It’s an odd place to get parenting advice, but the best story regarding mothering I ever heard was from Penn Jillette on Marc Maron’s podcast WTF. Penn talked about how his mother’s philosophy was that she loved and cherished her children for who they were, from the moment of birth, and never for what they did. She delighted in their joys, but it was never about accomplishments.

According to Penn, she was once offended by a producer who asked her if she were proud of her son for receiving a positive New York Times review. She was horrified at the suggestion and put him in his place by affirming it was not his accomplishments that made her proud, but who he was and had always been. That’s the kind of mom I want to be.

Like Mrs. Jillette, I hope to be secure and self-assured enough to say honestly to my child, “There is nothing you need to do or be to make my life more complete. My greatest joy is just to experience you being you.” I want to keep my child safe and teach her what I can. But I need to let go of my own expectations and not dictate the direction of her life. It’s not about me. It is her life.

I hope I can be wise enough to realize that my viewpoint and life experience will not be the same as my child’s. I need to let go of thinking I know the right outcome for her. I hope that she learns much in life that is different and more expansive than what I know. There are so many things I can’t teach her. I want her life filled with warm, supportive people who can offer lessons I can’t, like how to cook, sing, start a fire, change a tire, swim. If I’m lucky, I’ll be learning too.

I hope I can be grounded enough to always consider her needs over my feelings. When she is slumped over, mid-tantrum, in the appropriately-named child’s pose, I hope I ask myself, “What do I need to be showing and teaching her in this moment with my words and actions?” and not, “Why is she doing this to me right now?”

I hope I can take good enough care of myself and my emotions that I recognize more often than not, that parenting is not about me. It’s about what is in my child’s best interest. It’s not about being right or in control. It’s about what is best for her.

At night she always say, “Let’s talk about my day.” Now that I can do. And that is about me. And it’s about us- our connection, our engagement, our love, and our relationship. That’s where I matter the most. That’s where I want to invest my attention and time. I hope to have many days that end saying, “Yeah, let’s talk about your day!”

Each day I get to talk to her, to experience her growth and learning, is a good day for me. It will never matter what was accomplished, what awards were won, which people were impressed. Just being there for her will always be enough. She is always enough.

Being self-assured yields kindness and contentment. This is contrary to what most of us were taught, and yet I’m increasingly sure that it is true. This is why, in my recent post about being self-assured, I questioned the Merriam-Webster Online Dictionary about words “related” to self-assured: vain, egotistical, pompous.

In my mind, being self-assured means being on one’s own team, with a commitment to working on the skills and internal resources that help us through new challenges. It means having trust in one’s own ability to show up and figure it out regardless of what life throws our way.

I think there is a real problem when we equate working on things like positive self-talk, emotional regulation, wellness, and self-care with being “vain” “egotistical” and “selfish.” I hear this quite frequently in my office. Many really nice people think it’s selfish to be in therapy or to take time to help themselves feel better. No, I say. Taking time to feel well and gain helpful skills is about the best community service you can do.

Let me explain with an example. Who would you rather spend time with: A.) a person who is generally pretty upbeat who has a fairly predictable range of emotions and reactions and generally understanding and helpful OR B.) a person who does the opposite, who bombards you with negativity, complaining, yelling, the silent treatment, or aggression for reasons that either you don’t understand or are out of proportion to the situation and whom you generously dub “difficult.”

I admit that most of us are probably somewhere in the middle of Person A and Person B. No one is calm and collected all the time, and that’s probably a good thing. But my point is, being more self-assured is something that is quite desirable. It’s the underlying trait that makes people truly kind, steady, and easy to be around.

If we have emotional “stuff” bugging us, as we all will at many points in our lives, it requires attention and work. Otherwise, emotions bubble up and come out in ways that invariably impact others. Always. I get the “I don’t want to be selfish” concern, but taking care of your emotional life is not selfish. Not one little bit. NOT taking care of your emotional life will keep you inching towards being Person B. Don’t be Person B. It’s miserable.

