Creating New Habits

The life you have is a direct result of what you give your attention to. Think about it. You decided to stop smoking so you threw all the cigarettes away or you cut way back. This went well for a while, maybe a month, six months, whatever. But after a while you get stressed, your boss yells, your kid gets in trouble at school AGAIN...and you’re headed to the 7-eleven for another pack! What happened? You were doing so well. You even had a few days in there that lighting up never crossed your mind. But here you are once again, shamefully giving up for the 500th time and telling yourself what a quitter you are. What happened is that you stopped one habit and failed to fill the void left by something that had been so important to you for so many years. I don’t mean some spiritual void or some vague psychological void that exists within you. I mean you failed to create another habit that supported the new you.

Human beings are pretty terrible at stopping things. As I have written previously, our lives are simply habits supporting what we believe about ourselves. Somewhere along the line you figured out that cigarettes are a great stress reliever and that you “need” to smoke when you are stressed. This became the belief “I am a smoker”, or some version of that. When you stopped smoking, you were still a smoker. You did nothing to prove that belief wrong. Had you implemented an activity that proved, “I am a fitness junkie”, or “I am a stress reduction expert”, by replacing the old habit of smoking with the habit of fitness or learning and mastering a different stress reduction technique, you would no longer identify as a smoker.

Stop trying to stop a habit and decide to start a new one that supports the life you want.

We love our habits regardless of how destructive they are because they support what we believe about ourselves. They also support our psychological needs. I have written about them elsewhere so I will give a general overview here. The needs are: significance, connection/love, certainty, uncertainty/variety, growth, and contribution.

I believe that everything we do, good and bad, is to support these needs. Think of it this way: If you come to me because you struggle with a particular habit, we will determine that you engage in this habit because of a belief or a story that you continually tell yourself. That belief or story may be, “I’m not important”, or “I’m not smart enough”. You are going to support these beliefs through your actions in order to meet at least some of the psychological needs listed above. If I believe, “I’m not smart enough”, it is difficult to meet my need for growth. It may also be tough to meet my needs for connection and significance if I believe that not being smart enough will result in people not liking me. But you still have these needs. As a result of not being able to meet these needs in a healthy manner, you may begin to create problems somewhere in life. Big enough problems create connection and significance. Gang members are gang members, not because they are horrible people but because membership in a gang fills the need for significance and it allows them to connect with people in the gang.

If you eliminate an unhealthy habit that was meeting your psychological needs and supporting your limiting belief but you don’t replace it with a healthy alternative, You are left with unmet needs and will inevitably fall back into the old habit as a way to meet your needs. Replacing an unhealthy habit with a healthy habit meets our unmet needs and begins to rewrite the story we have been telling ourselves.

Esketamine and Other Pharmaceutical Hype

I recently had a physician call me because he was setting up an esketamine clinic and wanted referrals. I asked him to get me the research on esketamine and never heard back. I suspect that is because there is very little he could have produced. Eketamine is the nasal spray formulation of Ketamine. Ketamine is a psychoactive drug typically used as an anesthetic for surgery and to help with pain during some procedures. Esketamine is used for “treatment resistant depression”. Read that again….”treatment resistant”. In other words, the treatment you have been on, most likely an SSRI, is not working so we are going to add this to the arsenal. Now that would be bad enough if we stopped right there. The problem is that, like with all depression and anxiety medications, we struggle to find support for the effectiveness of this drug.

Joanna Moncrieff, a practicing psychiatrist and founder of the Critical Psychiatry Network, and Mark Horowitz, a researcher in psychiatry at University College London state that,  “Like other antidepressants, it is suggested to work by acting on some hypothetical neural mechanism of depression, yet it is more likely that its characteristic mind-altering effects simply mask or override depressed feelings, in the same way that alcohol can temporarily ‘drown your sorrows’”. Ketamine has been used recreationally due to its hallucinogenic and dissociative effects. It is likely that esketamine, in the dosage prescribed by your physician, is simply hiding the depressed feelings temporarily and certainly keeping you from dealing with the underlying issues.

I stated earlier that we struggle to find support for the effectiveness of depression and anxiety medications. According to researchers Irving Kirsch , Brett J Deacon, Tania B Huedo-Medina, Alan Scoboria, Thomas J Moore, and Blair T Johnson, “Drug–placebo differences in antidepressant efficacy increase as a function of baseline severity, but are relatively small even for severely depressed patients. The relationship between initial severity and antidepressant efficacy is attributable to decreased responsiveness to placebo among very severely depressed patients, rather than to increased responsiveness to medication”. Plainly stated, this means that the effectiveness of antidepressants is primarily attributable to placebo. The placebo effect is a beneficial response to a harmless pill or substance that has no therapeutic effect. Placebo is used as a control when drug testing takes place. Essentially a placebo is used to determine whether improvement of a symptom is due to the drug itself or the BELIEF that the drug produced the effect.

