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.

In “The Hustler”, Paul Newman plays a pool shark named Fast Eddie Felson. He is as natural as they come, but Fast Eddie has a handicap: he struggles with thinking he’s a “born loser”, as one character types him. He hides behind large quantities of alcohol, and starts working for a sinister professional gambler named Bert Gordon (a brilliant role by George C. Scott).

Fast Eddie is seeking personal fulfillment, while succumbing to the role of the loser. It got me thinking about how we trip ourselves up with “loser” type-thinking.  Eddie finally has a catharsis after the suicide of his girlfriend, played by Piper Laurie, and is able to realize his potential and shuck the “loser” mentality off to beat legend Minnesota Fats (Jackie Gleason). But how many of us are truly able to shuck off the loser thinking and fulfill our potential?

Many guys I work with look successful on the outside, and have all the trappings of what looks like success: careers, family, cars, money, power, etc. But on the inside, I think there’s a lot of us that still think we’re losers, even if we’re not to others.

First, identifying that we think like this could be a powerful wake up call to change. Often times, we get in the unconscious habit of thinking “successfully”, and not attending to the underlying loser “voice” below. We strive so hard to beat, fight and slay the “loser” that we work double time to get rid of it. And yet, the loser voice doesn’t go anywhere – it just grows stronger.

How else can you help kick the “loser” out of your life?

• Start to recognize the loser voice: let it come up and don’t push it away. It’s got something to say, and let it play out. It won’t make you a “loser” to just allow that voice some airtime.
• Journal about your experiences when the “loser” voice comes up. Create a special journal or use a dictation app on your phone and make time a couple of times a week to get in touch with that voice.
• Consider your family of origin background: Did you take in messages that you weren’t good enough as you were? Was it hard to do things without being criticized or shamed?
• Ask yourself: do I work extra hard to suppress my “loser” voice? A lot of men work double time – at work, at play, in relationships – to keep that voice locked up. Try to see how you “overcompensate” for feeling like a loser.
• Share your feelings with someone you trust: your partner, a trusted friend, a family member. Chances are pretty good that that person has dealt with these feelings, and that you’re not alone.
• Take charge of your “loser” voice: work to affirm yourself for your strengths, talents, gifts and the like. You’ve got just as many of those things that, when seeing your reality, can override your “loser” voice.
• Watch “The Hustler” on Netflix
• Get in touch with the feelings behind your experience of being a loser: is there sadness? Is there pain? Are there feelings of shame and embarrassment, or inferiority? Those can be dealt with. Seek out some support, or some counseling to help.
• Know you’re not alone: in my humble opinion, most men deal with thinking this way. Inside, most guys have a scared little boy who’s not feeling good enough, successful enough, etc. Even if other guys aren’t talking, I can tell you this can very much be the truth.

Fast Eddie overcame his label of “born loser”: he ass-kicked Minnesota Fats in the end. You have all the resources you need inside of you to not just look successful, but to believe it on the inside. What prevents us from kicking the “loser” out is ourselves. Removing those roadblocks means believing you are genuinely powerful and successful, and not the “loser” you’ve believed yourself to be.

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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.

When our lives don’t turn out exactly how we want them to, men have a certain way of stagnating, or freezing themselves in time. We become like Icemen, psychologically trapped in the confines of our own memories and unable to live in the reality of the present. This inability to contact our lives as they are unfolding now means that life passes us by, and a lot of times we don’t even know it.

Why does this happen Why do we get stuck in time? Is it possible to unfreeze ourselves and start living our lives?

A lot of men stay trapped in periods of their lives that were more glorious: when they were captain of the football team in high school, in their party years in college, in their adolescence. Some guys stay emotionally and psychologically trapped in these periods of their lives because this is when they felt good about themselves and about what they were doing. They were getting acclimated and validation for being a superstar, and the dreary reality of their present lives today doesn’t provide them that same sense of accomplishment or identity boosting.

Who wouldn’t want to relive their glory years? Which guy wouldn’t want to feel good about those points in their lives where things were working well, where they were successful in work or with women, or where they felt really good about themselves?

The problem comes when we stay stuck in this alternate dimension, and never unhook ourselves from those past memories. It’s like we can never make contact with our lives as they are playing out in the present.

