People often talk about their moment of clarity when they shift into a higher awareness about how to tackle the problem. Some call it their “aha” moment. Some are less certain about what changes have come about but know something is different in the way that they approach a problem.

This process of illumination is different for all, and as varied as there are people experiencing change. It’s a very personal and subjective experience, but transforms both inner and outer environments in a profound way.

How do you jump from “tree-to-forest” perspective in your own life? Concerning the important changes that you have made in your own life and relationships, what has the illumination process consisted of for you? How have you made the changes in your life that have brought you improved awareness and success?

We know when we have achieved the forest perspective when things in our life (subtle or not) begin to take effect. Our loved ones respond to us differently. Maybe we feel less stressed. We can experience moment to moment happiness for once without mentally living in the future. Or maybe we can learn to stop being so hard on ourselves and develop a little more patience and gentleness.

“Nice guys” in love often find themselves playing the role of the hero, or the savior, to the women that they become involved with in relationship. These nice guys guys often seek out women who are “broken birds,” or relationship partners that are attractive because their flaws create an attractive project to the nice guy hero.

So many men fall into the hero role, and end up creating a lot of relationship misery for themselves. This is not a truly loving relationship; this is a neurotic relationship that serves to reinforce the nice guy’s identity about needing to be needed. When a nice guy is needed by a broken bird, it makes that guy feel wanted, needed, and special.

Broken birds can often never be fixed, although they may look very appealing and beautiful on the outside. The appeal to be with or fix a broken bird blinds most nice guys to what’s really going on. It prevents true relationship, in the sense that two people are relating to each other as full human beings, and not as roles being played. Nice guys and broken birds interact with only versions of themselves, and not as people in love. It may feel like love, but it’s codependency.

As long as the nice guy is committed to trying to fix the broken bird, he is doomed to fail every time. Like I said, broken birds cannot be fixed. But when they do get fixed — if that happens — then that upsets the equilibrium of the relationship. When one person does something different, the whole system is forced into changing itself. What does this mean? Well, if you’re a nice guy with a broken bird, you will be forced into needing to learn how to reinvent your relationship with your partner. Or, just as often, the broken bird will end up mending its wings and flying away, unless the nice guy does first.

That latter scenario would entail a major change in the way a man redefines himself, and that would mean to lose the hero’s cape. He would need to learn how to have a meaningful relationship without needing to fix or man and his partner, and these are structural changes. So long as these structural changes go unattended, the attraction or seduction to engage in a relationship with a broken bird is highly tempting.

Sometimes, for potential clients, the hardest part is working up both the courage to admit that there is a problem in their life that needs attention. For clients, especially guys, it’s easy to avoid admitting or knowing when to admit there’s a problem. That’s the first step. Actually finding a professional therapist is a whole other matter.

People don’t always know who they need – they just know that they need help. When it comes time to research a counselor or therapist, many seek out the recommendations of their friends and family. They trust that they’ll feel safe and comfortable with that professional if those they love vouch for the therapist (like any good service provider).

But if there’s no personal referral, the search for help becomes like hiding your eyes and throwing the dart at the board. You hope for a hit, and you could just as well throw it way off the target.

Knowing who does what is an important start. Here’s a quick primer to get you going, and a simple way to understand the alphabet soup of credentials that your next therapist might have:

LPC = Licensed Professional Counselor. In the State of Arizona, LPC’s are licensed by the state through the Board of Behavioral Health Examiners, and are educated and trained to work with a variety of problems. Many specialize, so it’s important to know which speciality the LPC you are interviewing works with – kids, relationships, depression, trauma? Many generalize, and it’s important to know that yours will have experience working with your unique issues.

PhD/PsyD = Psychologist. These professionals are also licensed, and have a Doctorate in Psychology (as opposed to LPC’s who are Master’s Level in Counseling and Psychology). Psychologists can do individual and couples therapy, and have an advantage of administering tests and batteries, aside from clinical work.

LMFT = Licensed Marriage and Family Therapist. Background in working with families and marriages, and workj in therapy with those populations. These professionals are Master’s level, and licensed by their state’s licensing board.

