I’m reminded of Al Bundy, patriarch of the Bundy family, from the TV show “ Married With Children.” In the show, Al’s proudest moment in life was scoring four touchdowns in one game. He didn’t achieve what he sought out to, and, long story short, ends up working as a shoe salesman. Al often spends time attempting to recapture his glory days, but usually trips himself up with bad decisions and worse judgment. Al blames and resents his family, and attributes his problems to them, which provides the crux of the show’s humor.

Al’s life ended up very differently than he planned. In high school, he shined. it was a successful football player but hopes of getting a college scholarship, but after he impregnated his girlfriend and broke his leg, everything changed. Al lives in his private world filled with the best times of his life, and it’s a place that’s too many men resort to living in when their realities prove disappointing and unfulfilling.

As men (or people in general), we have a tendency to avoid ourselves, our situations or our lives as they are in the present moment. Often times, we’re too busy living in and out our private universes of the past or of the future. We hold on to the good memories, often to escape the reality of our current situation.

We may have been star athletes, president of the debate squad, or more successful with women in the past. We may have felt happier at a time in the past where we were more secure, fitter, healthier, happier, and generally more equipped to deal with the world.

Through the process of stagnation, those experience wane over time. Maybe our lives didn’t end up the way we planned. Maybe our spouses didn’t bring us the happiness that we so hoped. Maybe our children disappoint us, or maybe we disappoint ourselves. Maybe we didn’t make a million dollars, or become a pilot or a deep sea diver like we planned when we were 8 years old.

Life is short, and it’s never too late to turn it around. So what can you do?

• Admit that you’re stuck/angry/unhappy, to yourself, your spouse, your pet iguana, whomever
• Take some time for contemplation, and start to understand if you are living in an alternative universe, where your past self (or a happy future self) take up most of your headspace.
• Get help. Seek out professional help to allow you to deal with the blocks that prevent your happiness in the here and now.
• If you’re victimizing (read: blaming others for your miseries or failures), stop doing that right now. Think of Al Bundy when you do, and realize that you help keep yourself in a cycle of avoidance and unconsciousness when you do. It may be easier to place the blame on others (your wife, your boss, your pet iguana), and it’s a hell of a lot harder to look in the mirror and take ownership for your pain, disappointment and anger at yourself.
• Understand that as long as you have a skinsuit, and fresh air to breath, you can make a change for yourself. It may be scary, and it may not be what others want of you, but it’s your life, and you choose happiness or unhappiness.
• Life is neutral. You are the decider. You can choose to work on issues and change them, or you choose to sit back and stagnate. They’re all choices. One choice is to not choose.

(reprinted from January’s edition of “Mentality” for men)

Healthy self-esteem is a critical component in a well-balanced life. Guys need it just the same, and it’s a consistent practice over time to maintain and refine good self-esteem, or the relationship that we have with ourselves. The way we treat ourselves is a direct reflection of the way we attract others into our lives. Who we attract into our lives is a direct reflection of how we feel about ourselves - good or bad. Let’s take a look at some components to developing better self-esteem for men.

Here’s how this will happen: we’ll look at four common areas affected by self-esteem, and give four tips for each category.

• At Work
  • Feel accomplished by breaking up large projects into easy to manage tasks, and structure your time.
    • Check these free forms out to help get you better organized: http://davidseah.com/
  • Periodically ask for constructive criticism from superiors to do a better job. Don’t wait for your review. It’s not ass kissing if you to want to perform better, and wiser.
  • Use your lunch productively: do some stress management for yourself for thirty minutes
  • Set quarterly goals for yourself on the job, and work towards gradual achievement of them; if you’re unhappy at work, set quarterly goals to get yourself out of there and into a better job or career
• Relationship with Ourself
  • Identify and watch the toxic “self-critic”. Start to watch how it beats you down mentally, and how much of your behavior may be driven to succeed to “show” or compensate. This is the voice inside your mind that tells you “you’re not good enough, smart enough, successful enough.” Yes, that one.
  • Identify your needs and communicate them to the people that can meet them for you. Deal with the ones that can’t.
  • Identify your feelings and communicate them to the people that can listen to them. Deal with the ones that can’t.
  • Know what your limits are. Learning to say “no” is just as important for men as it is for women. Having healthy boundaries - which originate in ourselves first - is the foundation for practicing self-care, and developing good self-esteem.
• Lifestyle
  • List three things you’ve been saying you’re going to do - that you’re not already doing - and develop an action plan to start to do them. This includes interests, hobbies, investment in relationships, etc. Identify the blocks and barriers, and write them down. Repeat.
  • Consider your friendships, and how they should be mutually satisfying for both parties. Do you feel good about them, and feel like you’re getting from them, as well as giving to them? If not, is a change needing to be made? Our friends can be great mirrors of our self-esteem, if we look closely. Research shows that mental health,  like depression, can be socially contagious, so why wouldn’t positive (or negative) self-esteem? Surround yourself with well-intentioned people who are good for your self-esteem.
  • Practice 20-30 minute regular exercise routines and do it not for an end-result, but as a commitment towards greater energy and positive self-esteem. Do it for your partner (or kids) if nothing else. We’re not talking Lance Armstrong here. Shake up those feel good brain juices.
  • Align your values with your behaviors. Are you practicing what you preach? Are you doing things in the world that are consistent with what you believe in? Sometimes, recalibrating them brings improved self-esteem, when we’re living from our core values instead of someone else’s.
• Stress Management

