Self-Coaching

Last week’s podcast dealt with the overcontrolling, anxious parent. In this Self-Coaching podcast, I distinguish between the overcontrolling parent and the co-dependent parent. Whereas the overcontrolling parent is invested in controlling and protecting every aspect of a child’s life, the co-dependent parent lives vicariously through the child to compensate for their own shortcomings. Because of their own emotional neediness, this is a parent who, rather than being the source of emotional stability for the child, winds up using the child to feed their own fragile ego.

Back around 1969, overly anxious, controlling parents began to be called “helicopter parents.” Helicopter parents have a tendency to hover over their children—helicopter-like—micromanaging every aspect of a child’s life, saying, “Watch out!” “Don’t pet that dog!” “Don’t eat that.” The child becomes merely an extension of the parent’s anxieties, fears, and insecurities. In an attempt to stay one step ahead of anticipated mayhem, helicopter parents just can’t help jumping in and getting involved. Too involved!

Join me in this week’s Self-Coaching episode as I explore the ego-shaping influences of growing up with anxious parents.

In the Self-Coaching episode, you’ll learn that by recognizing the similarities between your present-day insecurities and the nurturing/non-nurturing environment provided by your parents (as well as other significant shaping influences) during your early developmental years, you give yourself an important edge. You gain the ability to step apart from your own personal mental congestion and recognize how your present struggles have been shaped by your early learning and conditioning—the programming of your brain.

In this Self-Coaching episode, I ask the question: is it possible for therapy to become…addictive? No question that receiving professional guidance and perspective can be appropriate in times of intense stress or duress, but over time, ongoing palliative therapy can easily morph into a dependency. Especially when you begin to believe that you don’t have to deal with your day-to-day struggles; I’ll just wait until I see my therapist.

Once you become convinced that you don’t have to handle your struggles anymore, or worse, that you can’t handle them, then the die is cast. Why do you think people remain in therapy for years and years? It’s because they’ve become convinced they can’t possibly do any of this psychological problem-solving on their own. As self-trust dwindles, so too does your capacity for psychological self-regulation.

I’ve been a psychologist since 1977; in my many years of private practice, I’ve come to see that there are seven thinking traps that most people who suffer from anxiety, depression, or emotional struggle have in common. So, if you're frustrated with your life or your lack of happiness, I can’t tell you how important it is for you to be aware of these tendencies.In this Self-Coaching episode, you’ll learn the problem with using:• Should statements• What-iffing• Tunnel vision• Mind Reading• Have-to thinking• Black-and-White thinking

Join me in a rather embarrassing disclosure from my early days of innocence. It all began in seventh grade when Father Devine, my parish priest, gave the boys in my class an ominous admonition, one that altered my behavior for decades to follow. The problem wasn’t what Father Devine said, it was my misinterpretation that led to my problem.

All kids try to make sense of information that is often lacking or fragmented. Most of the time there is little fallout. Occasionally, like with my story, faulty interpretations can lead to self-doubt and unrealistic fear, stoking the flames of vulnerability and insecurity.

To a greater or lesser degree, some degree of insecurity is an unavoidable aspect of growing up in a challenging world. But the unfortunate truth is that the habits of insecurity aren’t something we simply outgrow. Velcro-like, they cling to us and accumulate throughout our lives, which is why, in this Self-Coaching episode, you’ll learn how to release yourself from the historic neurotic habits that have overrun your life, instigating emotional struggle.

In this Self-Coaching episode, I discuss lying--the good kind, the bad kind, and the ugly kind. Simply put, lying is the willful substitution of fiction for fact. Not all lying is bad. In fact, what we typically call white lying can actually be considered beneficial. Call it what you like, being diplomatic, kind, or generous, it’s all the same thing: choosing to filter our true feelings in order to avoid unnecessary conflict by hurting others. Clearly, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. In fact, I shudder to think what this world would be like if we had no filters.

Unfortunately, not all white-lying is innocuous, take, for example, the inability to say “no.” These are what I refer to as life’s pleasers. Although compulsively pleasing others may reduce social friction, it can create a significant emotional drain on you.

There are other more unsavory types of lying that you need to be concerned with. These are driven by insecurity and the need to control others and outcomes. These are self-serving, manipulative expressions that often have destructive influences, not only on others but on your psychic equilibrium as well. Join me as I delve into the more nefarious realm of the ‘deadbeat,’ the ‘scammer,’ and other egocentric manipulations.

In this Self-Coaching episode, I reveal my secret for successfully helping people liberate themselves from emotional struggle. Whether you’re experiencing anxiety, depression, panic, compulsion, or other emotional struggles, there is only one question you need to answer if you want to liberate yourself to a life of what I call psychological spontaneity. It’s really not that complicated. It’s like a riddle, difficult to unravel…until you know the punch line. At this point, everything becomes less murky and more obvious.

Living a life of psychological spontaneity is moving away from the defensive frictions imposed by habits of insecurity. Frictions that wear you down, leading to ongoing struggle. Isn’t it time that you solve the riddle of why happiness and solace have eluded you? Isn’t it time to understand how you can coach yourself to the life you want, the life you deserve?

In this Self-Coaching episode, the focus isn’t on the transient weight loss associated with dieting but on a lifelong goal of liberating yourself from destructive eating. It may help to keep in mind a saying derived from Sun Tzu’s The Art of War: “Know your enemy.” To avoid being victimized by impulses, cravings, misperceptions, or mindless destructive patterns, it’s imperative to know and appreciate your enemies. Lifelong weight mastery has three enemies: adverse circumstances, harmful emotions, and destructive habits. Typically these enemies co-mingle. A setback at work (adverse circumstance) may cause intense panic (harmful emotion), leaving you reaching for the solace of an old friend, that pint of ice cream (destructive habit).

It goes without saying that the three enemies can occur in any order; for instance, a binge (destructive habit) could lead to depression (harmful emotion), which could then create a situation where you get in trouble at work (adverse circumstance). These are the three enemies of moderation and healthful eating and they represent the challenges that you must neutralize in order to have the life you want—the life you deserve.

In this Self-Coaching episode, I want to help you demystify your thoughts, especially the neurotic, torturous thoughts that lead to emotional struggle. It begins by depersonalizing your insecurity-driven thinking, understanding that these aren’t your thoughts—well, not consciously intended thoughts—they’re nothing more than iterations of the same-old-same-old promptings of your habit of insecurity. Insecurity, not you, is instigating, promoting, and delivering these neurotic thoughts to you. And as long as you remain a passive receiver of these thoughts, you will be affected and you will suffer.

I realize it sounds rather bizarre to suggest that you aren’t feeding yourself neurotic thoughts, but how could this be otherwise when you hear people saying, “I know my thoughts are crazy, but I just can’t stop them,” or “I have everything to live for, I’m so blessed, why do I have these dark thoughts?” The reason is because your habit of insecurity is feeding these thoughts to your conscious mind and you’re reacting to them as if they’re your thoughts. They’re not!