MSW = Social Worker. Social workers often do therapy with individuals and couples, and are Master’s level in education, trained, and licensed by the state in which they practice.

Life coach = Life coach. Life coaches are newer to the scene, and do not perform psychotherapy. Life coaches are not therapists, but can help you in areas of life management, goal setting and much more. They are not licensed by the State of Arizona, but are certified through private organizations.

MD = Psychiatrist. Many psychiatrists do not do individual therapy much anymore. They are trained medical doctors, who specialize in psychiatry and psychiatric disorders. They are who you want for medications (including antidepressants and anti-anxiety medications) and psychiatric problems and illnesses, and often times refer out for therapy these days.

Hope this little guide to decoding the search for a therapist helps you understand you you need to get to to help you and your problems. Remember: the most important element to counseling is the relationship that you develop with that professional, and it’s important that you know, like and trust the person you are confiding in and opening up to.

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I’m not going to start out by saying that depression is merely a function of not getting what you want. Depression has roots deeper than that explanation. It can be caused, or related to, nutritional imbalances, individual and varying biochemistry, neurochemical reasons (such as serotonin imbalances, or other neurotransmitters), and so on.

Many men I work with, however, experience depression as a reaction to deeply unmet needs. Many times, these men don’t know how to go about getting those needs met, so they will resort to employing the ineffective skills that they have learned growing up, which cause them to sink into depression. For men, being afraid of their anger, or speaking up for themselves, is threatening, so depression becomes “more comfortable” (relatively speaking) than activating their energy and going out into the world to get what they need.

Through poor interpersonal communication skills, a lot of guys can’t simply language what they need, either from a friend, a lover or an employer. The verbal skills aren’t there, and then these depressed men end up creating false assumptions about themselves that they link to that person or event. “Well, if I was worthy enough for their attention, then so-and-so would give me the time of day,” or “Well,if she really loved me, she wouldn’t be acting this way towards me. I must be flawed, or unlovable, and therefore unacceptable to her.” These are examples of the kind of self-talk that puts us in the depressed state.

We end up fabricating evidence based on assumptions we make up about other people’s intentions, that reinforce the negative and critical beliefs we have about ourselves. This perpetuates the cycle of depression, and we continue to look for that “evidence” out in the world, to continually reinforce those beliefs over and over again, getting us more and more depressed. We are creating our own reality, because our beliefs about ourselves are negative, all-consuming, and powerful.

Fortunately, we can change those beliefs, burn out what is not working in our lives, and start to look for “affirming evidence.” The negative messages are not us – as many guys falsely believe – but when we take those messages on as our identity, we end up creating a lot of problems for ourselves, such as depression.

On this Father’s Day, what will you to to acknowledge the man that brought you into this Earth, and who showed you the ropes about how to be the good guy you’ve grown into? Remember your first little league game where he cheered you on from the stands? How about that first bike ride? Maybe you remember the fumbled and universally awkward sex talk from Dear Old Dad (D.O.D.)

It’s so rare for sons to have that “heart” conversation with their Dads, because in our culture, “it’s just something that guys don’t do.” It’s hard for guys to connect with their fathers through an emotional connection. It’s usually through activity, or sport, or some shared hobby or activity, that dads and sons can meet, connect, and come together.

So, on this Father’s Day, I challenge you to come together and connect with your Dad. Remind him how great of a guy he is, and how much he has given to you over the years. Say it in words or actions, not in another electronic gadget that he may not really need anyways. Say it in a way that he’ll understand. You may have negative feelings towards D.O.D., but can you push them aside (or deal with them) for trying to make a connection with him on this special day.

In addition, I also see Father’s Day as a kind of “Fathering Day,” where the things that dads aren’t quite able to give their sons – whatever that may be for you – you learn to give to yourself. It’s kind of a “self-fathering”: giving to yourself what you needed, and didn’t get, from your dad.

Maybe it’s money management. Maybe it’s the art of communication. Maybe it’s learning about different relationship survival skills. Good old dad may be the greatest, but there may be some things that he didn’t pass down to you that you needed to thrive in some of your relationships, or things that you actually needed to unlearn.