A lot of times, our lives are too difficult to deal with, or to even look at. We may be unhappy with our careers or our work, our spouses may be making us miserable, our children may have constantly disappointed us, or we may feel like failures to ourselves. As human beings, it’s to want to avoid pain and suffering, and strive for pleasure. When we get stuck in the past, were living in a faux reality that is out of touch with the present.

The first step to waking up from this disillusionment is to become aware that were actually residing in our memories more than we are in our lives. If we can recognize that, if we can start to shake off the past, no matter how seductive it is over us, we can start to turn to face the reality of our current situations, even if that brings pain, grief, fear or other negative emotions. We may need to deal with people who cause us pain, or with situations, such as work, relationships, or depression, if we start to wake up from living in that alternate reality.

It’s also important to seek out professional help, because it’s difficult to see your situation when you’re smack dab in the middle of it. And, on top of that, if you’ve been living your life in the past, you may need some professional support to help you navigate back to your life.

It’s critical to know that dealing with the pain of the present doesn’t mean you’re fated to live a life of unhappiness and misery. You’re not. Plenty of guys can successfully work through their problems or issues and get to feeling better again while living in their present reality, not in their past. Just because you were a successful student athlete, or popular with the women, or were you stand out in your career, all of those things are fleeting and won’t bring you lifelong happiness. If you start to live more in the present moment, and in your current life as it unfolds today, you’ll learn to ease up on gripping the past four your sense of self-worth and happiness.

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Whether in relationships, at work, or with oneself, there are a multitude of ways to sabotage yourself from getting what you want in your life.

In undermining our own success, we set up scenarios in which we fail, or hold ourselves back unconsciously from what we really want, often out of negative emotions or beliefs that fail to hold up under scrutiny in the real world. In effect, we hold ourselves back, and often don’t know how we do.

If you think you self-sabotage yourself, might any of these things characterize your behavior?

• Constantly beat up on yourself
• Let yourself believe the negative or worst case scenario
• Let others decide for you, including women
• Succumb to and make decisions out of fear
• Prevent relationships from developing because you’ve got walls, armor, or other barriers that keep others out

Lacking in self-support and inner resources, those men who self-sabotage seem to constantly make decisions that are bad for them, or at the least, make them deviate from their own path to success in life.

What does self-sabotage look like?

• Believing you’re no good, or worthless, and then choosing behaviors that align with that belief, like being underemployed, choosing a wife or girlfriend who likes you “enough”
• Not having confidence in yourself and your abilities to have success, whether as successful relationships, good self-esteem, or in one’s professional aspirations
• Attacking others in our lives, and those close to us, because we hide, protect ourselves and fend off from really showing others our genuineness and authentic self.
• Not moving forward, staying stuck, or failing to make good decisions, out of fear of failure, fear of success, low self-esteem, or any number of other reasons.

People are attracted to those guys who are confident and not at war with themselves. Self-saboteurs are in a war with themselves, so it’s going to be difficult to attract healthy, growth-oriented people into the realm or the self-saboteur. Even if we say that we want them in our lives, we may be attracting the wrong kinds of people, whether those be women, jobs, friends or the like.

To want health is different from attracting health: if we’re still at war with ourselves, we end up attracting others (read: intimate partners) that conspire in our self-abuse. And that’s not what we want for ourselves. That’s not how we see our lives as healthy and growth-promoting.

What can you do to stop the saboteur in you?

1. Develop self-support: start a new relationship with yourself by being kind to yourself, getting to know yourself more and work at easing up on yourself.
2. Practice being genuine with others, even if that means letting them inside your fortress a bit
3. Tame the self-critic: Get counseling, journal, channel your anger in other, more productive outlets, get physical exercise, and try meditation to focus the mind. You need to admit to yourself that you and your self-critic are different entities, and that you’re at war with him. most people don’t see this or admit it, and it’s the first step to becoming whole.
4. Understand how you sabotage yourself, Whether through anger, fear, jealousy, insecurity or inferiority. Maybe it’s a mix, or maybe it’s all of them together.
5. Seek out the support of others: Attract heathy people into your life that support your journey of health, not enable it or undermine your health. Yeah, we’ve all got people in our lives that feed the self-sabotaging we do, so reconsider some of those relationships through this process.

