The sense of direction is lost, and our journey is haphazard and without focus momentum.

Finding purpose — whether that be in our relationships, work, play or friendships — is outfitting your boat with a rudder. Actions and behaviors become intentional, and they become filled with a focused purpose. No longer are we just victims of circumstance or of our own lives.

Many people without that purpose, without that inner knowing, enter and exit situations within their lives in a very indiscriminate way. Without purpose, we are left to our impulsive mind to take over. And often times, that impulsive mind makes decisions for us that are not aligned with our deeper and truer purpose. We get into relationships that we look back on and think, “That was really not good for me in the long run.” we take jobs that we don’t really want to take, and spend money in places that we don’t really mean to.

Developing purpose is like bringing a high-powered laser into the equation. We have a very powerful tool in which to create a focus and energy to direct towards those people, places, and experiences that will enhance our sense of purpose, and fulfill those ideas about how our lives should be led, which makes us happier.

Connecting to that purpose — not just identifying it — is just as important. Learning how to connect regularly to that which brings us purpose is critical to our success and our happiness. Creating a regular relationship with those things that bring us purpose reinforces our sense of purpose and continually teaches us how to spend our precious time, energy and resources. What’s just as important is to identify those roadblocks and barriers to finding our purpose, which in some cases, can be just as much of a pursuit as going directly after our purpose.

A lot of counseling clients that I talk with have difficulties knowing how to take care of themselves. They are so busy taking care of work, family, money and other life stressors that they don’t have the time or the know-how to develop and practice good self-care techniques.

One of the most important ideas to understand is your personal threshold point. At what point do you start to show wear and cracks? Can you recognize when you get to that point? More importantly, how can you remedy those issues before they really start to affect your mind and body wellness?

That personal threshold point is different for every person. Developing an understanding and clear self-awareness about when that point arises is the first step in practicing self-care. Some people have a very high threshold for stress; others start to show wear earlier.

For men and women alike, the concept of saying “no” is one contributing factor to practicing better self-care. We live in a very demanding culture — one that expects constant multitasking and perfectionism. Being able to say “no”– even when our environment beckons that we say “yes” – is a practice in honoring and respecting yourself. It’s knowing your limits, and it’s not giving out more than you can give, which erodes one’s ability to give anything at all.

Another way to understand self-care is to know what blocks or barriers come between you and the healthy image of you in your mind. We can all agree that eating well, exercising, practicing spirituality or contemplation, and the like, are all positive pursuits on the road to self-care. But, what’s more interesting is how we limit ourselves from the inside with negative self-talk.

What negative messages or beliefs keep you in a state of procrastination or lack of motivation? How do you undermine your own efforts, and keep yourself from the ideal healthy you in your mind? I think those questions are much more relevant, because we need only to listen to our culture which tells us to eat better, exercise daily, be happy… we know all this, and yet sometimes we don’t always do what we know is best for us in the long run.

Practicing good self-care is very important, but understanding our motivations and intentions, as well as the roadblocks and barriers to our own success, is even more important. If we create the right motivations and intentions, we are laying a solid foundation for the continued practice of good self-care over the course of a lifetime.