“Fathering Day” is helping yourself fill in the gaps to help yourself thrive in the places where Dad might not have been able to help you. It’s honoring what you have been given from him, and making adjustments to help you thrive and succeed on top of what you’ve already got.

Remember how great your “A-Game” once was? Remember how you felt in control and really enjoyed what you were doing, whether in work or in your personal life? Yeah, we’re talking about that quality of life were you’ve achieved that sense of mastery, enjoyment and free flow, where everything seems to just line up for you – that effortless zone of achievement and happiness that makes it all happen the way it should happen.

For a lot of guys, before they know it, they’ve lost their game. Or maybe they’ve never had it. Whatever the case, bringing your “A-Game” back to your life will help drive you past feeling unmotivated and uninspired by your life. Life is way too short for a “B-Game.”

Bringing your “A-Game” back is about facing what needs to be faced in your life. It’s about summoning up the strength to burn out the barriers that are right in front of you that prevent your forward motion. It’s about taking responsibility for your self, your success and your own happiness, and taking the actions needed to optimize yourself, your life and your relationships.

Consider these possible barriers to losing your “A-Game”:

• Losing focus on what your values or goals are
• Losing your sense of self – “Who am I anymore?” (e.g. the midlife – or quarterlife – crisis)
• Avoiding anger or other negative feelings that, if dealt with, can push you through back to playing ball on the “A-Game” field
• You’ve been job hopping, unsatisfied by your work, or unstimulated by what you’re doing to earn money
• You feel blue, de-energized, lazy or shiftless a lot
• You’re angry, or just plain irritable, most of the time with others who don’t deserve to get it from you
• You are dwelling in the “it sucks to be me” state, and are pissed when others are enjoying themselves.

Setting an action plan for Bringing Your “A-Game” Back is important. Ask yourself these questions:

1. Where do I really want to be in my life? In my job? In my health? In my marriage or relationship?
2. Be specific: what does that look like? Write down the images, thoughts, ideas or draw pictures/make a collage about what that looks like in your head. Communicate it to yourself before you can clearly communicate it with anyone else, including your partner.
3. Identify the barriers to those changes: stress? depression? money? fear? lack of support from others? There are always barriers, so becoming clear on those things are important, as they tend to be a bit out of our daily consciousness.
4. Design ways to overcome those barriers: how will you figure out what it will take to conquer those things – do you need exercise? More money? More time? More communication from someone? Counseling? Time management? It could be more than one of these things you need.
5. Rank and prioritize those things that need your attention and resources. Set a reasonable time frame in which to chunk off small “baby step” goals, and then commit to the small goals every so often – once or twice a week, once a month. Remember: achieving the smaller goals, en route to the larger one, is the path to success, not chewing off a huge goal and then disappointing yourself.

Bringing your “A-Game” back will take some time, but with effort, diligence, patience and foresight, you’ll be getting back to the happy flow of your life that you’ve been missing all this time.

by Doug Glanville (appeared in the New York Times online edition, Sunday, June 7, 2009)

I haven’t spent a lot of time watching “MTV Cribs,” but I know the host likes to check the featured homeowner’s DVD collection for a copy of “Scarface.” Apparently, owning this movie is the key to street credibility (by “MTV Cribs” standards), and it is understood that the homeowner will play it for anyone who sets foot inside.

We all have our favorite movies, and I have some staples of my own in my collection — “A Few Good Men,” “Sixth Sense” — but I would never demand that visitors watch those movies as a rite of passage into my “crib.” However, a few months ago, the executive producer of MLB Productions, who is a friend of mine, sent me a housewarming gift of some classic documentaries about baseball. The jewel of the package was a contemporary piece called “We Are Young,” and if you are ever in my home, expect to sit down and take it all in. (Alternative plan: It will air on MLB Network this coming Friday at 3 p.m. EST.)

I have seen a lot of footage on the life of a baseball player, but this story captures the essence of what a lot of players carry with them at all times: the worry about failure, the need to be driven. At times these forces are couched as inspiration and motivation, at times they come from a convergence of fear and a desire for approval — and this documentary shows that dichotomy, unapologetically and realistically.
I happen to know the family, at least the older son, Dmitri Young. I played most of my career against Dmitri and he was a fun-loving opponent. Always laughing, always having time to chat at first base. From the outside, you would think he didn’t have a care in the world, especially since he was also a stone-cold hitter. But this documentary took me inside his life. I learned about the family dynamic that shaped him.

