Worries, Anxieties, and Fears...

Paul's story is familiar to many. "I have the constant fear and worry that my life is being ruined because I don't know what it is like to have normal, secure relationships with people nor can I just relax and have fun and enjoy. I can't really imagine what it would be like to live and not have anxiety all the time. I avoid all sorts of situations. I often worry about things that aren't all that important and I shouldn't be thinking about them at all. It was just last week that I could not go out with friends because I have this paralyzing fear that I would be hit by a car or something even worse! I worry about people dying, my pet dying, friends leaving me because I am crazy!! Basically, I worry about everything. I have lots of trouble falling asleep most nights because my brain won't shut off. Oh, how I wish I could control what I was thinking so I could live a normal life..."
Notice what Paul has 'struggles' with:
1. Attempted to control or stop worrying...
2. Can't stop worrying even if it does not seem to solve anything...
3. All keyed up...
4. Easily fatigued...
5. Difficulty concentrating...
6. Irritable...
7. Problems sleeping...

Let me offer a radically new way of looking at this problem of anxiety. Thoughts and feelings of fear, panic, anxiety are intense, unpleasant, overwhelming, and often terrifying. But the thoughts and feelings are not the problem! I repeat, the thoughts and feelings of terror, panic, fear, and anxiety are NOT the problem. The problem is the rigid, toxic, avoidance of fear and anxiety. The majority of research today shows that excessive avoidance is the most important toxic element for morphing worries, anxieties, and fears into truly debilitating disorders.
Toxic avoidance of fear looks different depending upon the person or situation. Some avoid people, places, activities, or situations that "make them uncomfortable" and might lead to anxious feelings. Others use substances (three or four glasses of wine will "work", as will Lortabs, etc...) to minimize the effect and 'turn off the brain.'
Einstein (as in Albert) is reported to have said, "problems cannot be solved by thinking within the framework in which they were created..." With this notion let me offer a radical new way to look at the problems of worries, anxieties, and fears. It begins with acceptance. Yes, acceptance...accepting the 'fact' that life is full of situations that lead to fear and worry. Accepting the fact that I am able to face my fear and not allow it to define who I am and how I live! In fact, let me ask a question that all my patients hear: "Is it possible for someone who has SOCIAL PHOBIA to be a successful public speaker?" Of course you know the answer and it is YES! What is the answer? It begins with the attitude of acceptance.
The Serenity Prayer states: "accepting hardship as a pathway to peace and taking this world, as it is, not as I would have it..." That is the beginning of the pathway to serenity.

Telling the Children You Are Getting Divorced

Telling the children that you are going to get divorced can be a very difficult obstacle to overcome, but it is something that must be done in order for the children to begin to accept this dramatic change in their life. Research shows that children reared in an environment where there is tension and reactive emotion will be struggle maybe even more than a child reared in a emotionally calm divorced home. Children, who see and witness their parents constantly abusing each other, suffer.
Children are resilient and they can thrive in a divorced home. A proper parental environment that offers a safe and reasonably anxiety free ‘growing space’ allow children to blossom. One of the first ways that a parent can help a child is by telling him or her about the divorce. Remember, children of all ages will be affected by their parent's divorce. Following are some tips on telling the children.

Telling the Children

• No matter what the age, it is important that the parents tell the children what is going on.

• If one parent has played the main parenting role, then it is more logical for that parent to break the news to the child, lessening the disturbance.

• It is very important that no blame be assigned to either parent for the separation, because this may indirectly give the child a reason to choose sides. It is unhealthy for the child to feel that there is a good and bad parent.

• As a parent you must explain to the children that they are not to blame for the divorce. Initially almost all children feel that they are responsible. The parent must explain that the divorce is between the parents and not the children and parents. If this is explained correctly, the children will also realize that if they are not responsible for the divorce, then they cannot be responsible for their parents reconciling.

• Don't, I repeat don’t tell the children that you are divorcing unless you and your spouse are absolutely certain that the decision is final.

• It is important that you tell the children about the divorce when you can be together for a long period of time. A non-school day would probably be the most preferred time, because they are going to feel very alone and they will need someone there to feel a sense of safety and security.

• After you have told them the news, you may, without going into great detail, want to give them some idea what they should expect in the future. A child may want to know about school and future living arrangements.

• If they ask "why?" this usually means why is this happening to me. It does not mean why you are getting a divorce. The children initially really don't need to know why, so eliminate details.

• Be sure to ask them if they have any questions. They may have questions, but will be reluctant to respond at that time. Remember, it is important to field questions again and again.

Anxiety...deal with it!!

The chronically anxious person is impatient. Escapist thinking looks for quick and easy answers to life's greatest challenges. The quick-fix mentality flees from a challenge and is overly simplistic in viewing life while at the same time focuses outwardly (not inwardly). Avoidance is a strategy chronically anxious people utilize...if I hide or if I avoid or if I act like it ain't there, then it will go away. The chronically anxious person has a very low threshold for pain. In fact the amount of chronic anxiety is inversely related to the person's capacity for enduring pain. What makes chronically anxious people is not the pain but how they deal with the pain. The root word for anxiety means pain (angina, anger, anguish, angst) and pain, in this life, is inevitable, however, misery is optional!!

