There nothing wrong with wanting to feel affirmed or validated by your significant other, but when we aren’t forthright with our needs, problems become greater. Men need to feel affirmed just as women do, yet most men I talk with have such a difficult time asking for it. Why?

Making Assumptions

A typical guy might just assume that his partner can affirm, validate or praise him, yet without asking for those things, you risk your partner never knowing what your needs are. When you make assumptions about what your partner should do, it’s likely they’ll fail them. When you’re not clear about what you need, especially in the realm of validation and affirmation, problems then do come up, but they don’t need to.

Questions to Ask Yourself:

• Do I feel affirmed by my relationship partner? By my boss? By my friends or family?
• Do I need more from one particular person, e.g. my significant other? What would that look like?
• When I don’t feel affirmed, I feel ___________________.
• When I feel affirmed, I feel ____________________.

Too Proud to Beg

Pride gets in the way of men asking for validation or affirmation from their partner. A lot of guys think they’ll lose their edge, or be seen as not manly or weak. Those things are simply not true. Your spouse wants you to come to them with your needs, because when you don’t, you may disconnect and hide, worsening the problems that are already there. Being too proud gets in the way of getting your needs met, and connecting more deeply with your significant other, so can you push pride aside to meet the greater needs? I think you might be pleasantly surprised if you did.

Exercise:

• Scribble down one area of your life where you’d like to receive more praise/affirmation/validation from someone close to you. Write down the feelings that come as a result of that need not being met, and also write down what you do when it’s not met (e.g. reaction/behavior). Set up a time with the person to have a conversation with them about your findings.

How Men Hide

I think any conversation about how to get needs met for men also has to include how men hide and disconnect. Guys go to the “safe zone” and hide, and many often haven’t come to terms with what they’re needing or how to communicate it. This can be dangerous, because bad things can come from hiding. For example, the number one reason men cheat is because they don’t feel validated or affirmed by their relationship partner. Men withdraw emotionally, or go the reverse route, by eventually exploding or blowing up. (or a combination of both). Neither way really works, either in the short term or long term. But, out of fear, hiding their anger, or not wanting to be rejected, men pull away emotionally and hide their needs and feelings from their partners.

Learning to get your needs met by communicating your need for affirmation or validation is critical. You’ll feel happier, have more satisfying relationships and learn to meet your needs when they come up.

The end of the year is a great time to step back from the whirlwind of work, home and life expectations, and take a keen look at how the year went.

What I like to do at the end of the year is sit down and reflect on 7 life domains, gauging what worked, and what needed improvement, in each area. I do this in December, and take an hour or so to type out my answers.

From year to year, I look back and find a record of my life from year to year, and see where I’ve challenged myself. It’s interesting to have a complete picture after several years of doing this.

Here are the life domains I traditionally use for self-assesment from year to year:

1. Relationships with Others
2. Relationship with Self
3. Money
4. Mental Health
5. Health + Wellness
6. Spirit
7. Hobbies and Interests

I find that I’m able to have an honest conversation with myself to see where I shined, and where I could have spent more time and energy focusing, as to improve on those things next year.

I invite you to try this exercise out. As to accurately gauge your level of progress, it might be helpful to get some feedback from those close to you, especially when it comes to the “Relationships with Others” section. Sometimes, we’re not able to fully appreciate how our relationships with others go, unless we know how they feel about them as well.

Personal Values and Happiness

What this self-assessment is designed to do is to close the gap between what we’re actually doing in our day-today lives, and where we want to be (our values). The more closely we can live our values, the more in synch we our with our life, and the happier we can report our lives to be.

Happiness is more than just a function of how well we’re living our values, of course, but it helps gets us there.Each person is different; therefore, each set of values is going to be completely unique from the next person.

Take an hour out one weekend morning in December, grab a cup of coffee, and write or type out your responses. Put some thought into your responses, and be honest to yourself.

Here are some possible suggestions to think about when you start your self-assessment, based on each category:

1. Relationships with Others

• Which relationships have you felt successful at this past year? Why?
• Which relationships do you think could use more of your attention and energy?
• Pick two people close to you. In what ways would they characterize your relationship with them, both good and bad?
• If you could choose, which is one relationship you would like to see improve? What is one thing that you could do in the next year, on a ongoing basis, to reinvest in that relationship?
• Do you have unfinished business with someone or more than one person? What would it take to help bring some closure to you? A phone conversation? An apology?