People pleasers are more interested in pleasing others than in taking care of their own needs and concerns. They usually say ‘yes’ when they really mean ‘no’, because they’re afraid of letting others down or upsetting them.

Plenty of guys that I talk with fall into this category of people pleasers. They’re the ones that usually are so attentive to the needs of others, most especially intimate partners, that they neglect themselves. People pleasers who spend their time and energy trying to make others happy – to the detriment of their own happiness – are on a crash course for unhappiness.

People pleasers usually end up stuffing their anger, or intermittently exploding on others, or both. Anger and frustration builds up, and, over time, it needs an outlet. It usually comes out periodically, when it should have a ongoing release valve in the form of good communication with others.

Learning to say ‘no’ is essential for people pleasers. This is the hardest part. Saying ‘no’, for people pleasers, risks a rejection by others who people pleasers think don’t want to hear their ‘no’. It’s a risk. In the mind of the people pleaser, it can be terrifying to say ‘no’. But, like many other things, the reality is often quite different from our fantasy. Usually, people can accept the ‘no’ you give them, once you summon the courage up to finally spit it out.

Here are some more tips to stop people pleasing:

1. Draw a line in the sand: Develop healthy boundaries, and learn what you will do, and what you won’t. Assert those boundaries without compromise.
2. Spend less time with people who drain you: “Takers” are attracted to “people pleasers”, and vice versa. Part of recovery from people pleasing is renegotiating friendships that function on you giving and them taking. Relationships need to be about mutual giving and receiving, and if you feel like it’s only one way (going their way!), it may be time to drop the friendship or spend less time with them. Why hang out with takers or energy vampires anyways?
3. Learn what you want: So you can be firm with others and take a stand to get what you want.
4. Don’t be afraid to say ‘no’: You probably won’t lose friends if you try, and if you do, don’t worry – see Tip #2.
5. Communicate more effectively: You don’t need to get angry to communicate to others what you want or don’t want.
6. Know this cycle can be broken: It’ll take time, effort, and a commitment to doing things differently from now on, but it’s changeable.

We learn how to people please at an early age, and just because we’ve been dealing with this for most of our lives, it certainly doesn’t mean we have to continue to. There is help, and recovery is possible. I know. I used to be a people pleaser, and not doing it is a hell of a lot better.

Instead of the 40 hour workweek, somehow we ended up extending back quite a bit beyond those boundaries over the last couple of decades. We’ve become accustomed to working 45, 55, 60 and more hours a week. I even talked with guys who regularly clock in about 80 hours on the job a week.

Even though economic conditions have worsened in the last couple of years, and things are tighter overall, there seems to have been a pervasive cultural message to work as much as we can. I think that that’s changing the last couple of years, with people reconsidering their lives and trying to budget time for things that really matter to them, like family, hobbies, and other life experiences. And younger guys seem to have taken this heart: by seeing their fathers worked tirelessly, more and more guys are trying to find what work allows them to apply their passions, and doesn’t kill them in the process.

But, workaholism still runs rampant in our culture today. Plenty of guys they’re either head in the sand and press ahead robotically to get ahead. Some are so driven by power, success for money that it blinds them to the rest of the rose bushes that they’re zooming past.

Usually, the first thing that materializes as a problem is marital or relationship problems. I hear a lot of women complaining that their guy works too much or too hard, and doesn’t have time for them. They complain about not having regular date nights, not having sex regularly, or just generally feeling unattended to emotionally. Many guys don’t see this until it’s too late, and then come in to count and try to help to patch up what’s already broken beyond repair.

Is this you? I know I’ve been guilty working too hard sometimes, but moderation is definitely the key. Do you find that you’re able to create the kind of work life balance that’s needed to create an optimal life for you?

Here’s four things to think about if you may be a workaholic:

1. You probably aren’t attending to your self, whether it’s diet, exercise, sleep, or your own emotional state. Forging out a life in balance means investing some energy in those areas of your life. Start small, and make commitments each week to modify one or more areas.

2. Get feedback: ask those closest to you how they see. Are you accessible for people when they need you? Do they feel like they’ve “got” you when they need you, or is there experience that you’re always attending to other things?

3. For dads: to consider if you were own father was a workaholic, and if he wasn’t there. Ask yourself if you may be re-creating the same cycle each over again, and if so, take preventative measures to stop it. You wouldn’t want your son or daughter to grow up feeling like you weren’t there, even if that’s how you felt growing up. Would you?