Kirsch also points out in a 2014 article titled, “Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect” that the theory of “chemical imbalance” has primarily been based on the pharmaceutical industry's misleading statements of antidepressant effectiveness. This should be troubling to anyone seeking pharmaceutical help. Kirsch is not alone in his findings though he has taken the brunt of negative reaction by the medical and pharmaceutical community. Kirsch states, “The results of our analyses have since been replicated repeatedly (Fountoulakis & Möller, 2011; Fournier et al., 2010; NICE, 2004; Turner et al., 2008). Some of the replications used our data; others analyzed different sets of clinical trials. The FDA even did its own meta-analysis on all of the antidepressants that they have approved (Khin et al., 2011)”. The results of these analyses confirm Kirsch’s studies. Given the significant side-effects of these drugs it seems that adding another poorly researched medication (esketamine) to an already questionable drug is irresponsible at best.

The bottom line is that you as the consumer should begin to take your mental well-being seriously. That means seeking a reason for the depressed or anxious feelings you have instead of relying on pharmaceutical advice founded in faulty studies that assume a biological determinant for your problem. A competent therapist can help with this.

Works Cited:

Kirsch I. (2014). Antidepressants and the Placebo Effect. Zeitschrift fur Psychologie, 222(3), 128–134. doi:10.1027/2151-2604/a000176

Kirsch I, Deacon BJ, Huedo-Medina TB, Scoboria A, Moore TJ, Johnson BT (2008) Initial Severity and Antidepressant Benefits: A Meta-Analysis of Data Submitted to the Food and Drug Administration. PLoS Med 5(2): e45. https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pmed.0050045

Moncrieff, J., & Horowitz, M. (2019). Esketamine for treatment-resistant depression. BMJ, 366. DOI: https://doi.org/10.1136/bmj.l5572

Be Brutally Honest

You struggle to move forward in life, to be successful in your business, your relationships, and to stick with an exercise routine. The reality is that you can’t move forward with anything new in life until you get brutally honest about why you are doing life the way you are doing it right now! We often blame others, our parents, friends, or some external event for our problems. We say things like, “If my parents had never been divorced I would have learned what a healthy relationship looked like” or, “If I only had enough time I would get to the gym regularly”. But these are just excuses to justify why we continue to live the life we live, to continue to stay overweight, keep smoking, procrastinate, worry, stay depressed, and the list goes on. Until you come to grips with the fact that the majority of your life is a succession of habits that continually repeat themselves, you will stay right where you’re at. The fact is that most people get comfortable with the stories they tell themselves. And those stories are pretty convincing. They work. We have spent years perfecting the stories we tell ourselves about why we are the way we are, why we do what we do. And at the end of the day it’s all bullshit! It’s a story! One you made up and chose to live over and over. Maybe it’s time to change the story.

Deal with what is happening now, first.

This means Identify the mess in your life. You have what you want because you talk yourself into it. You talk yourself into your problems because they support an irrational belief. You tolerate your resentment of others, your anger at others, and at yourself because it makes it easier to justify why you do what you do. You tolerate your beliefs about others, yourself, and the world because it fuels your problems. You tolerate what you tell yourself that keeps you from doing what you know you should.

“If you really want to escape the things that harass you, what you’re needing is not to be in a different place but to be a different person.” 

Seneca

This is not to say that bad things were not done to you. Maybe that was the case. Nevertheless, you have options. I never tell the victim of abuse to “move on”. That’s just cruel. But once you have sought treatment and the triggers that haunt you are no longer an issue it is time to move forward. Unfortunately a lot of people overcome the disorder of PTSD but stay stuck with the beliefs they hold about themselves as a result of the trauma. And whether anyone wants to read this or not, those beliefs can and do fuel the behaviors that you engage in now! They become a support system for the life you live that you can’t stand. So whether your past consisted of trauma or not, it is time to pay close attention to the story you live out every single day and change it.

If you made a list of all of the things in your life that you tell yourself you ought to change or do differently what would it say? Here is a list of things I hear every day:

I’m unlovable

I’m too stupid

I procrastinate

I’m addicted to__________ (fill in the blank)

I can’t have healthy relationships

I don’t deserve…..

…..and the list goes on.

