Conflicts get fueled when one partner unconsciously reacts to the other partner’s behavior, and then the snowball starts. It accumulates, picks up speed, and, before you know it, the snowball is mammoth and careening down the mountain towards an imminent destruction of whatever lies in its path. Let’s work on ways to keep the snowball palm-sized.

1. When one person is angry or upset, watch your reactions. Are you able to be aware of your emotions and your tendencies to make the situation worse? What do you traditionally do or say, or, rather, what would your partner say that you do to contribute to their reactivity. If asked, what would they experience you doing to them that fans their flames, so to speak?

2. Be present to the feeling, not the thoughts, that arise in your body. 99.9% of the time, relationship partners speak from the head, which, for guys, is “natural and normal”, yet makes it all worse. When you’re angry, are you really angry? What does your body have to say about it. Are you heating up – in your chest, in your stomach, in your head? Stay with that feeling, and try to not figure out why it’s there. Stay in your body, and speak from wherever in your body is heating up. It’s a more direct experience of what’s going on, instead of talking from your head and messing things like you’re used to.

3. Take a breath. Hug your partner. Throw a joke into the mix (not one which might hurt your mate). The idea is to de-fuse the situation, and stop the snowball from careening down that mountain. If you can reset, start over, and depressurize from all that accumulated negative energy you both have helpd to create, you’ll have a better perspective on the argument. Most of the times, couples forget what they’ve been arguing about in the first place, and lose themselves in the details. So, breath, step out of yourself for a second, and stay present without avoiding your partner.

Try these tips to help you fight fair, and have more productive conflict. The fact that you want to argue with awareness says you care about the relationship, and even if those things don’t work, they will the next time. With persistence, keep going, and keep trying.

One of the hardest parts about marriage is that needs and feelings get repressed and obscured, and then the love seems to fade. When we hold onto anger and frustration, those experiences predominate our minds and hearts, and we lose the tenderness and the openness that we need to breathe life into the relationship or marriage.

Through our defensiveness, we protect our egos as to not expose them to the “relationship elements” of criticism, negativity, harsh words and perceived aggression. It’s hard, especially for men, to know how to function with their wives and girlfriends when they’re not playing those (unconscious) interpersonal games. We spend so much time and energy upholding these fragile egos, that it’s so difficult to be in the present moment, where true change and growth can happen.

To be able to let those defenses down, communication can truly start to rev its engines. When we can stop and listen to our mate, really sit back and take in what they are saying to us, then we can start to open and accommodate their needs. We can temporarily push aside our own needs to the empathic fulfillment of the other, which is where true relationship lies. We “relate” instead of “defend,” which is ultimately not about exchange but about protection.

Becoming aware of the wounds we carry, which precede our current relationship, and learning how to understand how those wounds guide our current behavior is critical to our success as good relationship partners. Understanding that our partner, in many ways, is a mirror to us, someone who reflects the “unfinished business” that we are currently still struggling with. Translate: we still have work that we need to do, and if we can see our partner as the person closest to us that can reflect all that back to us, and we’re open to it, then we can change through our relationship. It’s conscious relationship building, which creates better and happier relationships.

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE

Contact: Jason Fierstein
602-309-0568
jfierstein@mac.com

May 28, 2009

The ‘Joe Six Pack’: Results-Oriented Counseling for Gun-Shy Guys

Phoenix -  Some guys complain that counseling drags on and on, without hope or help – “Joe Six Pack” aims to do something different. Jason Fierstein, Counselor for Men, is pleased to announce the “Joe Six Pack” counseling package this month for men seeking help with their wives and their lives. This results-oriented bundle helps make counseling more accessible for gun shy guys who know they have to take the first step to get help, but don’t.

“I have been seeing counselors for years and you were able to help resolve my issue in only six weeks. I will be forever grateful for that. You did in only a few weeks what no one else could do in years of therapy,” said David H., Phoenix, of the counseling package.*

The “Joe Six-Pack” Special Counseling Package includes the following:
- Six-pack of individual counseling sessions, including first intake session
- Six individualized progress checks every session
- Two complimentary 20-minute phone or Skype “tune-up” sessions
- “The Guy’s Airbag: A Relationship Crash Course” interactive cd- a $15 bonus
- $100 off standard counseling rates – a great deal!