Being on the journey towards increasing self-assurance is kind to yourself and to the world. It is not selfish. Selfishness is the product of unmet emotional needs always coming to the surface. Selfishness is needing to drag down others with your oozing and overwhelming needs, that only you can really learn to fully address. Others are there for validation, encouragement, listening, and even cheerleading. They are not there to manage your feelings. If you are managing your feelings (not denying, pushing away, projecting onto others but really feeling, owning and working through them), you are contributing positively to the world.

I’m no mathematician, but I think more self-assured people=a better world.

What do you think?

Can being self-assured help us to go boldly into unknown life territory? This is a question I’ve been thinking about lately. But what does it mean to be self-assured? To me, it seems like a very desirable quality, something to cultivate in oneself and in our children. In my curiosity, I did some research. According to Merriam-Webster Online, the term means “sure of oneself: self-confident.” It says that related words include: vain, egotistical, pompous.

I partly agree, but I have some issues with this definition and with the “related” words. I guess this begs the questions: Who am I to take issue with the dictionary? Am I self-assured or really pompous after all?!

In my mind, being self-assured means having a sense that one can make it through what life throws our way. It means cultivating helpful self-talk and being on your own team. Life is hard, you don’t always know what to do. You may be scared or unsure. Being self-assured (in my unofficial dictionary), is having some acceptance of this and still trying our best. It means showing up physically and emotionally and being in the driver’s seat of our lives. Even the self-assured need to buckle up because it’s often a bumpy ride.

In my humble (and yet self-assured!) opinion, self-confidence is a little different. I think confidence is the belief that you can accomplish something. Usually we gain confidence through previous life experience. I am confident in my skills as a therapist from roughly 10 years of training and practice. Prior to becoming a parent (where you clearly cannot get the experience until becoming one), I did feel self-assured because I was committed to managing my emotions, accepting things I cannot control, and willing to get help and support whenever or wherever I hit an inevitable bump in the road. These two examples feel really different to me.

It seems to me that confidence is trust on one’s abilities and self-assurance is trust in one’s self. I need previous experience to be confident. I need a rich knowledge of my internal resources (emotional, physical, spiritual) to be self-assured.

Self-confidence is great for preparing in many aspects of life. It’s a positive thing, but I don’t think it goes far enough. I think we need to develop self-assurance for the many situations for which you cannot prepare.

What do you think? Is there a difference between self-confidence and being self-assured? How do you feel about the term?

Next post, I’m going to take on those “closely related” words. If you have thoughts on that, too, I’d be very interested.

Thanks for reading- if you are interested please subscribe to this blog, check out my Facebook where I post interesting links, and feel free to share with friends!

Tomorrow I will be a guest on the internet radio program Growing Up Chaotic to discuss EMDR and Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It’s at 7pm EST and I hope you will listen.

As a result, I’ve got EMDR on the brain. I’ve been using this type of therapy with many of my clients for several years now. What I’ve learned is that EMDR can be a tool for change when you have an old pattern that just won’t budge.

EMDR is a comprehensive form of therapy that is well-researched and highly effective. It is an approach that is done by  psychotherapists who have received specific training. “What is EMDR?,” you ask: well my previous post will start to answer that question- click here.

In my practice I tend to use EMDR when clients indicate a history of trauma or a single traumatic event that is related to current problems or distress. I also see a very clear use for EMDR when clients find that they have troublesome feelings or reactions despite previous therapy and even when they intellectually know what to do, but the response is so automatic that they cannot help it.

In my mind, many automatic responses are learned to cope with an early life situation. If you grew up needing a response to cope in your environment (for example, shutting down emotionally, yelling to get attention, avoiding conflict at all cost), these coping mechanisms may become counter-productive when your environment changes. For people who grow up making changes in their lives (which is healthy!), these old coping responses become out-dated. However, they are so well learned in childhood that we can’t always get them to change without help.

EMDR can often help process old patterns and the negative messages about self that go along with them. For someone who grows up not getting much attention, the skills of being emotionally shut down and being ruggedly independent may end up working well. In the child’s perspective, though, the message about the self is something like, “I’m not important” or “I am not worthy of attention.” This is because children can only see the world through their own perspective. Everything that happens is interpreted to be about them. This means that these very old automatic responses are also tied with negative beliefs.