 Ask yourself this question: What would happen to your life if you flipped one of those things on the list, If you changed just one thing today? You see, change happens the moment it happens. Often we are waiting for change to occur. We tell ourselves “if I  just learn enough then I can change”. Years go by and you spend money on therapy, self-help books, and courses that in the end all focus on the same thing I am telling you right now. BUT the moment change takes place it takes place. It wasn't like you needed another course. You just needed to implement what you learned  from the first course, the first therapist, the first book you read. The moment you decided to do something different change happened.

1. Find the problems you tolerate.

2. Pick one.

3. Decide today it ends.

4. Determine the ACTION you will engage in to make the change.

The reason the self-help industry makes so much money is because we study how to correct our problem and we never implement what we learn. We don’t take action!

The problem is that most of us think that the things we do are different from the things we think. The reality is that what we think is guiding the things we do that prove what we think. Therefore, you’re reality is a reflection of your experience of yourself.

Own your bullshit! You can blame anyone you want for the beliefs you carry. At the point you are no longer an adolescent that blame becomes an excuse, a decision that supports your behavior and beliefs. The evidence for what you believe is in how you behave. You tell yourself you want success, love, excitement, but you’re not up for that level of fulfillment. You’re too busy proving by your actions what you think about yourself. It’s time to rewrite the story!

You Have A Choice to Make

I have never been disillusioned by the idea that anyone but me was responsible for my problems and I have carried that same ideology into my practice. Perhaps it is because I was raised by parents who did their best to instill a sense of personal responsibility for everything I did. I was certainly influenced by two extremely effective therapists prior to my decision to enter the field. Both of whom reiterated that belief throughout my time with them. So it is refreshing to see the field that I love so much and have seen benefit many people begin to come back around to the idea that most people do not have a “mental illness”. The field has a long way to go and certainly a lot of resistance in an era of entitlement, microwave healthcare, and desire to blame everyone and everything else for our personal problems, but it is getting there.

I cannot think of anything more disempowering than telling someone that they are depressed or anxious (or a host of other mental issues) because of genetic factors or some other biological defect they have no control over. Many psychiatrists have made a fortune, often supported by therapists, pushing this idea. I understand it. They were taught a biological model in medical school where everything is a disease to be treated with medication. Sure the responsible physicians also require therapy as an adjunct to medication but it is often viewed as a way to help the patient learn ways to “cope” with the disease instead of a way to eliminate something the patient has control over. Fortunately for the public the tide is very slowly beginning to shift as people are recognizing that medication is not working and in many, if not most cases, creating additional side effects that are worse than the original problem - raise your hand if you are a male that enjoys the side effects of ejaculatory delay and decreased sex drive caused by your SSRI! I didn’t think so.

I was recently reading an article on the site Mad In America that discussed the failure of the genome project to find ANY genetic determinant for psychiatric issues. Dr. E. Fuller Torrey, associate director for research at the Stanley Medical Research Institute, stated in an article in the Dallas Morning News that in the cases of depression and schizophrenia “...genetic research has produced virtually nothing of clinical value”. I have written elsewhere in my blog about the unfounded idea of the chemical imbalance theory so widely used to market psychopharmacology. So if a large number of the mental health issues people suffer from are (as far as we know currently) not caused by genetic defects and drugs do not cure these conditions, what is the answer? The answer is your ability to choose.

I get that most people are not “choosing” depression, anxiety, and bi-polar disorders but helping someone to realize that the way they are choosing to relate to others may be contributing to unhealthy emotions is extremely beneficial and in most cases the answer to the problem. Most people who come to therapy are there because a relationship is suffering. The reason they make the appointment may be labeled depression or anxiety but when you dig far enough you realize that somewhere there is a relational issue. When I live in a supportive environment, have healthy relationships at work, involved in social activities, especially those that meet the needs of other people, I find it difficult to worry and depress. That’s not to say we don’t address limiting beliefs and other concerns if they arise but more often than not relationships are a primary issue.

So where does the idea of choice fit into this? It is simple. A couple of theories, including Choice Theory developed by William Glasser, state that everything we do is motivated by a genetic drive to fulfill our psychological needs. I have written about psychological needs in greater depth elsewhere. Choice Theory lists these needs as survival, love and belonging, power, freedom and fun. Cloe Madanes lists the psychological needs as Certainty, Uncertainty/Variety, Significance, Connection/Love, Growth, and Contribution. I prefer Madanes’ list but I believe both communicate the same thing. This means that whether our behavior is healthy or unhealthy we are engaging in the behavior to meet at least one of our needs. If the theories are correct, and decades of successful outcomes suggest they are, then recognizing why we engage in the behaviors we choose allows us to make a different choice. This seems very simple on the surface, and it is, but putting it into practice is another issue. It is often much easier for us to continue to engage in the negative, unhealthy behaviors we have become accustomed to that reliably meet our needs, than it is to change. Change is difficult. It is scary and creates a lot of uncertainty that is not always comfortable to some people. This is where a therapist or coach that understands these concepts can play a valuable role.