Talking about Alabama woman, 81, faces trial in urination case

August 02
Well I wonder how long it will take before National News picks up this story. We have the story of a police officer arresting a noted Harvard professor and the ensuing paranoia over racial insensitivity and a president who stated the police acted 'stupidly.' I wonder what President Obama would say about Mobile, Alabama police arresting a 81 year old female for urinating behind a clump of trees? She will be 82 when she stands for trial!! I guess if the police officer in Cambridge acted stupidly then the officers in Mobile acted in a similar fashion. The charge you ask? Public lewdness...oh yeah?

Doing Versus Being...is it built into the Fallen DNA??

I held him tight and said with emotions choking my voice, "You are my son" and in a muffled reply, I heard, "I am trying Dad, I am trying..."

Amazing to witness...do you get the picture? Here is Dad, heart open, mind open, spirit open, arms open...and he is holding close his son. Here is Son, who believes one more time, "If I try harder and do more then I am worthy of love...and I may be called his son."

I spoke recently to a inter/non denominational church up at Lake Martin and began by stating that 'today, I am going to talk about our two biggest challenges in this life.' I know that sounds a bit grandious, but hear me out...I did not talk about economics nor recessions nor heaven nor hell. I did state that 'the deep supreme desire of every human heart is to be loved without condition' (struggle number one) and 'every human heart struggles in allowing themselves to be loved unconditionally.'

Those were the two challenges I spoke of on that day. Those are the two challenges I face every day. In a world that believes in Karma (you know, what goes around comes around...I realize Karma is a bit more sophisticated than that but here in south Alabama that about covers it) and in a world that values 'what have you done for me lately' and in a world that really does believe you deserve to reap what you sow...love is hard to come by and yet without that love the human heart develops a tear...a hole.

Humans are driven by performance, competition, comparison. But it is the holes in the human heart that are the problem! Healing those holes only can be accomplished with love, lots of love, unconditional love, ah yes, love, so hug yourself tightly, allow yourself to be loved, and know that you are already alright!

The Legacy of Divorce Continues to Grow....

There was a time when the number disrupter of families was death but in the early 1960s that began to change. Social structures changed and we began moving towards a culture of divorce. In 2000 Judith Wallerstein (http://www.amazon.com/Unexpected-Legacy-Divorce-Landmark-Study/dp/0786886161/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1248794199&sr=8-1) published the 25 year 'landmark' study called "the unexpected legacy of divorce" in which she and her fellow researchers discovered that the divorced family is not a truncated version of the two-parent family but it is a different kind of family. In this different family the children she followed for 25 years (all types of divorce were represented in her sample) felt less protected and more anxious about their future than children raised in reasonably good intact families. Mothers and fathers who share their beds with different people are not not the same as mothers and fathers living under the same roof. She 'discovered' the divorced family has an entirely new cast of characters and relationships that features steps (mothers, fathers, brothers, sisters), seconds (marriages and divorces), and often a series of live-ins.

Now the 'new' study just released this week posits divorce can make you sick. Researchers analyzed data from nearly 9,000 adults nationwide, ages 51 to 61, and found those who had been divorced or widowed suffered 20 percent more chronic health conditions, such as heart disease, diabetes or cancer, than individuals who were currently married. Divorce can be so traumatic that not even tying the knot again is enough to reverse the physical and mental toll.

Of course if one is in a 'toxic' relationship where there is physical and/or mental abuse then the health benefits of divorce may outweigh the risks of staying in the relationship.

I see couples everyday who are in "bad" marriages and as a psychologist and family therapist who is pro marriage, I coach them in finding ways to make it better. Many times a couple will commit to working on themselves and the relationship for the 'sake of the kids' and that motivation can see them through tough days. Now we have a new motivation, 'stick together for the sake of health."

Learning to Be Intimate...

True intimacy is not a natural nor an easy place to 'get to' and yet that is what our hearts crave. We desire to 'expose our true selves' to someone and to be 'known' by someone.

What we often think will work between couples to 'reach' true intimacy does not work. Consider the couple who bases their relationship upon the following: “I'll tell you about myself, but only if you then tell me about yourself and if you don't, I won't either. But I really want to, so you have to. Now I will go first and then you will be obligated to open up to me. It is only fair. If I go first, you have to make me feel secure. I need to be able to trust you!”

I often refer to this type of 'negotiation' as the “Miss Piggy Syndrome.” There is little doubt as to what is happening here. Couples with trust issues, communication issues, and many other struggles are locked into this type of intimacy.

Maturity and honesty bring to the surface another and deeper experience of intimacy...one the human heart craves and it takes the rawest kind of courage and the more rigorously honest heart. Listen to this heart as it takes a stand and cries out, “I don't expect you to agree with me because I know you weren't put on the face of the earth to validate and make me feel good about me. But I want you to love me and I know you can't really do that f you don't know me. I don't want your rejection but I must face that possibility if I'm ever to feel accepted or secure with you. It's time to show myself to you and confront my separateness and mortality. And one day when we are no longer together on this earth, I want to look back and know you knew me.”

Ah, yes, true intimacy...does he know you? Does she know you? Take courage, step up, let yourself be known!