How this plays out is that we grow up with certain coping responses and when we unconsciously sense that we are in a situation that feels like the old situation, we tend to use the same responses. These responses are not just behavioral and emotional, they also are tied with core beliefs about ourselves. So the person who grows up being emotionally neglected may sense danger when another person wants to be connected to them. The old pattern of shutting down and the belief about not being worthy of connection will automatically come into play. This all happens without us really understanding where these thoughts and feelings come from.

There are other ways to work on these automatic responses and negative beliefs, but I find that EMDR works the best for those who have benefited from other forms of therapy but still want to break these old patterns once and for all. If you are thinking of trying EMDR, I recommend looking for a therapist who is fully trained in EMDR, uses EMDR regularly, receives consultation specific to EMDR, as well as actively continues his/her professional development in EMDR.

Have questions about EMDR? I’m going to follow up with another post next week, so please feel free to contact me or leave a comment below.

I believe that failure is an unhelpful concept. I’m not even convinced it’s a real thing. In my mind, it belongs in the category of make-believe creatures along with unicorns, dragons, and the Easter Bunny.

Recently, Seth Godin (marketing genius and writer whose lessons surprisingly generalize to many areas of life), made a very wise point in his post, Just the good parts. He feels that when you hit bumps in the road, like a bad break or rejection, “It means that you’re doing worthwhile, difficult work, not merely amusing yourself.” I would add to this and assert that you can’t have success without so-called failure.

In my assessment, there is no way to “fail.” Life is not graded. You can’t get an F. There is showing up and participating, making choices, being accountable, and doing our best. Or there is not participating, waiting for others to make choices for us, and claiming that we are helpless. And every shade of gray in between. Trying and having it not work out as we predict or would like is not the same as “failure.”

In my mind, every time you choose to participate and give the best you can in that given moment, you are being your very best self. You can’t really go wrong. Maybe your grade isn’t so great, or the guy you like turns you down, or you didn’t get the job you interviewed for. But that is never failure. And usually, in the end, it works out better than you imagined.

At the end of the day, if we’ve done our best, we have a better sense of self and accomplishment. We can better accept our inherent strengths and weaknesses. We can begin to cope with the many areas of life beyond our control. Participating fully in life as our real selves with all we’ve got is the bravest and most rewarding way to live. Just showing up and learning from all that life has to offer will always be a winning experience.

Fearing failure is devastatingly counter-productive. It keeps us from putting our best, most authentic selves out in the world. We all lose when others hide themselves and their talents. It keeps us withered and tight, unable to bloom and open.

What could be different in your life if you stopped fearing failure?

PS: I’m still working on my project of finding ways to make emotional health information exciting and accessible to a wide audience! Can you help me by taking a very brief survey by clicking here? Your feedback WILL make a big difference. Thank you! And, while I’m in the mood for asking for favors, if you like what I’m doing, please feel free to subscribe to this blog, share on social media and encourage your friends to follow along and to take my survey too. (I hope the adorable collage in this post will serve as appropriate compensation for your time!)

photo credit: http://homeimprovementpin.com

This is not my laundry closet. I believe what I have is more appropriately called a laundry dungeon. Still, I do love pictures of tidy, sparkling cupboards, “mud” rooms, and, of course, closets.

My house doesn’t look like one of these very lovely Pinterest images and that’s okay. Other people do have houses like this, and that’s okay too. I admire and applaud their dedication to beautifying and organizing their homes.

However, I think we need to be careful not to be too seduced by the idea of having everything be just so. We can’t expect to have every aspect of our life look like it should be documented in a magazine.

There is no such thing as perfect. Everyone intellectually knows this. Yet, somehow the striving for perfection is a big part of our lives. Well-meaning people everywhere are sold on the idea that if things are perfect, they will be safe and happy. This is the myth of perfection.

Perfection is actually a big bully that will rob you of joy, lead you to fear, and keep you feeling constantly inadequate.