I have dedicated my practice to helping others overcome barriers to their mental, physical, personal, and relational success by effectively supporting them in recognizing these needs and creating healthy ways to meet them.

Resources noted in my post above can be found using the links below.

www.madinamerica.com/2019/11/chronicles-gene-worshiping/ https://www.dallasnews.com/opinion/commentary/2019/10/13/was-the-human-genomeproject- a-dud/ https://cloemadanes.com/2016/10/12/the-6-human-needs-for-fulfillment/

What is Keeping You Stuck

Pick an area of life that you would define as a problem. Is it a relationship (or all your relationships), money, career, health or procrastination? Maybe it’s a feeling of depression or worry around some issue. Now look closely at how it makes you feel. Do you get angry at the fact that you constantly worry? Maybe you feel unfulfilled by the life you currently lead. Are you overwhelmed by all the things you tell yourself you should have done or ought to be doing? Powerless, apathetic, lazy, uncaring, lonely, and bored may be a few of the words you would use to describe how the problem makes you feel.

Now look at what you are telling yourself about the problem. What is the dialogue that goes on when your partner, child, or asshole boss doesn’t do what you thought they should? When you start a project for the thousandth time and don’t finish, what do you tell yourself? Or maybe you begin the dialogue before you ever begin the project or before you even enter the conversation with your spouse, thereby sabotaging it before your desired outcome had a chance. Perhaps you tell yourself the problem is everyone else. Something like, “The reason my relationships always fail is because everyone is so stupid, or selfish”. Regardless of the conversation that you run through your head it is time to get brutally honest with yourself.

If you look at your life, you will likely find that “the problem” has always been there in some form or fashion. What is the story you tell yourself about it? You have been divorced three times and you tell yourself you just married the wrong person EVERY TIME but when you really sit with this internal justification that you run through your head and begin to analyze it, to go deeper, you realize that at the core you feel unlovable. You chose not to start that business because it would have been too risky or taken too much time from your family but in reality, when you really get honest, you didn’t believe you had what it takes to accomplish it in the first place. Maybe deep down you don't feel you deserve to be successful. The bottom line is there is something deeper that is keeping you stuck.

The problem is rarely the problem.

In other words, what you continually define as the problem is often not the real issue.  The real issue is much deeper. It is easy to ignore the deeper issue and in some cases not even realize it is there. We just tell ourselves we are flawed human beings. But it is these beliefs at the deeper level that we often pretend aren’t there that keep us stuck. The reality is that we have learned to tolerate the problem. In some cases the problem is actually beneficial. If I find myself in relationship after relationship with unhealthy people and I continually tell myself that the world is full of unhealthy people and I will never find someone to love me, what I may actually be doing is avoiding the fact that at a deeper level I don’t believe I am lovable. In that case the problem supports my belief. A person that does not believe they are lovable will find it impossible to prove otherwise by entering into a healthy, intimate relationship.

This is where therapy and coaching can be very beneficial as well as activities like journaling and mindfulness.

Learning and utilizing these tools on a regular basis can helps us to get to the real issue. They help us to gain awareness of what it is we are actually avoiding that is keeping us stuck. I recommend people begin to practice mindfulness and journaling as a start to discovering these core beliefs. Don’t be confused by all of the ways people package the concept of mindfulness in order to sell you the “right” formula. In a nutshell, actively engaging in mindfulness means to sit back, become aware of your thinking, and just observe those thoughts. It is not shutting out thoughts, or forcing anything. You don’t need to wrestle with them or “figure them out”. You are simply watching where they lead. I recommend you check out drdansiegel.com/resources/wheel_of_awareness/ and look at his guided meditations as a place to begin.

How Do You Define a Man?

If you've made it this far get ready! 

HOW DO YOU DEFINE A MAN?

Take a look around the internet at sites dedicated to helping men. I have found that most of them fall short. The focus is usually on one of two things: Becoming an “alpha male”- all spine, no love, conquering women, OR becoming a “compassionate, caring, loving, more spiritual, spineless, more of the same wimp”. At times the sites just feel like marketing bullshit. 

So what’s the answer? 