2. Relationship with Self

• How would you rate the relationship with yourself over the past year?
• In what ways do you find yourself critical of yourself, or not feeling good enough or inferior? Explain.
• How can you choose one way to help yourself feel better about yourself? Elaborate.
• How do you deal with your needs that go unmet? Do you get angry? Or do you withdraw? How can you make a commitment in 2012 to change that behavioral pattern and communicate your needs?
• Do you know what your needs are? Many guys don’t. Take 5 minutes and look at what you really need from others, and learn to make clear for yourself those needs.

3. Money

• What were some successes and areas of improvement in terms of your financial situation this year?
• Where did you feel most comfortable with money this year? Most uncomfortable? Explain.
• Were your successful in your money goals? Did you meet certain milestones for income, savings, retirement savings?
• How did you discuss money this year with your partner? What could change for you around the conversations you have with your significant other?
• What problems did money bring you this year?
• What would you like to change about your relationship with money in 2012?

4. Mental Health

• Overall, how would you rate your level of mental health from 1-10 in the past year (“1” being most unhappy; “10” being extremely happy)? What would need to change in the new year for that number to rise?
• What three things did you do this year to contribute to your positive mental health? Exercise? Be with friends? Converse?
• What two things consistently trigger a negative mood or negative emotions in you from others?
• What can you identify to work on in 2012 to contribute to a better overall mental health, including diet, relationships, lifestyle, exercise, counseling, hobbies, time with family, friends, etc.

5. Health + Wellness

• Overall, how would you rate your level of physical health from 1-10 in the past year (“1” being unhealthy; “10” being very healthy)? What would need to change in the new year for that number to rise?
• What stopped you from taking control of your health this year?
• List two excuses that prevented your activity towards greater health.
• What would 2012’s physical health outlook be like, as different from this year’s?
• What successes can you celebrate around your health and well being?
• What limited you physically (e.g. injury, illness, disease) from achieving your physical and health goals?

6. Spirit

• Did you engage in things to fill your spirit in the last year? What were they?
• How many opportunities did you “commune with nature” in 2011? What were those experiences like?
• Is spiritual engagement important to you? Why?
• What got in your way of filling your spiritual self?
• How can you make time for regular spiritual engagement in the new year (if this is important to you; e.g. yoga, meditation, chi gung, church, spiritual reading, nature, etc.)

7. Hobbies and Interests

• What did you do in 2011 for fun that brought you happiness and a sense of fulfillment?
• What have you been putting off that you’d like to engage in during the new year? Learning a new language? Playing guitar? Urban farming?
• What prevented you from engaging in your hobby this year – time? money? laziness?

These questions are intended to stoke the mental fires a bit, so please, come up with your own questions and ideas for your self-assessment. This is just for you, and honesty and self-disclosure will help you most here. Good luck, and I hope this exercise can help you change what’s not working in your life in 2012.

There are some things that are meant to be avoided in life: traffic jams, flight delays, credit card fees and death. Some people may even add taxes to that list. But, men that avoid their problems in life find that they come back to haunt them, sometimes in a big way.

Some guys that I talk with avoid their problems – and the consequences that come – at all costs. They’ll do anything to avoid, distract, not deal, think about other things or generally try to forget about the problems that life inevitably distributes. Whether that includes problems with work, money, sex, relationships, or taking care of themselves, avoiding your problems leads to even bigger ones down the road.

It’s the same as car maintenance: if you hear an abnormal sound,  or instinctively know something’s wrong, and you  choose to neglect it, it can be a lot more expensive as time goes on. The same thing with avoiding our problems.

You see, life’s problems have a way of staying dormant only so long. They’ll inevitably creep back up, whether we like it or not. The resulting symptoms manifest as constant money woes, having the same types of conflicts with your relationship partner over and over again, choosing the same type of partners in different relationships, or suffering from the same types of health problems.

