FYI,
These two books are on sale for $1.99 on Kindle today.
The first I often recommend to clients and the other I just started to recommend,
![Kill the Spider: Getting Rid of What’s Really Holding You Back by [Carlos Whittaker]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51S4RYcof6L.jpg)
Kill The Spider: Getting Rid Of What’s Really Holding You Back
![To Hell with the Hustle: Reclaiming Your Life in an Overworked, Overspent, and Overconnected World by [Jefferson Bethke]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/412YKiPfs9L.jpg)
To Hell with the Hustle: Reclaiming Your Life in an Overworked, Overspent, and Overconnected World
This is another book that isn’t on sale but I also highly recommend it:
![Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad by [John Eldredge]](https://m.media-amazon.com/images/I/51CV4jneg8L.jpg)
Get Your Life Back: Everyday Practices for a World Gone Mad
What are you reading these days?
This is a video I shared with my Facebook friends from a few years ago. It was a helpful reminder and encouraged me. A summary is below if you don’t have time to watch the video.
1) The kids have thrived not so much because we’ve pushed them as much as we just haven’t held them back. From being who they are, from discovery and exploration.
2) Freedom to fail, also freedom to succeed.You can’t succeed without successfully working through failure. Unless you’re succeeding at playing it safe.
3) Give them the freedom to have and voice their own opinions.
4) How can you tell you’re being supportive and not a helicopter parent? If your kids want your support and input, they ask and initiate versus shooing you away, rolling your eyes, complying, and struggle with initiating or choosing themselves. When you find yourself saying, “Why don’t you____?” More than “What do you think?” When you’re constantly coming up with solutions for your kids.
5) We grow by choosing. Choosing forms our character. So within the boundaries, give your kids choices on things that are matters of preference. Things that develop their unique strengths and interests.
The foundation of all of this for us is God’s grace and love. The security to live free and the hope and repair for our mistakes are all grace. Without this parenting can become its own religion. How well our kids are doing can’t be the basis for our happiness, identity, or life.
For more on parenting and empowering your kids, you might like this blog post on How To Not Raise Entitled and Enabled Kids: The E’s of Excellent Parenting
Ugggh, the other night, I totally blew it. I binged on chips, pretzels, cheese sticks *and* popcorn. I’ve been working on not snacking past dinner and going to bed on time.
I’m wanting to go to bed earlier and wake earlier. 10:30 bedtime, 11pm lights out and wake 6am instead of 7am. This will help me do more Bible reading and spend time with my wife Julie. I also don’t want to snack past dinner.
Do you know what you’re keystone habit is?
If you’re struggling with making a change, maybe it would help to figure out what you need to change/do to make it easier. If you find it, that is more likely your keystone habit. Or closer to it.
Charles Duhigg teaches about Keystone Habits in his book the Power of Habit. (Dialectic Behavior Therapy has a similar teaching on Behavior Chains).
A keystone habit is the habit that leads to other habits, like the first domino in a chain of dominos.
For some people exercise is their keystone habit: if they exercise, they feel better emotionally and mentally, they have more energy, they get more done, they make better eating choices, they sleep better.
Some people, their keystone habit is sleep. If they sleep better, they wake up on time to exercise, meal prep, read their Bible, feel better and more present, have less stress, better mood, etc.
And for others, stress management and self-care is their keystone habit because their sleep is a symptom or outcome of how well or poorly they are doing with sleep and healthy eating and time management to get to the gym or bed on time.
Do you know what you’re keystone habit is?
If you’re struggling with making a change, maybe it would help to figure out what you need to change/do to make it easier.
If you find it, that is more likely your keystone habit. Or closer to it.
Here’s a summary of The Power of Habit book:
A picture of a behavior chain from Nina Barlevy, Psy.D.:
A related video from Charles Duhigg on How to Break Habits:
Today is National Psychotherapy Day.
I wrote this a few years ago.
It’s not specifically about therapy but therapy can help process what it’s about.
I hope you are doing well today.
If you need support or help with what you are going through, I hope you’ll find someone to tell your story to.
Just because the road isn’t straight doesn’t mean it’s broken. There may be brokenness along the way to be sure but just because it’s hard doesn’t make it bad.
It’s the scenic route.
And you see things and meet people you need to meet along the way. Some of those people are rule outs, to clarify the type of people you want to be your friends. Or a spouse. And some of the things you see are things of your own design, by your own choice, that are really bad ideas. But you learn and grow, ask forgiveness and heal. And it all adds up to forming who you are and discovering what ultimately will bring you joy and peace.
Hopefully, you discover God along the way too.
You can work hard and battle and hustle and still not be in a hurry.
Sometimes the road gets straighter. If you just pause and enjoy the scenery.
This is a video I posted on IG Story.
I’ve been working with some couples on anger. It’s hard when feelings of rejection are high and trust and warmth are low. One thing that helps is asking for what you want and need, politely and clearly. Instead of using anger or frustration and guilt. It doesn’t work to make your partner or child feel wrong in order to get what you want, at least long-term. If you are angry, hurt, and frustrated, stop.
Pause.
Breathe.
Pushing harder and arguing more intensely when either of you is triggered or flooded with fight-flight-free response makes it worse. It doesn’t matter how right you think you are (your spouse or child might even agree), if you are treating them poorly. When you give yourself a pass on being a jerk, you might “win” the argument but you damage trust and perpetuate the belief: whenever we try to talk about this (something hard) it doesn’t work. We fight. We end up feeling worse instead of better.