If the alpha male, ultra-fit, seduction guru, macho way was the answer, we wouldn’t have a need for any of these sites and I could stop typing. That was the message to every man alive since the founding of this country (rugged individualism, pull yourself up by your boot-straps, the man rules the home, etc.), until the 80’s when the war against feminism began. If the "alpha male" message is a solution, why doesn’t it work? Why didn’t it work back then? The simple answer is because the “alpha male” approach is a self-absorbed pursuit of superficial crap that ultimately leaves you feeling empty and searching for the next product, fitness fad, magic pill, or sexual conquest that will bring joy, love, peace, and purpose to your life.

A male that lives this life is seen as a fraud to his wife or partner. Your partner will not trust you, nor respect you, and wonder how a male like you could ever conceive children when every pursuit you engage in is a cover-up for your lack of ability to be a man. Your daughter will simply grow up convinced that her role is to satisfy her husbands childish pursuits as well as his constant desire for sex and false admiration. Your son will grow up to be some version of you, or do everything he can to avoid being you! 

That leaves us with the spineless, cut off your manhood and leave it in your mother’s purse way of life. This seems to be the prevailing approach on most of the sites I see. This approach teaches you to embrace your feminine and let go of the masculine; or to get in touch with the masculine in such a way that you can then love openly by bringing your love essence into the world and to everyone you touch. As you do this you will begin to transform your relationships, your sex life, your work, and your dog into harmonious, spiritual oneness with blah, blah, blah. 

If you haven’t figured it out yet, both of these are the same problem. The difference is the way males choose to compensate for the fact that they don’t feel like men. The answer isn't more crossfit sessions, a bigger truck, and an increase in penis size. It isn't a naked spiritual retreat growing closer to Mother Earth under the influence of a psychedelic.

The bottom line is this: Most of this isn't your fault (that's going to piss someone off). You grew up with a model of masculinity, of what a man is supposed to be. Your Father, whether he was around or not, coach,  pastor, youth leader, or other well-intentioned, and sometimes not so well-intentioned male, demonstrated “Man” to you. The problem is most of those men grew up with the same influences I mentioned above and they likely didn’t figure it out either and therefore couldn’t model it effectively. Now we have an industry of therapists and “coaches” trying to correct this lack of modeling by using the same tools that created the problem in the first place, or worse, exacerbating the problem.

I believe in discovering for yourself what it means to be a man. This is not defined by anyone else. There are men we can look to for guidance but ultimately being a man of purpose, conviction, and love is defined by you. I believe in discovering and living in your purpose. I believe in pursuing mental, spiritual, physical, and emotional wellness as contributors to the pursuit of becoming and being a Man. 

If you are ready to stop living a half-ass life defined by someone else, then let's get started. 

How to Make 2021 Your Most Miserable Year Yet

Happiness, a fulfilled, inspired, motivated life is something most of us claim to want. Every “Influencer” (whatever that is) on Instagram is “Living their best life”. Based on the posts I see on Instagram and Facebook it appears that therapists, life-coaches, psychiatrists, and psychopharmacology will soon be unnecessary and the people employed in those fields will be the miserable ones when they no longer have a paycheck. Real life however, does not seem to indicate that I have anything to worry about anytime soon. Most people are not spending every other week on a beach in exotic countries taking pictures in seven different outfits or frolicking with their BFF, life partner, or new cat on a remote island that they have recently discovered. Very few people ACTUALLY drive a Lamborghini, own a helicopter, and routinely skydive while their multi-billion dollar business operates efficiently in spite of their absence. On the contrary, to quote Henry David Thoreau, “The mass of men lead lives of quiet desperation.'' This is not to say, nor do I believe Thoreau meant, that most people are depressed or miserable. I do believe that most people are in pursuit of purpose, fulfillment, or their “best life” and have come to believe that money or success, however defined, will provide this ideal life. This constant pursuit and lack of satisfaction creates a sense of desperation in those that seem to be ever-pursuing. 

The constant search for the ideal while never being content with what we have now is one side of the misery spectrum. The other side belongs to those who have learned that doubt, blame, criticism, fear, irrational thinking, and constant complaining are a way to control the people around them and absolve themselves from the responsibility of moving toward a life of contentment, peace, and happiness. These folks show up on Facebook as well. We all have one or two of these folks in our families. Everyone and everything except their own attitude and behavior is to blame. If there is a silver lining they will paint it black because, “that’s just too good to be true”, or some other B.S. statement that allows them to stay miserable. But let’s look at why people choose (yes, I said choose) misery. 