4. Identify why you’re working so hard. Is it for the money? Is it because you’re avoiding something, such as wanting to be home? Are you a perfectionist, or just hungry to climb the ladder at work? Identifying your motivations is really the Ground Zero for making changes to your life, and understanding why you’re doing something is key. It may not be easy, but if you spend enough time meditating on this issue, you may come up with some surprising results.

Plenty of men turn to work to provide a variety of needs: sense of identity, sense of purpose, money, power, prestige, for since a family, whatever. But, like anything else, if you lose moderation and a work/life balance, it may be easy to get lost in work and not be able to find your way out.

1. Stop spending money to impress people, by picking up the tab to impress others, or yourself. Plan on when you’re going to pick up the tab before you even go out, then ask yourself why you’re doing it.
2. Start investing in the things that you value long-term, such as retirement, kids’ college, a trip to Fiji with you wife
3. Agree to make time with your spouse to have a “Money Talk” every month, say on Sunday morning, and talk about not only money logistics, but fears, concerns and stressors associated with money or work.
4. Carry cash: this way, you’ll see your money going out of your hands steadily, and not be divorced from the process of spending money by using a debit or credit card. You’ll have a greater appreciation for the money that you’re making, and parting with.
5. Break the deficiency mentality: This is harder, because a lot of our messages around money we’ve inherited from our parents. If you live in the deficiency mentality, you’ll always feel impoverished and feel like you’re living paycheck to paycheck. Seek out help, such as counseling, to bust up those difficult messages from your family of origin.
6. Before buying a new car or house, ask yourself, “Could I be happier with something less? how will this purchase bring me increase happiness?” Maybe the difference between buying a $35,000 new car, and a $20,000 previously owned car isn’t really all that different. It’s possible that you could be happy with the $20,000 car, and sack away $15,000 into a retirement savings account and achieve a different sense of happiness–one that promotes your long-term well-being.
7. Minimize indulgences: a lot of the time we indulge in things that we don’t really need, simply because we can or we think we should treat ourselves or indulge ourselves. If we train ourselves to buy ourselves things to make ourselves feel good, and don’t really need their own those things, we set ourselves up for trouble. When were feeling blue, or scared, or happy, we then seek out the thrill of buying something new, which only works for a limited time.
8. Remember that people don’t like you or hang out with you for your money, even if you think so. and if they do, it’s probably time to reconsider your friendships. You may be allotting a lot of money towards a lifestyle that is designed more for impression, and less for your own personal satisfaction. Is this you? If so, it may be time to start reconsidering how you’re spending your money, and if the lifestyle you’re living is truly aligned with your own values, or designed to impress others.
9. If she loves you, she’s not always can need to spend money on her. If she’s the right one for you, you will need to bust your ass to buy her things and shower her with gifts. There are plenty of ways that you can show her love, caring and affection that aren’t about gifts, meals, trips or shopping. In fact, most women want you to be able to be emotionally giving, which usually doesn’t require spending money. Guys mix this up all the time. They try to show their carrying affection for women with material things or doing things for them. Save yourself a little the cash and start to tune into what she really wants from you.

Thinking about this topic, I know we’re heading into murky territory, but I’ve been talking with a ton of guys this season where that big question has come up. I think it’s something about the holiday season that makes us look back on our past year and assess both the good and the bad. Do we look back in happiness and success, or do we look back in regret?

The holidays seem to drudge that question up for a lot of people, because I think a lot of otherwise unhappy people want to be able to make a change for themselves with the new year. Relationships are no different. Many people who are unhappy or unsettled in their current relationships start to ask themselves this question around this time of the year, and start to ask themselves if they need to make a change.
This is one of the most difficult questions to ask -  “do I stay or do I go in my relationship or marriage?” This article is not going to answer that question for you, but it’s been a bring up some points for you to think about.

There are some things that make answering that question easier, such as direct physical abuse, a partner who is mired in substance use, or other immediate response needs. I think those types of things need into serious inquiry into the “do I stay or do I go” question.

But, for a lot of men, they ask this question of themselves out of sheer reactivity and hopelessness. Many kind of choose to stay stuck between a rock and a hard place, and never seek out the help that they need, such as couples counseling. For some, it’s more comfortable. For others, it’s just denial.