• Practice 10-15 minutes of conscious breathing (you can do this at work) or mindfulness meditation. You’ll be able to “unstick” from negative thinking about yourself through this process. E-mail me for instructions on meditating or breathing exercises.
• • Create a “stress list”, and record the daily items that stress you. Dump the stressors onto that list, and put the list in your desk drawer, or in a glass jar labeled “To Worry About”. Don’t stress: you’ll get to them later.
  • Practice better anger. You can exercise it out, yes, but you can also get in touch with the experience of anger in yourself, and communicate your anger in a healthy way to those that are the cause of it. Don’t stuff your anger, but don’t explode either. Choose “the middle way,” and cool your anger and frustration each time it comes up. But time it well.
  • Don’t smoke, and drink a little less. Both will spike stress, and exacerbate negative thinking about yourself (especially if you then tell yourself you want to quit. This is called “cognitive dissonance”, when stress appears as a product of two competing ideas. (“I want to quit, but I’m still doing it.”)

Self-esteem is a relationship that we build with ourselves over time. It requires some work, and continuing to do the right things over and over again. If you think you have chronic self-esteem problems, and need help, contact me to see how counseling or psychotherapy might benefit you.

(reprinted from January’s edition of “Mentality” for men)

Being the social beings that they are, women are generally more predisposed than men to seek out the support of their close friends when there are problems or challenges. Women are better at seeking out friends, and knowing how to support themselves by doing it.

On the other hand, men are not wired this way. Guys in our culture tend to have more superficial relationships, based on common interests, hobbies, work and sport. Men do have “guys’ night”, but usually entails some male bonding activity through watching sports or playing poker. Men bond with activities outside of their emotions, and our culture has never been supportive of men relating to other men in any other way, especially emotionally.  Look at the abundance of “bromance” movies in the last couple of years, such as “I Love You, Man.” Culture, or more specifically, Hollywood, usually needs a comedic vehicle in which to introduce the idea of men connecting on an emotional level. It’s just too “weird” or “uncomfortable” without the humor. It’s kind of sad, because a lot of guys have nowhere else to turn for support.

On a practical level, many men do state that they want more male friendships. They often don’t know how to go about getting them, or aren’t willing to put the work in to maintain friendships. Again, this is where women do it better than guys. They can not only seek out social support from friends, and learn how to meet their needs in this way, but have the ability to maintain friendships and invest the time and energy than it takes to keep them going.

The older a guy gets, the harder it is to “teach a dog new tricks.” It just becomes “too hard” for a lot of guys to risk seeking out new friendships, and spending the time and energy that it takes to preserve them. Sometimes it’s just a little scary to reach out.

We say to ourselves that we want more friendships, but sometimes we aren’t willing to put the work in that relationships take. Friendships are similar to intimate relationships or marriages in that way: they’re good when you put the work, time and investment into them, and atrophy when there’s no investment. Even if you just “synch” with someone, you still got to put the work in to maintain friendships.

Fear is one way that we get stuck from advancing towards generating an up keeping friendships. Sometimes, fear prevents us from taking the risk of seeking out new male friendships or reigniting old ones. Laziness is also a common roadblock towards developing friendships. We don’t want to put the work in, or “have other things to do,” which is another way to say that we are prioritizing certain things in our lives over developing more room for personal friendships. It’s just one choice over the next choice.

Friendships don’t just come to us; they take a lot of work, energy investment, and mutual willingness. it’s the same as keeping a marriage healthy, and it’s a way of helping keep yourself healthy by learning to meet your needs as a man. Guys need the support just like women do, and friendships are a great way to get that support when they’re mutually satisfying.