As “the man that men will talk to,” Jason Fierstein, MA, LPC, has made counseling accessible for men who wouldn’t otherwise commit. In his private practice, Jason has been counseling men (and the women who love them) who are seeking happier and more fulfilling relationships with their partner. His office is located at the Chinese Cultural Center in Phoenix, near Sky Harbor International Airport. For more information about Jason Fierstein and his counseling services, call 602.309.0568 or visit www.phoenixmenscounseling.com.

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*Counseling success is based on individual progress, and results may vary

To start, a couple needs to mutually agree that counseling is what they want to do, and how they want to go about helping their marriage. Often times, one partner is hesistant or resistant to coming in and starting the marriage counseling process. Men have resistance to the process, as sometimes they think that the marriage counselor will side with the wife, and will malign against them. Having two marriage counselors works, and, as a counselor for men and couples here in Phoenix, Arizona, I can tell you it’s a lot easier to get men to come in when they think that a male counselor both understands their side and is less likely to side with their wife and against them.

How will you know if you need marriage counseling? A lot of couples report fighting incessantly over the same things, time and again. Fights and conflicts start from the smallest things, where it used to take quite a bit in the past to get a fight going. When communication is shut down, or nonexistent, then it’s usually time to seek out the help of a professional counselor or therapist. When joy and fun have waned, it’s probably time to seek out someone’s help. If you think that all you have together are external things, such as the children, house, car, lifestyle, or anything else outside of the relationship or marriage that keeps you together, it’s probably time to get help. The marriage needs to be happy on its own, and stand on its own two legs, not on outside things that prop it up.

Admitting that you both need marriage counseling is the hard part. Actually saying to yourself, and then to your spouse, that you think you both need help is a big step in the process of reparation and healing. Making the call is the next step.

Getting men into counseling is sometimes one of the harder aspects of counseling. Men who will commit to the process are sometimes resistant to get help until the problems have accumulated to the point of breaking – often the 11th hour.

One of the problems that men experience is a failure to diagnose the problem as it is accumulating. It’s hard for anyone to be able to be fully aware of what the problem is, when we’re in it. Our perspective is pretty skewed when we are in the midst of our own problem, yet for men, it’s difficult to ask for help, which compounds the problem.

Taking the first step to ask for help is half the solution. Just getting into talk with a therapist or counselor is a great start, but making the commitment to come in on a regular basis is just as important. At times, especially for a guy in a relationship, they think that having a “good week” with their wife or girlfriend means that they can quit counseling. Not true. Just because the week might go well, which is good, doesn’t mean that men have their relationship problems solved. Sometimes, the counseling work in do with men in Phoenix, Arizona, is deeper than than, and requires more time commitment.

A lot of time, it’s the wife or girlfriend who initiates the first step to get counseling for their guy. Then, the guy will come in, often times as a couple. Women often are the initiators to getting help to fix or save their relationship, but not always. As the traditional caretakers, I often talk with women who are more outwardly concerned about preserving their marriage than their guys are.

Men work very successful in therapy when it is solution-focused, and there are skill-building exercises and homework for them to do. They feel most successful when those things produce results in their relationship, which spurs them on to continue with the counseling process.

I thought that this article could relate nicely to the article on “yes men.” It’s about getting what we really want with our lives, and our jobs.

Can you see yourself not at your job in six months? Are you experiencing that dread, that low level chronic dissatisfaction that starts to snowball into anger and general irritability?
I’ve totally been there. I used to let “life” happen to me, meaning that I would kind of wait it out, for that “right” moment or opportunity to come in and whisk me away. Guess what. It didn’t happen.

I had to come to the conclusion that, in order to be happy in my work, I had to take the bull by the horns and start to activate. The hardest part, for me, was taking responsibility and ownership for the fact that I am the only author or my life, and other people, situations, and job settings were merely the supportive or background players. It was up to me to start to make the leap over time.

So, with that in mind, if you are not enjoying your current job and want to get out, consider these 5 questions to help:

1. Consider happiness/money formula: Can you live with the money, or is the money getting old and you want some “soul satisfaction”? Is the money all that great, that you sacrifice other things, like your time, happiness, relationships, stress, whatever?
2. What can you really see yourself doing for work? (This is a tough question, so sit with it). If you’re not doing what you really love doing, then what keeps you in your current job, and how does it keep you? A lot of times, guys I counsel don’t know what they want, but they just get attached to the suffering in their current lousy job. If you found your passion, what would that look like? Sketch out that plan on paper, and share it with someone close.
3. What resources will you need to start to put your plan into action? Money? Time? Family/friends/partner support? A new resume? A vague sense of what you really want to be doing? More education? There are lots of possible resources that you might need, and the trick is to identify them and get them down on paper.
4. What are the pros and cons to staying in your current job? List them out. Do a massive brainstorm to list out every possible factor that contributes to your happiness or misery, and then weigh them against each other. Rank them according to importance.
5. Lastly, what are the barriers to your professional “end zone”? Look closely and carefully now. What walls, fences, blockades do you put up in front of yourself mentally, that end up undermining your own success? This is a harder question, so I want you to sit with it for longer. Sometimes, we don’t even know how we keep ourselves imprisoned. Sometimes we play the victim. Sometimes we make excuses. Sometimes we wait for the world to happen, like me.

With these 5 questions in mind, start to consider making the change that you’ve wanted and thought wasn’t possible. Start to “live your bliss” and do the work that you were meant to do, and the world was meant to have you do.

Are you the type of person who, when it comes right down to decision making time, pushes aside your own desires and needs to meet everyone else’s? Do others say you’re you just too damn nice?

“Yes Men” are in abundance just as much as women who can’t say ‘no’, and this may be you. Being unable to say ‘no’ can happen to you anywhere: at home, at work, with your family or friends.

The basic idea is this: you succumb to the fear of not saying ‘no’ by saying ‘yes’ when you don’t really want to. Saying ‘yes’ is easier, and allows you to not deal with the fear of saying ‘no’.

By saying ‘yes’ all of the time to people and situations that we really don’t want to, we collude with our fear of being abandoned and rejected by others. When we say ‘yes’ when we don’t mean to, when we’re doing what others want us to do, we lose our spines by not standing up for ourselves. By being “yes men,” we become “less men.”

Learning to take a stance and say ‘no’ is important for our growth as men, and as people, partners, employees, sons, etc. To learn to assert oneself and to understand that saying ‘no’ is actually practicing self-care, we start to look at our dilemma through a more positive lens. To continue to say ‘yes’ when you don’t mean it, it’s not honoring yourself.

When we stay true to ourselves, we can compassionately learn the difference between what we want, which is good for us, and what we don’t want, and how to communicate to others that difference. When we’re confused about what we want, we allow others the opportunity to exploit that indecision, and then we give up and hand over our power to others.

When we know what we want, others respond accordingly. I know we fear taking a stand, but it actually works in reverse. People and situations bend towards us, as opposed to other way, when we know what we want, communicate it and act upon it. Taking stand won’t kill anyone, so, as the mystic Bob Marley once said: “Get up, stand up. Stand up for your rights.” I’m sure ol’ Bob would support your efforts.

Our culture has taken a real interest in all things spiritual. Eveywhere I look, I can find someone meditating, doing yoga, chanting or promoting something with one of the spiritual arts. I think it’s great that we’ve embraced spirituality in our culture, but mindfulness is different from just “leading a spiritual life.” It’s not so much about “being” spiritual, as it is being present to our lives.

When we are truly present to our lives, we’re aware of our minds and what thoughts they produce. As our actions and behaviors are based on our thoughts, being mindful is not about doing anything special. Mindfulness is about waking up to what is already going on. We don’t need to add anything to our “selves” to be more mindful. We don’t need to spend a lot of money, or enroll in another training program to give us more information. If we are still, and present, we can start to wake up to that which is right under our noses.

Because mindfulness is about being present to what is happening in the now, like Eckhart Tolle says, it’s a “no-brainer”. No brainer in the sense that it doesn’t need our brains to intervene and do anything special. We don’t need to think about, or conceptualize, anything new. Mindfulness is not another concept; it is a direct experience of our awareness, which encompasses our thinking minds. It is greater than our thought process.

Experiencing that presence, we lose the reliance on our thoughts, which is good because we tend to put much stock in them to fix or solve problems that we can’t seem to shuck. I know for me, out of that still place, answers can come forth when my mind is settled down and not as chaotic. The problems that we create are a function of that chaotic mind. The Buddhists call this “monkey mind”, which leaves us prone to confusion, fear, anger, and a host of other problems and negative experiences.

Starting with the breath, being mindful is a matter of experiencing the joy of the present moment. It is about being in your life, not thinking about it or losing yourself in thought patterns about the world. It is a direct experience of life, which is beyond mind and beyond the concepts that we frame the world around.