A recent lesson from marriage counseling:
Your wounding has nothing to do with your worth.
They are completely separate things, despite what your trauma or the enemy of your soul has tried to tell you.
Understanding this – trusting this, being with people who support this – is vital to healing and being free from the fear of not being enough.
It is so hard to feel secure or safe in a relationship when you struggle with chronic depression and anxiety.
But I want to tell you it is possible to have a healthy relationship and still struggle with mental health. It just takes a lot of work and support.
And your partner, asking and needing you to get more support from others, from a therapist or group, is not rejection or telling you you’re not enough.
Being told “This is too much. I can’t do this.” isn’t necessarily rejection or giving up.
It might be them giving you, the both of you, a chance.
“You guys need to talk more.
“Ask him. Ask her.”
“Turn to him and tell him. Turn towards her and tell her.”
Often during couples sessions, someone will say, “I don’t know if he…” or “I don’t know if she…”
And it’s not like they mean to talk to me as if the other person isn’t in the room.
It’s more a complaint, “I don’t know how they feel or what they want so I do or don’t do this…”
Or “I think they won’t approve, or want to, or it’s always been a fight when I’ve brought it up so I won’t ask.”
It’s a way of saying, “This is what I’m afraid you think or feel about me. It’s why I’m always walking around on eggshells with you.”
So they stay in confusion and uncertainty, instead of being transparent and brave and asking clearly and directly for what they want or taking the risk of being vulnerable about what they worry about. It’s easier to be confused than to check and find out what you feared is true: they don’t love you or you can’t rely on them.
And they try to leave it to me to tell their spouse what they need to hear.
But I won’t do it (maybe a little at first, as an example)
Instead, I tell them:
“You guys need to talk more.
“Ask him. Ask her.”
“Turn to him and tell him. Turn towards her and tell her.”
We want to be understood and accepted but we’re scared of revealing that because it would hurt for us to not get this emotional need met.
But the way we cope with the risk perpetuates feeling alone, misunderstood and rejected.
These videos are helpful on three things that make communication difficult: criticism, defensiveness and contempt.
Pro tip: individual counseling before engagement and marriage is just as important as pre-engagement or pre-marital counseling.
Use individual counseling to
If there’s one silver lining for how the pandemic is messing up everyone’s engagement and wedding timelines it’s that it’s giving people time to slow down and work on their stuff.
You may not believe this but when you face your pain it gets less painful.
When you tell the story of your wounding, you start to heal.
When you talk about your secret fears and shame, they get smaller.
When you give yourself permission to feel and be different instead of constantly performing and striving to be enough you trade feeling trapped and numb for feeling free and alive.
When you pay attention to the anger or the grief playing out in your work or relationships, you can start to discover what your soul needs.
If you’re strong, work really hard, or have a lot of practice pretending you can develop a pretty high tolerance for emotional pain.
It’s what survivors do.
But if you’re tired.
If you want to live a different way.
If you want to be whole.
To experience peace and connection with others.
Find someone to start telling your story to.
#MentalHealthAwearenessMonth
I had the chance to be on a couple podcasts recently for Mental Health Awareness Month:
The Being A Dad…On Purpose Podcast with pastor Bobby Benavides.
We talked about what men, dads, and pastors struggle with, dealing with the narratives we get from the culture and growing up, why it’s hard to ask for help, how anxiety and depression isolate men, and some of the struggles we’ve been through as husbands and dads.
He has a Being A Dad On Purpose Facebook group for dads.
The Grip Games NW Podcast with host Bethany Houghton.
We talked about two things we love: Brazilian Jiu-Jitsu and mental health. We talked about missing our gyms right now, the benefits of BJJ, training, mindset, mental health awareness, and being a part of the PNW BJJ community.
A few thoughts on boundaries for mental health awareness month:
Boundaries aren’t a magic wand that shield you from grief or pain.
They don’t mean cutting off your relationship with someone you love. It means setting limits to destructive communication and behaviors so you can have one.
Codependency is an unhealthy way of relating to others that seems to ease the pain but actually perpetuates emotional pain.
Boundaries give you a chance at a healthy relationship.
It’s not an end of relationship, it’s the start of a real one where you’re not just an accessory to their wants and needs. It’s necessary for you to be an actual participant in the relationship.
Instead of sitting someone down and saying “I need to set boundaries with you.” (That often isn’t a good place to start. They don’t react well, especially if it’s a surprise. “Didn’t know we had a problem, you seemed fine.”) invite them to talk about having a healthier relationship and communication.
Sometimes you’ll have to set limits that you wish you didn’t have to. Just because you do the right thing doesn’t mean you’ll feel happy or comfortable at first. The part of you that loves your friend or family member will experience loss, grief or confusion.
If you’ve based your peace and happiness on complying and giving in to avoid conflict and have been walking on eggshells setting boundaries will cause a lot of stress, your partner may get angry.
You’ll be tempted to think what you’re doing is wrong because “if it feels bad, it must be bad”.
That’s why when you start to make changes with boundaries, it helps to get support for sticking to your guns when it doesn’t feel right, yet.
Boundary talk is just as much about what you will do as much as it is about what you won’t do and what’s not okay.
Boundaries are not “being controlling”, they are about being in control, there’s a difference.
Boundaries are not about being unloving, it’s about being real, honest and courageous and being freed up from fear of the other person’s anger or rejection.
Boundaries don’t mean you don’t care about the other person’s feelings. It means you’re not taking responsibility for them, for fixing them.