The pursuit of perfection is a fear-based activity. It says things must be perfect or else something bad will happen. If my grades are not straight A’s, I’m a failure who will never go to college and will end up homeless and I’ll be a disgrace to my parents. If I don’t look perfect, I’ll never find a partner and I’ll be insignificant and die alone. If I let my kids eat something other than organic food ever or watch a couple of hours of TV, they will fail and hate me and it will be all my fault.

These sound like extreme views, but I don’t really think they are. Honest, reasonable people from my personal and professional life tell me these kinds of stories all the time. Think deep on this one. Do you buy into some need for perfection in your life?

When we aim for perfection in our lives, we will always feel let down. Being a human is not conducive to perfection. I don’t really know how we got so fond of the idea anyway.

I reject perfectionism. I’m going to eat well because it makes me feel good, but sometimes I’m going to eat something that is highly pleasing that’s unhealthy because it exists and I want it. I’m going to work pretty hard because I love what I do and want to make a living to support my family, but sometimes I make mistakes or need to take a couple of days off. I’m going to try to be attentive to my child, but sometimes she is going to fall or struggle because she is a human being.

I believe that the myth of perfection is behind a substantial and unnecessary amount of anxiety in our society. I think it leads us to fear being ourselves, puts pressure on ourselves and those around us to be super-human, and makes connecting with each other more difficult. If I don’t want to admit to being imperfect, I’m going to present myself in a false way, expect my family to live up to this as well, and certainly not admit or seek help when I falter.

I want to be myself without the burden of being perfect. I want to be authentic and connected with others. That means that sometimes I forget things and maybe my hair is messy. Maybe my child has a big stain on her shirt today. Maybe I have no clean socks. But maybe that’s a small price for putting other things that felt more important first today.

But now maybe I really do need to go and do some laundry.

I don’t have the answer. I really don’t think there is one answer to most complicated human questions. Often there are many steps that lead us towards better outcomes. This is true on the individual level and I think it must be true on the societal level as well. When people first come into therapy, I try to advocate for taking small steps that can’t hurt. Often these small steps make things a lot better. We tend to underestimate how helpful small steps can be.

When the problem is bigger and more complicated, like when people kill innocent victims, I wonder if some of the same ideas can apply. What if we all did something that doesn’t hurt? Even if it’s not the answer, I have to wonder, what would happen if….

• we chose to articulate each day the things we like and admire about others?
• we decided to listen first and respond only when the other person is done and feels that we were truly present for them?
• we told those we love that we love them, always, no matter what?
• our actions and our words communicated to the people we interact with that we see them as an equally important and valuable human being?
• we can accept the follies and flaws of ourselves as part of our humanity, even as we strive to make better choices and positive changes?
• we evaluated what’s really important in our lives and consistently devoted time to these priorities?
• we spend as much time noticing what’s right, what’s good, and what’s generous in the world as we do pointing out flaws and criticizing?
• we remain mindful that despite our differences, humans share most of the same genome, one home planet,  and an overwhelming majority want peace, safety, and love?

I don’t know… but I wonder. I do know that I wish all of you a peaceful holiday season and a hopeful and happy New Year.

Procrastination is not about being lazy. It is not about being complacent. In fact, most procrastinators care very much about how things turn out. Procrastination is a way to avoid the fear of failure until the last possible moment. Then we say, “Oh, of course I did badly, I didn’t have enough time.” Or we just do good enough, so our best possible work goes undone and not judged by others. Procrastination is a fear-driven behavior. It is the opposite of going all in.

Another problem with procrastination is that it provides all of the stress on the mind and body of actually doing the work, without any of the reward. We spend our time and energy thinking about the work we should/want to/need to do. We worry about when and how we will do it or how it might feel. We think of what the outcomes will or won’t be. Meanwhile, we produce absolutely nothing (or anything but the work that we are dwelling on).

All this worry undermines our confidence. There is great pride that comes from putting in effort and producing something of substance. Even when the product is not spectacular, the process teaches us something. When we procrastinate, we lose the focus on process, learning, and hard work. We get stress and feelings of inadequacy instead. I think battling procrastination is an important step in improving self-esteem.