(more…)

It’s wedding season, and a lot of guys are getting ready to move down the aisle. They’ll either walk, or they’ll slink, or, quite possibly, they may kick and scream and need to be pulled down it. Does one of these styles describe you? Or, a better question might be, would your better-half-to-be describe you in one of these ways?

Wedding jitters are quite normal. They reflect a certain anxiety on a number of different levels. First, we come to the acceptance that this is the woman that we will spend our lives with: living with, having sex with, sharing the rest of the moments of our human existence with. Wow. It’s a powerful experience either way. It’s totally normal to feel scared, and worry that you’ll replicate your parents’ marriage, for better or for worse.

Wedding terror is a whole other thing. It’s different from normal jitters. Wedding terror is paralyzing in a way that prevents forward growth toward getting married. Wedding terror is when men shrink behind fear and freeze. Forward momentum slows down to a standstill. The bride-to-be is often confused, angry and lashes out over and over again at her guy, who continues to backtrack and avoid the conflict.

Some couples I know operate under this m.o. One partner is hell bent on marrying, and the other (many times the guy, but not always) shrinks behind the fear. Their whole relationship survives on the “I Do” proposition, and lives in the future more than it does in the present.

There are real fears associated with wedding terror – fear that the marriage will be as distasterous as his parents’ was, fear that he’ll make a poor partner and that he’ll let her down, fear of growing bored in 20 years, fear that, and this is a big one, he’ll lose his independence and his bachelorness.

It’s hard to stay in the “fear place” and communicate what is hard to communicate. For guys, it’s not easy to speak from their fear, and thus we end up shrinking behind all of the above examples. Sometimes, the work is deeper, and requires counseling to identify and gain awareness about old tapes, messages and faulty beliefs we have about marriage and our role in it. Sometimes, we are programmed with these messages, and they run us so unconsciously that’s it’s really hard even knowing that they’re there.

The importance of a father’s impact on his son cannot be underestimated. The father-son relationship is as important as it is underestimated in the successful development of a man, who becomes a partner, husband and parent himself. 

For a lot of men in our culture, men are either physically absent, or emotionally absent. The problem is that a lot of men don’t have a clue about how to be emotional, or to use the tools that they don’t have to solve relationship or communication problems. With that inability to use the necessary tools to create and navigate successful relationships, men get into trouble, and then unconsciously pass down to their sons the things that creates problems for themselves.

One example of what I mean is the ability for men to connect to their anger. Men traditionally either explode in rage and anger to get what they want, or will internalize their anger, and let it turn into anxiety, depression and a host of other secondary problems. Depression and anxiety have other roots and causes, but interpersonally, anger is created a lot of times and then suppressed when our needs for love, affection, importance, to be seen, etc. are not met.

Men pass these things down to their sons, who then get modeled these ineffective and destructive ways of being in relationships. They learn to not meet their needs, quiet their voice, and generally suppress their various needs within a relationship and in their lives. To the extent that women are emotional beings, men could learn a thing or two about how to connect to and speak from their emotional pain.

Men can be good at doing the things that they do well: teach a kid how to fish, shoot hoops or change a tire. Men can be supportive of their sons, and provide a model in a lot of ways. Men can model being good fathers, but unfortunately, men don’t know how to model being a well-rounded man. A lot of our culture says that to be emotional is not ‘manly’, and is responsible for this, I believe. This is a problem, and a myth. 

Until we accept that connecting to our emotional selves is not a bad thing, and is not “unmanly,” I believe we are only operating with half of our full selves. I think that it’s time to break the generational cycle that fails to hand down all the tools needed for personal and relationship success for men.

If you think you struggle with not having the right tools that you need for your relationship (for example, you don’t know how to communicate with your wife or girlfriend, or you avoid conflict at all costs), I ask that you contact me for an appointment at 602.309.0568.

- Jason