Another entry point is the body. Experiencing negative feelings in the body, say in the heart, stomach or chest region, is a way to be present to what is. A lot of the time, we avoid the painful emotions and feelings that reside in the body and flee to our minds, where we try to work it out “rationally”. This can be difficult to do, because the mind is responsible for those problems initially.

Relationships are the ultimate awareness experiences, because if we can see our partner as a mirror to our own experiences, and if we can summon the courage to walk through the fire, we can achieve awareness and clarity about the problems we bring into our lives.

Two weeks ago, I spoke to a good group of people – the Phoenix Rotaract Society. They were kind enough to have me speak to their group on the basics of creating a great relationship.

I talked about the “nuts and bolts” – what to do, and what to avoid, with your partner to go after that ideal relationship, which is totally within reach.

The Rotaract members had some great feedback and contributions, and we ended up having a nice little discussion. I want to share with you the prime cut of the convo:

Why is it hard to have good relationship today?

- Communication problems
- Anger at partner/Fighting all the time/Hurt feelings
- Needs aren’t being met in relationship
- Trust issues
- See parents’ bad relationship, and don’t want it for yourself
- Can’t talk closely with partner

- Not sure if he or she is the one for you/different interests

- Same problem, different relationship partners

- Work, money and general stress- Commitment-phobic/Fear of marriage

What doesn’t work?
Stuffing your anger, or exploding in it; also, not talking to one another
Not creating regular time together to talk, have fun, laugh
Not dealing immediately with the problems that will inevitably come up between you both
Not talking to your partner about them/not being on the same page
Not working on your relationship
Criticizing and judging your partner; blaming and shaming

What does work to create a good relationship?
- Good communication: Stating your needs and feelings in your relationship
- Having a life outside of the relationship, as well as in it (independent time)
- Meaningful time together/creating a good relationship
- Developing trust
- Validating, not criticizing, each other
- Listening well/showing empathy
- Appreciating your differences
- Learning about and meeting other’s needs, as well as your own

What is this, you ask? How can I possibly love my life if I hate my job? I hear you, and wondered that same thing for so long.I ended up leaving my job three months ago to do my counseling private practice three months ago, but was miserable at my previous job. I hated it, but got through it. And survived. And am here to tell you that there are things you can to do help yourself mentally cope, as well as build action steps to get the bat hell out of there and do what you really want to do.

So, two categories come to mind: coping skills, and action planning. To cope with a bad job, it’s important to see the job for exactly what it is: paid employment. It gives you a check, and you check in everyday and work, or feign working, or whatever you do there. To know that it’s pay for your time reframe it a little bit.

Also, it’s really important to get a good support system, which includes plenty of friends, family or your significant other that make it better. My friend, Mark, was an incredible source of support for me, and he worked there, too. It made it all seem like I wasn’t the only crazy person there. It helped to know others were in it with me, and saw the same things that made me hate my job.

Getting out of the building for lunch always helped me, because I could then saw the day into two distinct halves, which kind of helped me see it all as less overwhelming. Exercising and eating well, as well as getting 8 hours of sleep a night, cooled my anger and frustration, and helped me deal with the experience much more. Mindfulness meditation helped me to deal with a negative experience, so that it felt just a little bit less negative and more neutral.

Lastly, not putting in 100% was something I did to cope. Being a 100% person, I found it challenging to actually do less superior (quality or quantity) work, and accept doing a so-so job. I found that I pressured myself less, because I really just didn’t want to work that hard at a job I hated. I started to work less hard, and pressure myself less.

In the action planning stage, I worked hard to market my practice, set deadlines as to when things would happen, and, most importantly, set a 90-day target date to leave the place I couldn’t work at anymore. I started to realize that the job wasn’t going to leave me, that I needed to leave the job. Empowering myself was scary, because I had operated under the premise that I could lazily allow my job to tell me when it didn’t want me, which was never. I had to take the bull by the horns and make the jump. I had to start to pack away savings to make the jump, and verbalize my intentions to myself (journalling and planning) and to others in my life. This legitimized it all, and made my intentions reality. Now that I told others, it forced me into a situation where I had to back up my words with actions.

So, there is hope to get out of a bad job. I know there are a lot of external factors – such as money, family, and severe lack of jobs during the recession. But, when the recession ends, you won’t have the same old excuses for staying in a job you hate. But, we can control the inner factors, such as how we think about our situation and what we really want for our lives, that we have a lot of control over. It’s all about how bad you want it.