So I say go for it. Show the world your best work, your best self. Do your work in a timely manner. Give it the space and time it deserves. You deserve it. No one ever regrets it.

Need ideas for battling procrastination? Stay tuned for the next post in my back to school series…

Image by Victor Hertz

I’ve learned, mostly the hard way, that I don’t know what the best outcome is for another person. That probably sounds weird for a therapist to say. There is a general sense that you go to therapy for someone to tell or “guide” you to a particular outcome. But that’s not really the best use of therapy.

I’ve finally come to the conclusion that it is not what the outcome is that matters, it’s how people get there and how they ultimately feel about it. Does it fit into some unhelpful old framework or does it represent a new and stronger narrative? I don’t know if you should stay married or get divorced. I don’t know if you should major in neuroscience or engineering. But I do know that what you tell yourself about this decision and what it means matters a whole lot.

It is really freeing to not base my worth as a therapist on what people decide for themselves. This is because we have no control over what others do. So it also stands to reason that it is similarly freeing to not wed ourselves to anyone else’s outcomes. It is a lot harder when you apply this to people you love: your siblings, spouse or children. I think we tie our self-worth to outcomes and achievements far too much. This is misguided.

Placing all the importance on outcome devalues process. It says that it’s not how you get there that matters, it’s just that you get there. I guess I shouldn’t have been shocked to read in the New York Times recently that so many adolescents are abusing stimulants to achieve higher grades and test scores. It makes perfect sense in a culture where we reward the score, not the effort.

Valuing achievement-oriented outcomes also seems to harm family relationships. I feel like families feel the pressure to be involved in the “right” activities. Parents seem to feel that they are judged on their children’s resumes and how they “turned out” more than if their parenting methods were thoughtful, compassionate and protective. The parent/child relationship seems to suffer as good parents push their kids towards “success.”

I want others- clients, family members, and friends- to have good outcomes. But for me successes are never measured by the final outward appearance of an undertaking. For me, success means that the process and the final result promoted growth and self-satisfaction.

I wonder how letting go of outcomes, at least to some extent, could benefit us all. What happens if we allow ourselves and others around us some room to explore? To do what feels right without so much focus on if it will be a “success”? What if we teach the process of learning without so much regard for the answer on the test? What if we cultivate creative thinking and problem-solving and not over-focus on the score?

Okay, so this topic is bigger than a blog post can contain, but it’s a start. I’m so worried about this problem, I need to start talking about it every place I can. The problem: many people, and most notably young people, feel that their worth is in question. They (or really “we”) feel that worth is tied to things like GPA, salary, position, social class, appearance, romantic success, productivity, cleanliness, organization, keeping up with milestones, how cool you look on Facebook…pretty much everything. It’s always at stake. “Am I good enough?” is the question plaguing so many wonderful, lovely people everywhere.

The interesting thing for me is that many people who look like they are succeeding on many of these measures are the ones who feel the worst. I think it’s because when you are acutely aware of what you are being measured on, you can see all the places you fall short. Since we cannot do everything under the sun well all of the time, it becomes incredibly easy to feel like a failure. It becomes too easy to see every criticism and rejection as evidence of not being “good enough.”

I’ve been thinking a lot about this topic, as maybe you can see from some of my posts. So, I was really encouraged to read a recent interview with Brene Brown. If you have not seen her first and second TED talks, I can’t encourage you enough to check them out. She said in her interview “When you get to a place where you understand that love and belonging, your worthiness, is a birthright and not something you have to earn, anything is possible.” I wanted to get up off the couch and applaud.

Indeed, understanding that you are worthy by virtue of being born is the secret to much relief and happiness. It makes me wonder, what would happen if we truly bought into this notion? The idea is old- it’s really equality in its most pure form. But we’ve lost touch. And in losing touch we’ve created a generation or more of people who don’t know they’re good enough just by being them. So my job is largely helping people to see what is already and has always been fundamentally true.

Feeling worthy of love and belonging gives us the security to go out into the world and do good, important work. It gives us the strength to give love and compassion generously without fear. That’s why it’s so important. That’s why I might never shut up about it.