Are you guilty of avoiding your problems? Is the reality of your particular situation to difficult to look at? sometimes, when a problem is been avoided for so long, it becomes increasingly more difficult to look at and deal with, because it’s festered and grown worse. The more it grows, the more we want to avoid it, and the cycle continues.

How do you break out of the cycle, then, and start dealing with the issues you’re confronted with?

1. Breakout of the avoidance trap, and admit you got a problem.
2. Lay all of your cards out on the table, and take a look at what resources you’ll need to help yourself.
1. Do you need more time? Money? Better communication skills? More discipline?
3. Ask for help: there have been other people in your situation before, and they’re willing to help you. Ask for help from the people that care, or pay to get the help that you need from a professional.
4. Set goals and chunk it out: do a little bit at a time. Attended a problem bit by bit, and make it a habit to constantly attend to it.
5. Try to take a look at “how” you’re avoiding your problem: is it fear? is it rejection? is it shame?
6. Pat yourself on the back, instead of shaming yourself, for dealing head-on with your problem. It’s been habit- forming for you to avoid your problem, so praise yourself for having the courage to start to attend to what you avoided.

Take it one step at a time when you are starting to open up a problem that you have attended to. It’ll take some time to reorient to the problem, without avoiding it or not looking at it. Take it easy on yourself, and take it slow, and you’ll have started to retrain yourself to deal with problems or tasks as they come up.

Making a decision is hard enough. Having the wrench of guilt thrown into your machinery while you’re making a decision is even worse. Many times, were not even aware of the guilt that we carry, and it operates beneath our consciousness and controls our thoughts, feelings and decision-making skills. When we indulge in our guilt, we are generally not making the right decisions for us, or what’s in our best interest as individuals.

When we try to adhere to other people’s desires of us, whether it’s family, friends, or our significant other, we sometimes get lost in trying to both please them and ourselves. The friction that’s created is where guilt lies. Guilt is more about “should” or “have to,” rather than “wanting to.”

Guilt is corrosive. When we let it fester, it eats us up inside. It stops our better judgment of how best to live our own lives. I think guilt is more related to people pleasing, and when we: the people pleasing, we lose our own voice.

What we call ‘guilt’ is usually representative of a blade within us, between pleasing some outside person or entity and ourselves. The more we can learn to tune into what we really want, the more will find happiness, contentment and confidence. We’re certainly not going to find those things if we endlessly tried to attend to or appease others, or try to do their agenda. Ultimately, will fail, and fall victim to addictive people pleasing.

Ask yourself: “what is it that I really want, if I can cut away trying to always please others?”. if you didn’t have to deal with guilt, what would your certain outcome or decision actually be? Would it looked different than how you’re used to doing it? Are you prepared for that outcome?

If we actually take the risk of listening to ourselves and what we truly want, and not others, what are the risks? usually, there is fear or panic about letting others down, or doing the opposite of what others want from us. When we grow up, we often develop guilt from interacting with our parents. They usually have a certain agenda for us, and we usually just learned to absorb it. As kids, we never really considered doing things our own way, or if we did, it was usually in a defiant or flippant way.

I think the first way to successfully deal with guilt is to start to recognize what it is that you actually want. What would your relationship look like if you really wanted it to be free of guilt? Would your friendships change? would you end up dropping friends who you didn’t feel guilty around?

On the other end, sometimes guilt is flared up by others manipulative tendencies. Manipulation and guilt are bedfellows. Where there is manipulation, there’s often guilt. if you’re feeling manipulated by someone close, it’s important to start to understand that dynamic in your relationship, and start to address it head-on. If you allow yourself to be manipulated, the end product will probably be guilt. And guilt is extremely corrosive to the soul.

New! Affordable Counseling Services in Phoenix – Starting Today! Now only $60 a session!

If you’ve been putting off counseling, and expenses have been an issue these days, we’ve got just the deal for you. And it’s gotten a little better.

Phoenix Men’s Counseling expands it’s service menu to include affordably priced counseling for individuals and couples.

Counseling services will be offered by Trent Leupp, a counseling student intern from Argosy University in Phoenix, under the direct supervision of a licensed professional counselor – yours truly. Sessions are now priced at $60 for a 50-minute counseling session with Trent.