People choose misery for one reason. It meets their needs. I won’t go into psychological needs here as I have written about them elsewhere, except to say that two of those needs are connection and significance. William Glasser lists one of our basic needs as power. I believe that people who choose misery are meeting these needs in an unhealthy way simply because they have not learned to meet them in a healthy way. An example of meeting needs in an unhealthy way would be a person who joins a violent gang. Most people would accept that being affiliated with a gang is not a healthy way of life. It is however, a very effective way to meet the needs of connection, significance, and power (I am including power though I believe connection and significance are required for an individual to have power). A more familiar scenario would be when your uncle Joe constantly complains and argues about everything aunt Martha cooks, the way she cleans, and how the latest political issue is sending this country to hell in a handbasket. He is also meeting his need for significance, connection, and  power. The minute Aunt Martha or anyone else for that matter, begins to argue with uncle Joe they are connecting with him, he feels significant because the person arguing with him has to at least acknowledge his complaint, and this meets crazy uncle Joe’s need for power. But miserable people also use misery to avoid responsibility. As long as the problem is the fault of anyone or anything but me, I am not responsible for anything in my life. This also allows me to avoid disappointment since nothing good is ever going to happen anyway. 

Given that misery is such an effective way to meet a few of our needs I wanted to provide a recipe of sorts for those of you that would benefit from a road map to either continue your misery or elevate your misery creation game. These are strategies that I have witnessed people in my office utilize as well as some I have personally mastered at one time or another in my life. So in an effort to make the new year as miserable as possible let’s jump in.

Remember, you only need to master a few of these to remain miserable and create a miserable environment for others so don’t attempt to achieve all of these unless you are a true perfectionist (which is a miserable way to live).

1. Recognize how difficult your life is and how underappreciated you are.

Despite the fact that you continually blow every dime on the latest and most sophisticated gadget, clothes, car, haircut and vacation, continue to focus on how much you don’t have. Remind yourself at least four or five times a day that if you can just get to that beach by spring break everything will be ok. In fact continue to focus on how much you deserve that vacation. And if you are in a relationship do everything to ensure that the vacation is all about you. After all, you’re the one that works 35 hours a week, has to mow your postage stamp size yard, and actually input the grocery order to the online delivery service. I get it. Life is demanding. All your lazy partner does is work 40 hours. If they only knew how difficult it is to find a charger for the Tesla when it’s running low they would be more understanding. You deserve this trip to Thailand that you’ve saved two weeks for and will put the rest (the majority) on a Visa. Your boss is an asshole for even suggesting that you may need to put in an extra couple of hours over the next few weeks and this could really place a damper on your ability to get to crossfit at the time when the rest of “the boys” will be there. If he only understood how stressful he is making your life. What a jerk!

2. Worry a lot about economic hardship

Economic loss is a big deal. You know this. Every time you go to the grocery store it seems prices increase. Every time you fill the tank it’s a few cents higher. Eating out five nights a week has almost become difficult to justify, especially since eating lunch out every day has also become so expensive. And let’s not forget just how much it costs to go out every friday and saturday night. That credit card debt is getting out of hand, the student loan payments for that degree in psychology are insane, and the monthly payment on that new car that you had to have because the old one was two years old is ridiculous. It’s time to worry. And not just a little either. What if you have to cut back? No I mean really cut back. What if you had to learn how to budget, mow your own yard, cook your own food, only eat out four nights a week and only party on Saturday night? This is serious! Get concerned! Remind yourself every morning and every evening that the financial shit storm is about to hit hard. It’s inevitable! After all, the next president will probably screw us all over somehow, right? 

3. Really embrace what a sorry person you are.

This is a good one to use when you really want to up the misery game. But don’t just determine that you are a no-goodnick bound for a lifetime of failure, financial woe, and a sexless, loveless, friendless life of desperation and hopeless loneliness. No, make sure everyone close to you knows about it. I mean really let them in on just what a piece of work you’ve become, or always were, or are destined to be. And don’t make this a passive conversation either. Really take the time after you meet everyone at the Christmas party to let them know just what a loser you are. Everyone wants to cheer you up. It’s that time of year after all. Except for you. So why not exploit their good cheer? Take advantage of the fact that they want to make you feel good. Really suck the joy right out of the room. You already know this act of selfishness will ensure you are not invited next year and you can add that fact to this year’s complaint list. Then go home after ten too many drinks and continue the whiny self indulgence with your wife, girlfriend, boyfriend, or dog. They love this stuff after all. Make a plan to continue this for as long as you need until you are proven correct and your partner leaves, the dog runs into the street, and your mom stops calling you. 

