I like sports well enough, even though I’m not a die-hard fan of any particular team (although I certainly have a Boston loyalty like a lot of Mainers- we used to occupy the same colony, you know). There are a lot of very valuable life lessons that we can learn through sports. I’ve outlined them at times in my blog.  I even dabble in very amateur athletic pursuits myself.

However, I would like to point out that there is a very important way in which life is not like sports. In life, there are no clear winners and losers. In other words, life is not a contest in which you must defeat others in order to “win.” There is no scoreboard,  point system, or panel of judges. Sure, there are competitions which utilize these devices, but that’s different than the pursuit of a life. The pursuit of a life is not a sport at all.

The problem is that many of us seem to operate as if life is a competitive sport where a winner will be named and a loser will be disgraced. I think this is a big problem when it comes to interpersonal relationships. For example, how many of us think about “winning” an argument? Or being “right?” This way of thinking is a huge barrier to having positive connections with others. The goal of our interactions needs to be solving problems and increasing understanding. How does it play out when we think not of these pursuits but instead of “winning”? We continue to get further disconnected.

At times I hear people talking about “sizing up the competition” when meeting new people. I always get a little confused. They are not usually referring to a starting line. Maybe they are at work or in a social setting. What is the competition? If we look at everyone as a competitor, or worse, an enemy, how do we make friends and build relationships?

It is painful and destructive when parents buy into the “life is one big competition” mentality. Many parents seem to fear that their kids will fundamentally “lose” at life. This plays out in youth sports every day all across the country. It is a common complaint that parents take it so seriously that it becomes no fun for kids. Many times, kids end up feeling bad about themselves as a result. I don’t think parents intend this outcome. I’m fairly convinced that they believe their kids must win in every way or else the dreaded outcome of “losing.” We have become deluded into thinking our kids must achieve or else bad things will happen. We forget that in acting out this philosophy we do serious harm to our relationship with them.

Last October there was a very good article titled The Power of Positive Coaching in the New York Times opinion section. The author, David Bornstein, talks about how positive coaching can transform youth sports into learning about life skills that are helpful and generalizable. Reading the article, I was struck by how the philosophies of focusing on effort, learning, and responding effectively to mistakes are the very skills parents also need to be emphasizing.

We can do much better than a win or lose framework for life. We really need to. Happiness is not in “winning,” it’s in being socially and emotionally connected. Connection, the outcome of having a positive relationship with ourselves and others, is the very thing that brings us a sense of purpose and belonging.

It’s dreary today here in Maine. The cold and dark is beginning to wear on everyone. It is especially hard for those diagnosed with depression. Depression is a serious diagnosis that requires treatment. For more information on depression, check out the National Institute of Mental Health. I also urge you to talk with a health care provider if you believe you may be depressed.

The trick with depression is that it cons you into doing things that make you feel worse. It says, “stay inside and isolate yourself from the world until you feel better.” It says, “eating junk food is the key to getting better.” Or “just sleep all day, it will help.” Or (my least favorite) “this is the way you are, nobody can help you.” In short, depression makes you think that doing less, eating poorly, being still, sleeping too much or too little, and not seeking help will (somehow) help you out. It always makes it worse. Depression is a big fat liar.

When you have depression you must make small steps to do things even if you do not have the energy. Leave the house, meet up with a friend, go for a walk, make a doctors appointment, look for a therapist, take a shower- every little step gets you going in the right direction. Then you add another challenge the next day. Each day needs to contain an activity aimed at outsmarting depression. Depression is treatable. Doing positive, social, healthy activities are depression’s kryptonite. Don’t trust my word- please try it.

Once you gain some skills to outsmart depression, you need to do prevention. It takes staying up on taking good care of your body and having fun in your life. For ideas on how to keep your depression in check take a look here and here for helpful posts.

If you are thinking about counseling, you are not alone. It’s been a busy few weeks with lots of folks starting therapy. I hope that you will consider that depression can get better. A lot better. For some encouragement about starting therapy, take a look at my recent blog on this topic.

How do you outsmart depression?