Appointments are currently being set up, and there are a limited amount of bookings available.

New to counseling? Been hesitant to give it a try? This is your opportunity to start to make a real investment in your well-being and your relationships.

Contact Jason at 602.309.0568, or visit us at www.phoenixmenscounseling.com to book an online appointment.

I’ve been thinking a lot about what is takes to be a good man. I think there are plenty of answers out there: from media and culture, to our own preconceptions of what it means to be a man. But what if we truly listened to ourselves and came up with our own answers?

I’ve decided to put together a men’s self-assessment, and included five areas of life that I think are key to developing oneself as a man. Take a couples of minutes out on a break to consider your answers to these life areas.

• Living Your Values
• Do you live by what you believe in? How so?
• Is there a difference between what you believe in and how you practice your life? If yes,
• Being Genuine/Authentic
• Are you truly open and honest about your thoughts, feelings and behaviors to those close to you? If not, how do you prevent or inhibit yourself?
• Are you generally being true with yourself? If not, how are you untrue to yourself?
• Taking Responsibility
• Do you find yourself playing the ‘victim’ to others, or life in general? How?
• Is it hard to “own” your stuff, even if it’s negative, paints you in a negative light, or tarnishes your facade? Why?
• Practicing Self-Respect
• Do you practice regular self care, such as exercise, good nutrition, stress management? If not, what gets in your way?
• Can you keep healthy boundaries with others (i.e. be firm with others by saying ‘no’, not compromising your values, etc.). If not, how are you flexible on your boundaries with others?
• Do you criticize or judge yourself too harshly? What do you get out of this, if you do?
• Navigating Life Balance
• How does your life tip out of balance? What are your “traps” to fall out of balance (i.e. work, kids, etc.)
• Would others in your life consider you to be balanced in your life? What would they say?
• What is one area of your life that begs for your attention, in needing more balance? What is one thing you can do to feed that unattended part of your life?

What answers did you come up with? Were you surprised by any of your answers? It’s hard to take an honest look at ourselves, when life commands our attention, or when our perception of ourselves is filtered through other people.

If you came up with more questions, let those be the starting point to develop your next answers. How can you develop an action plan to be able to improve some of these life areas for yourself? Will it take time, money, energy, other people – what resources will you need to seek out to help you in developing these things?

Taking an honest look at ourselves takes some courage, especially if we’re not in the habit of doing so. Try to make small but incremental changes in developing your awareness. You can’t change what you’re not aware of, so stay open and get others feedback if you choose. All the luck and support to you.

Intimacy is a tricky subject for many guys. When we think of intimacy, sexual intimacy usually comes to mind. But the intimacy that your wife, girlfriend or partner may need in your relationship is quite different.

To be intimate – for many women – means being able to connect with them through your emotions. Where men stumble is thinking that to be intimate means doing, showing or providing for their partners. For guys, a common misperception is that taking care of their wives or girlfriends though buying them things or providing for them materially is how we care for them. It’s baffling to think that our wives and girlfriends are unhappy with us when we keep trying to get it right with them, and end up feeling like we’ve failed.

Emotional connection for men is difficult, but you get further away from the emotional connection when you convince yourself that you’re doing what you can to try to care for your partner by doing things (e.g. fixing things around the house, planning events or vacations or simply being the great breadwinner that you are). What I hear from frustrated women is that, ultimately, they want to feel close and connected to their partner in an emotional way, and guys can’t get to this place by better planning, fixing or breadwinning.

• Stop trying to fix your way through intimacy. It probably won’t work
• Try to stay open to listening to your wife, girlfriend or partner without being defensive
• Stay open to feedback and constructive criticism
• Know that you are indeed successful as a boyfriend, husband, father, breadwinner, etc., and that you’re not a failure at intimacy, but it may require changing your perspective
• Try talking with your partner about your feelings or emotions: try to stay vulnerable with your partner, even if it means not doing anything at all – simply listening and being present in a conversation.
• Ask for validation from your partner for the things you’re doing well, such as being supportive and caring to her, being a good provider, etc.
• Ask for it verbally from her, instead of assuming she should just know to give it to you.