4. The first rule in fight club is pick one often about anything you can find wrong with anyone and anything.

Hopefully you are the passive-aggressive type. The one that comes crying to his/her partner to “discuss” the relationship and then proceeds to criticize, complain, coerce, demean, hold grudges, and whine about everything they do wrong. Girls are especially attracted to boys like this. Isn’t everyone? Who doesn’t like a male that has a noodle for a spine, lives to satisfy his selfish desires, is unable to hold a conversation about anything but the latest video game, and gets more excited to drink with the boys than to spend a day connecting with his partner? 

And every guy wants a girl that has perfected the art of emasculation. Someone that can cut so effectively with just a word or a look that even a Spartan warrior does a double take in the restroom. And don’t forget to focus on all the problems in your life. When you have exhausted all of the faults in your partner, this one will get you back in the game. Your boss, your ex, the kids, your wife’s ex, the stupid neighbor and their incessantly barking dogs. Nothing is off limits here. Make all of the world’s problems your problems and figure out a way to include them in a fight. Or better yet blame all of it on your partner. 

5. Do nothing and expect everything.

I love being a therapist and coach. It is truly the most rewarding, satisfying pursuit I could imagine. I am however, amazed at the number of people that expect life to just happen, without incident or struggle, and with no effort on their part. We live in a world that is telling us we can have it all. Just take a few photos, place them on social media and soon you’ll be driving the very same Lamborghini the other guy rented to include in his photoshoot (wait, you thought he owned that)? When this plan doesn’t work out, and it rarely does, you claim life is unfair. WHY CAN’T I BE SUCCESSFUL TOO!! you cry. The answer is simple - because you didn’t do anything! And if you did, you didn’t do enough of it or you just weren't that good at it. It sucks to be the bearer of bad news but not everyone gets to make six figures writing a blog, living in Phuket, (how is that pronounced?) Thailand, and posting their latest bikini pic on Instagram. Some people, maybe you, will have to work. By work, I mean go learn a trade or get a degree, or flip a burger. I’m not saying give up the dream. I am saying you might consider how that dream is actually going to bring in a paycheck. Wealth doesn’t magically appear, relationships don’t last forever just because the sex was great and he had a great personality. Life is work. Being healthy and fit takes work. Success, wealth, happiness, contentment, etc., takes work. 

6. Blame your past.

This one is all too common in the #metoo, I was dealt a bad hand, mommy spanked me, and daddy ran off with the secretary, blame everyone else world we live in. I am not discounting trauma, real trauma, here. Unfortunately it seems everyone has determined that they have PTSD and the causes are too numerous to count from legitimate situations like rape, abuse, neglect, etc., to things that when put to the diagnostic test don’t amount to anything more than hurt feelings. Regardless of whether or not you experienced trauma or your fourth grade buddy was just a jerk and knocked you over on the playground, there comes a time to recognize that the past is over and you either need to pursue legitimate therapeutic intervention or decide that the past is no longer going to keep you stuck. Either way it comes down to a decision: stay stuck or pursue change. The next time you find yourself going on and on about how the past caused this or that, or why you are the way you are because of this sad story, stop and ask yourself why you are doing this for the millionth time. The answer is simple. It connects you to people and for a brief moment makes you feel significant. In some cases it also keeps you from taking responsibility for your life. How’s that working out? It isn’t. Get help, stop talking about it, and move forward. It may be hard. Do it anyway. You have become so comfortable with the B.S. story you keep telling yourself about why you can’t have or do whatever it is you want that it has become true. Well guess what? It is nothing more than a story you continue to repeat that keeps you right where you choose to be. 

Stories matter. What is yours? Look at the one you're telling yourself and if it isn’t working, change it.

7. Ignore the opportunity to show gratitude.

People who regularly identify the things in life they are grateful for are happier than those who don’t. To really reinforce your misery muscle come up with all of the things you would be thankful for if you didn’t want to stay miserable. Next, write a paragraph for each one describing all the reasons you don’t deserve this, should have something better, or better yet, why someone else’s is significantly better than yours. When you are finished take it to a family member, preferably a spouse or partner, and read the list aloud. This will make for great conversation and likely bring the two of you closer together. Actually it will likely go a long way toward further destroying the already unhealthy relationship you have by reinforcing to your partner that you are choosing your misery inducing behavior. But hey, you will at least be able to connect with one another over misery since choosing to create a positive interaction has never worked in the past so there is no point in trying that. 

8. Remember, you were made for the world to revolve around.

Whether you have success or failure make it all about you. Never acknowledge anyone else’s support. Always remind yourself and anyone else that will still listen, that you are a self-made individual. It doesn’t matter that they don’t believe you and have a list of reasons why you are wrong. They just don’t get it. After all, despite what anyone else may say, you’re smarter than they are. 