It’s really cool when my clients help others better understand how and why therapy is helpful. I’m especially impressed with my teen clients. They are really great about sharing the news that therapy can be effective and you don’t have to be “crazy” to go. People of all ages are mostly suspicious of therapy. They fear that it will be an unhelpful waste of time and money and/or potentially make things worse. Yikes! That’s a reputation I think therapists need to work harder to change.

I can only speak to the way I do things, but here are my clarifications on common fears people have about therapy:

1. The therapist will tell me to do things I don’t want to do.
   I’m certainly not going to tell you what to do. My job is to help you identify more clearly what you want and collaborate with you in figuring out how to get there. If there is something you don’t want to change, that’s your right.
2. The therapist will just stare at me blankly and give me no helpful guidance.
   That would be extremely boring for me, so I’m not going to do that! I’m not going to tell people what to do, but if you need some new ideas and guidance, I’ll help you out. If you say, “how might you suggest I handle this situation” I’m going to come up with some new ideas for you to consider. I won’t leave you hanging. With me (and I think most therapists) sessions are conversations, not monologues.
3. The therapist will make me talk about painful things I don’t want to share.
   Again, I’m not here to make people do anything. In fact, I can’t. I’m just not that powerful. My job is to help you with your goals, not to create them for you. Sometimes, people don’t want to look at painful things that get in the way of present goals. I’m going to point that out to you and give you choices about how you want to handle it, but I will not make you talk about anything.
4. The therapist will analyze me and have secret thoughts about how messed up I am.  That’s not my style. I’m interested in helping you out with what you want, not making up stories in my head about ways in which you fall short. Frankly, I don’t have any room in my brain for that sort of activity. Plus, I am going to share with you what my thoughts are about your situation in a way that’s helpful and informative. I’m not some know-it-all who has preconceived ideas about you and your life. We are coming up with ideas, connections, solutions together, not identifying all the ways in which you have potentially messed up. That’s not helpful, and I only care about being helpful.

For more thoughts on starting therapy, check out my other post on the subject. If you are considering starting therapy, I’m happy to talk with you about how I might approach a particular subject or situation. Just call or email. I won’t pressure you into anything, I promise.

I enjoy going to what I refer to as “the jungle gym for grown-ups.” It reminds me of recess time. I think adults need that kind of physical recreation too. Last night I was working on my clean (its a weight lifting move) and making good progress. Some of the ladies I work out with noticed. Several were appropriately congratulatory about my personal record. I said to them, “I feel good about that.”

As a therapist, those are the moments I help clients identify. It’s about finding times where you feel both physically and emotionally good about something you have done. Many people want to work on self-esteem and confidence. I think the key is to take note of these moments and to be able to direct your mind back to them again and again.

Next time I’m at “recess” and I’m going to attempt to lift something, I can think about my recent success. That gives me an example of my capability. If I think of that, it gives me encouragement to try to push myself again. If I try, I’m more likely to succeed. That gives me yet another example of a positive outcome. I’m building a repertoire of mental examples of success.

Most people have the tendency to do the opposite. They tend to review the mental examples of every incident of perceived failure. Running through these examples gives us more “practice” with actions we would rather not repeat. Instead, we need to be aware and direct our thinking toward our examples of preferred actions. This takes awareness of our thoughts and intentional redirection, but it’s very doable. When we do this, we have incredible potential.

Laurel Parnell, a leading expert in EMDR, has an excellent book that helps to instruct people on how to “tap in” to our own inner resources. If you are interested in seeing how you can build upon and tune into your own positive memories and experiences, I would highly recommend her book, Tapping In.

I suggest starting to notice moments where you can say, “I feel good about that.” Maybe you can even tell someone or write it down. Even better, begin to review moments you have already experienced. The more you think about positive moments, the more accessible they become.

Change. That’s what’s on my mind. This week I have been really inspired by stories of change all around me. People always presume that my job is kind of a drag. They think that all I hear about is stuff that would ordinarily bum anybody out. Honestly, it’s truly the opposite on most days. What’s really going on all day is people showing up in my office with a lot of will to have things go better in their lives. There are certainly ups and downs and rough situations that people have encountered. However, the majority of people stick with coming to see me and they succeed with their goals. That’s incredibly uplifting. My job is pretty awesome.