When they don’t feel intimate emotionally with you, women may withdraw sexually or physically from you. They may chase and pursue you – even resorting to criticizing you and invalidating you – but their longing to connect emotionally with you is what’s driving that reactive behavior. Your sex life may be problematic is there’s an emotional disconnection or intimacy problem between you.

Talking about problems that are present within the relationship is another good way to reset with your partner and develop better emotional intimacy, and, consequently, better sexual intimacy. Too often, the problems and issues that we have in our relationships get hidden away and relegated to the sidelines through avoidance, fear, compartmentalization and avoidance, especially for men. Try something new: open up to your partner about the problems you’re having with them. If you take the risk, and communicate it from your own experience (“I” statements”) instead of attack or criticize them, you may be surprised with the results. You may find a better, more intimate relationship waiting for you in the end.

So often, we catch ourselves lost in our thought stream – thinking about our long term plans, or just weekend plans, wondering about past regrets we have, or stressing about things that have yet to come true. But, how well do we live grounded in our own present reality?

It’s quite common to get lost in our memories, hopes, fears, goals and stressors. But, when we lose ourselves in those places, life end us passing us by.

Many men live in the regret of the past – whether that’s dwelling on professional opportunities lost or squandered, women that have gotten away or generally idealizing their pasts in a way that we can’t let go. Often times, when we hold onto the past, intrusive thoughts predominate our thinking, and it’s as if we’re living in a parallel world where we’re not quite available to ourselves and others in the present.

Learning to let go of regret, anger and shame is an important step to letting go of the past. Developing more of a compassionate relationship with yourself means not beating yourself up for not taking that dream job, not actualizing your potential as a star tennis player, or failing in previous relationships. Living in the present moment often entails working through grief as a way to let go of the past, even if the past is so easy to hold on to.

The problem most men face is that they avoid their emotions. In doing this, what happens is that we develop these mental fixations on things in the past or future, and the negative emotions stay stuck and frozen. If you create space to see just how much you’re ruminating on things, people, places, etc., you’ll probably find that you’re avoiding dealing with the emotions that have resulted. Dealing with emotions is hard, especially when they run so deep, but it’s imperative to do so to get unstuck and back into the present moment of your life.

Mindfulness meditation is one way to come to develop more presence and live in the present moment. There are many good books on the subject. Jon Kabat Zinn developed Mindfulness Based Stress Reduction (MBSR; http://www.mindfullivingprograms.com/whatMBSR.php). Developing a mindfulness meditation practice is helpful to clarifying the mind and learning to detach from one’s thought stream, where suffering lies. It’s not about better avoidance – it’s about being present with everything that arises, including wishful thinking, negative emotions and the pain of our experience of being human.

I personally practice yoga and find it’s a great way to develop more presence and anchor myself in the present moment. There are a number of great yoga studios here in Phoenix, and probably close to your home. Find the yoga style that works best for you, check out different classes from different instructors, and develop a regular routine to experience the best benefits.

Having intimate conversations with those close to you also has the transformative power of change to anchor you back in your present reality. In taking the risk to share fears, hopes, sadness, pain and insecurities with your partner or spouse, a close friend, or a family member, you’ll develop more personal awareness and make contact with those negative emotions in order to expunge them and live more presently.

Lastly, I believe lifestyle has a lot to do with being present – how much sleep you get, if you get regular exercise, how you eat and take care of your body. Optimizing your lifestyle and learning what works best for your body will most definitely help you to get closer access to the present moment. Tune in and listen to your body to see how much sleep you’ll need, when too many stimulants or too much alcohol affects your body, or what foods and supplements will be most beneficial to you maximizing your energy and presence.

As much as you try to be and look successful, is there a part of your inner voice that says you’re a loser? Most guys deal with this inner critic, that undermines their real success in the world. Jason looks at this negative self-beliefs in this 2 1/2 min. video, Kicking the “Loser” Thinking, and gives you some tips to think about when confronting these negative self-beliefs.

Plenty of guys deal with problems with sex. From heavy porn use, to erectile dysfunction, to general intimacy problems with their wives and girlfriends, men struggle with what it means to be sexually intimate. Watch this 2-min. video on Men and Sex Problems, where Jason talks about some of the problems men have with sex.