Remember to always let your “good deeds” be known to the world. Other people didn’t really matter anyway but don’t tell anyone else you believe that. Just brag at every opportunity about the contribution you made or the time you volunteered so that as many people as possible can acknowledge how wonderful you are. And don’t forget somewhere in the back of your mind to keep a list of all of the people who owe you for all of the wonderful things you have done for them. 

9. Focus on you in your quiet time.

Be sure to make every problem about you. Your life is full of them so keep stock of all of the people and events that have contributed to your misery. This is closely related to number 8. Your wife, kids, boss, church, the world around you, all coming together to cause you problems. Why should you be the spouse that has to take your son to the doctor when he has a high fever? Why should anyone point out how you make them feel when it clearly makes you feel terrible for them to point out how you make them feel? You have so many problems and stressors. Focus intently on these. Really delve deeply into your miserable life and all of the pain and shortcomings you have. Avoid any thought that might try to slip through that would offer you a bit of positive reflection. This would just upset your opportunity to really feel your misery at its core. By doing this you will enhance and reinforce your negative, life-sucking attitude that so many have come to love and count on. The added benefit of this one is that eventually you will be able to get a prescription for depression proving you had a genetic issue all along and just can’t help being this damn miserable. 

10. Decide today that you have the power to change.

No, not yourself. There isn’t anything that can change about you. I mean someone else. Find someone whom you can really invest in. Someone whom you know will distract you from your friends, family, and all of the positive goals you would have in your life if you were the type to set goals in the first place. Then fall in love with this person. After all, having them close to you is the best way to change them. They need you and you need them. And despite statistics and everyone’s opinion to the contrary, you can and will love them until they become the person you know they must. You will shape them into a person after your own image (the one floating in your mind). This is not and will not be a codependent relationship. This is love. The real thing, right?

11. Decide to dislike and disagree with most people.

This will do a couple of things. It will certainly bring attention to you which is what you are after in the first place. It will also allow you to avoid all of those so-called “fun” parties, gatherings, friends, and quality relationships that are so overrated in the first place because you will never be invited. This will be a sort of reinforcement that all of the things you find wrong with the world and everyone in it are true. 

12. Stay anxious by focusing on every worse case scenario.

This could be the year of complete disaster, relationship failure, and major catastrophe. Why not focus on all of them. Truthfully you only need a few but you’re not in this to be second best. To take this to the next level come up with a daily anxiety journal. Thirty-one days of anxiety inducing bullshit (I just gave you your next book title). This should keep you ahead of the game and ensure your psychiatrist has a great vacation this year. Spend as much of every day as you can focusing on the worse outcome for each item. And don’t forget to share these worries with everyone you know, including those you don’t on social media. Which takes us to our last item.

13. Spend increasing amounts of time on social media.

There is no better place to turn for opportunities to compare your miserable life to all of those so-called influencers, fashion gurus, millionaires, world travelers, and just about everyone that seems to have more, do more and be more than you. Never question whether what they have is real or a photoshopped, botox filled, life of B.S. Focus on what you don’t have. Why couldn’t you have been the well-sculpted, surgically enhanced 23 year-old, living your “best life”? Now that you have become the 27 year-old dinosaur that you are, you don’t stand a chance of regaining all that was lost if only you’d had an iphoneX or XII (or whatever number we are on), just a few long years ago. Give up. Obviously you missed the boat. That guy with the 125,000 followers driving the Tesla, Ferrari, and spaceship surely figured it out along with all of those other people you follow to remind yourself what a sorry life you ended up with. You’ll never be like him, or them, or anyone else you keep staring at and avoiding your own life. But hey, pop another SSRI, drink a pint, or whatever it is you do to alleviate the thoughts that create this mess in your head and plan another misery filled day tomorrow. It will be waiting. 

I wanted to give everyone at least a partial recipe for getting and remaining miserable. You can surely add to the list. One of the great gifts of being human is the ability to create. We can create not only tangible objects but we hold the power to create our own misery. We have more control over how we feel than the media, medicine, and even some therapists would have us believe. Our thoughts contribute to how we feel and in most cases are the single determinant of our mood. For anyone struggling to gain a sense of control over their thoughts and feelings I would encourage you to seek a therapist that does not simply allow you to rehearse your misery in session but one that will teach you to challenge the negative beliefs that create the misery in the first place.

Scott Groves, LPC

As I started to plan my 2020 and revise some goals, I came across an article I have kept by Cloe Madanes called The 14 Habits of Highly Miserable People. My recipe for misery is loosely based on her article.