In a recent post, I talked about how people have to decide to make changes. Then, with intention and attention, changes can be made. But how do people decide to make a change? What does that take exactly? What I’m thinking is that people need to be aware that there is a potential and opportunity for change. They need to see it as an option.

That’s where my job comes in. I help direct people to think about their options and the potential actions they can take. It seems simplistic when I write it like that, but it can be a profound process. I think about how I decided to start a private practice. A colleague and friend said that she thought that I was someone who could very well start a private practice. She brought that possibility to my awareness. I decided to do it and (luckily) she was right! So here I am.

It looks like identifying the possibilities available to you at any given time and being open to choosing something different might be a key catalyst to starting a change process. You can set yourself up for change by trying to cultivate a habit of thinking about all the options before you rule any out. You can also surround yourself with creative, inspiring people who can help you identify possibilities that remain hidden from your view.

I’m going to try to be more open to suggestions and to new ways of doing things. Those seem like sensible measures to take against ruts and monotony that tend to put a lid on healthy change. What supports your healthy change process?

I’ve been inspired lately by someone who works tirelessly to grow and change. She wakes in the wee hours of the morning practicing new skills for hours at a time. Everyday there are profound differences from the day before. It sounds quite tiring, and it is (occasionally naps are required). But since she is not quite a year old, we call this dedication to change play. Play. That’s right. Learning new things and forming new neural networks in our brain to support these changes is the very stuff of child’s play.

So if my infant daughter has this much ability to change, to work, to be dedicated to new tasks like walking, talking and feeding herself, is this true of all humans? Or do we out grow it? It appears that we actually get a little complacent. Once we have tasks that we’ve mastered and routines that we have developed in life, these neural networks (patterns of how brain cells fire and work together) go on autopilot. A lot of times, we just go with it. We have tendency to forget that we created these patterns in the first place. 

For us older (and more tired) adults we need a bit of push to make changes. Really this means that we need to focus our attention on what we want to do differently and intentionally make this change, going against old patterns that fire off automatically within our brain. So yes, there is the work part of it: intentionally saying, “I will do this thing differently” and following through.

It’s January 3rd. There are a lot of folks out there embarking on some sort of life change. Right now, you need to build momentum. You need to practice doing what you want differently. Lots of times. That takes conscious effort. Each time you do it, your brain works differently. You are creating new patterns. If you do it more and more, it becomes easier. I would call this momentum.

There is a mistaken belief that you can wait around and you will find the motivation to make a change. FALSE. That’s not how motivation works. It works in combination with its friend momentum. Motivation is the reward you reap from making the change and enjoying the new things you are learning. It’s noticing that you did something different and now feel different. Then you want to do it some more. That’s how motivation works.

If there’s a change worth making in your life, how might you approach it with the tenacity and playfulness of a child? How do you see exercise, cooking, spending time with family, or any other goal as a playful and fun part of your life?

Photo by Jared DeSimio

I experienced a lot of change personally and professionally last year. My daughter was born last January. Being a first-time parent pretty much sums up the personal changes from the last year! Professionally, I continued my ongoing study of how people make positive, lasting changes. I fully believe everyone can make such changes.

One theme from last year is that people have tremendous power to shape their emotional lives, but most fail to realize they have this potential. I am very impacted by the work of Brene Brown. She is a researcher who has studied important topics like shame and worthiness. Brown says that one of the keys to living a connected, “wholehearted” life (her term), is to believe in your own worthiness. Much pain and disconnection from others is caused by the mistaken belief that we are not good enough. Brown has a terrific blog and an inspiring TEDx talk. Start the new year off right, and check these out.

I am currently in the process of reading Joe Dispenza’s book Evolve Your Brain. He talks about how neuroscience proves that we have the ability to change our thinking and, in turn our bodies and emotions. He asserts, with compelling science, that the very thoughts we think literally change the biochemistry in our bodies. Thoughts are incredibly powerful. What most people don’t know is that we can change our thinking. Thus, we can change ourselves. This is a fundamental underpinning of many types of psychotherapy. My goal is to use this knowledge to help inspire clients to change old thinking patterns into more helpful ones. Isn’t it amazing to think that you can simply decide to change?  

I’m taking these two big ideas into my work in 2012: We are all worthy and we are all capable of making changes. I hope more and more people will begin to understand these truths in the new year.