A lot of times, the question “do I stay?” really means “ can I continue to deal with the problems that I am experiencing currently?” We often end up blaming our partners and creating a certain storyline about them and our relationship, and how it’s going to hell. If we get stuck in those types of thoughts, we’re toast. A lot of relationships and marriages that can be worked on, aren’t.

For men, it’s a little harder to take a look at the things that we are doing to our partners, and to take responsibility for the negative things that we do to them. I think the “do I stay?” question reflects a little bit of this, as well as “can I continue to deal with the negative emotions that come up inside me?” Sometimes, enough suffering drives people out of their comfort zone, where the pain of a bad relationship had become more than they can sit on.

For the guys who are emotionally avoidant already, the next logical question to start asking is “do I go?”. For men who avoid their emotions, and often avoid conflict situations in general, the desire to end a relationship or marriage is logical. It’s just easier to do it that way, and to start over from scratch. Problems are too difficult to work on in this relationship, you might tell yourself. She’s not open to a change, you might tell yourself as well. Or, this is just too much work, and I’m not up to the task, you might end with telling yourself.

I think the biggest question you need to consider is are you asking yourself if you want to flee the relationship based out of reactivity and emotion, or is this a rational, well-thought-out plan? For a lot of men, it’s acting out of reactivity and impulsivity, and that might work briefly in the short term, but not in long-term. We are bound to have to deal with this dynamic again, whether we get back together with our partner, or develop a new relationship with someone else. It’ll still be there.

And then, there is the “I should stay for the children” dilemma. I see a lot of couples wanting to hang in there, despite really difficult problems, for the sake of the kids. Some drudge through miserable marriages because they don’t want to expose their children to break up or divorce. Many times, it’s these guys who were those children in the past, and don’t want to do to their family what it is their parents did to them.

Really making a commitment to hang in there and work on the relationship issues, especially if you feel strongly about your partner, is really the first step. Identifying whether you’re wanting to end the relationship out of the emotion, or whether this is a well-thought-out plan, is one question that you could consider.

A lot of times, even the most hopeless situations can improve with some emotional connection, but it can be difficult for men to both connect to their feelings and to be able to listen to some of their partner’s issues with them and not want to fix those issues (which women often don’t respond well to, but do when you’re present and listening).

Is your relationship or marriage worth saving? Do you feel strongly enough about it, and about her, to start to do the heavy lifting to get your relationship back on track? Some guys do; others don’t. I’m not going to lie to you: it does take some work. But, your relationship is worth it, isn’t it?

A lot of people have a really difficult time saying no to others in drawing healthy boundaries for themselves. Men struggle with this just as women do. A lot of guys suffer from the “nice guy” syndrome, and often fall into people pleasing behaviors that erode our confidence and self-esteem, and end up getting our power over to other people.

Here’s some things that happen when you can’t draw healthy boundaries for yourself:

1. You end up giving other people power over your decision-making process
2. Anger develops and builds up over time, and usually gets stuffed within us
3. We end up forgetting what it is that we truly want from others, from our lives
4. We end up playing games with other people to get love, attention and affirmation
5. We succumb to the fear that generates our inability to say no to others, and we end up living through fear instead of courage to stand up for ourselves.
6. Our relationships are not as authentic as they could be when we don’t say ‘no’
7. A lot of psychic energy is expended in worrying about what others want from us and designing ways to please them and their needs.
8. We develop a lot of guilt in the process, usually that stays with us and corrodes our well-being and self-esteem.
9. We can succumb to stress, anxiety and depression much more easily when we can’t say no to others.
10. Our lives become contingent on others and on the outside world, instead of contingent on ourselves and what we want from the world.

We devote a lot of energy in the process of pleasing others and not saying ‘no’ to others. It takes a lot of courage to risk doing something different. For most men, unlearning to be the “nice guy” takes a lot of risk and a lot of doing things different. It takes interacting with others in a very different way than what we’ve learned growing up, and development of these tools is essential to taking our selves and our lives back. We have to risk the fear of rejection, which is devastating to the ego, but is ultimately freeing and invigorating. If we can learn to say no to others, and start to say yes to ourselves, we can learn new experience that freedom and not feel dependent on others to give us affection or affirmation, and not reject us, if we don’t say no to others.