anxiety

How to Get Over the Girl Who Ripped Your Heart Out

Ever had a girl break your heart so badly you thought you’d never recover? Couldn’t get her off your mind? Desperate to get her back? Then you might find John’s story helpful; and besides, I need to debrief to get this guy out of my system.

I met John in a youth hostel while on a winter road trip up the east coast of Australia in search of warmer weather. He seemed like a decent guy who was always cracking jokes, and before long the two of us were entertaining some of the other backpackers with our stories of adventure and comic irony.

John seemed intrigued when I mentioned that I was a recovering perfectionist, and asked me several times to elaborate about that. I told him the story of how I had a fulfilling engineering career up until the point where I decided I didn’t enjoy it any more and decided to change direction. He could relate: John had studied law, and hated every minute of it. Then he’d joined the military, and he’d hated that too. He hated prosecuting people who hadn’t done anything wrong, and in general his conscience bothered him a lot. He was from California, which he hated because it was being over-run with Mexicans.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Heal Emotional Pain

Traumatic or emotionally painful events in our past can leave us with emotionally charged memories that get triggered whenever we find ourselves in similar circumstances later in life. This will undermine your confidence in these situations, as the powerful emotions triggered quickly become overwhelming even though there’s no real threat present.

Crying heals the emotional pain of past trauma

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By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Recover From a Controlling Mother

Growing up with a controlling and/or domineering mother can suppress your masculinity and leave you stuck feeling and acting like a boy in a man’s body. My mother was the dominant figure in my family of origin and with a relatively passive father it was a disastrous recipe for my developing masculinity.

A controlling mother creates a relationship dynamic that will undermine your confidence in yourself as a man unless you take steps to counter its effects. So here are some steps to take to help you recover from growing up with a controlling, dominant mother:

Recognize that Your Mother is Controlling

Did you have a controlling Mother?

Did you have a controlling Mother?

The first step to dealing with a problem is to recognize that it exists. It took me a long time to even see that my mother was controlling. It wasn’t until I did The Landmark Forum in my mid-30s and they started talking about how controlling most of us are that I had this insight.

When I was a child, my mother used a physical leash to control me; partly for my own safety, and partly for her convenience. As I got older, verbal stoushes with my father made it very clear that the masculine point of view wasn’t welcome in our household.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Soothe Anxiety by Identifying and Releasing Attachments

I was just listening to The New Man Podcast interview with Robert Glover talking about Nice Guy Syndrome, where Dr Glover points out that the underlying cause of the nice guy’s dysfunctional behaviour is anxiety. Anyone familiar with Buddhist philosophy will be aware that attachment causes suffering, but Robert points out that attachment also causes anxiety.

We can’t avoid anxiety altogether, so we need to learn how to soothe it within ourselves. The solution is to identify what particular attachment is causing anxiety when we feel it, and consciously let the attachment go each time in occurs. Whenever we feel anxious ask the question:

What am I attached to right now?

Then take a deep breath, and think “I’m letting go of being attached to X”.

For me, examples are:

  • I’m attached to being well, when I’m feeling ill.
  • I’m attached to her liking me, when I’m talking to a pretty woman.
  • I’m attached to being successful, when I’m working on my business.
  • I’m attached to getting good comments, when I’m writing a new blog post.
  • I’m attached to this being a best-seller, when I’m working on writing a book.
  • I’m attached to getting it right/perfect first time, when I’m trying something new.
… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago

How to Stop Worrying

I like that Frank Tallis has written a relatively small book on How to Stop Worrying. Although I’m much better than I used to be, I still worry too much sometimes myself, and it’s nice to think that there could be a simple solution to a seemingly complex problem. And it turns out there is.

Worry fills the gap between when we realise that we have a problem, and when we have a solution in place to address it. It’s our brain’s way of making sure we pay attention to our problems; the psychological analogy to physical pain. If we don’t do anything about the problem, the worry gets worse until we’re forced to take action. Worry, like pain, is our friend. But it’s also a kind of mental suffering we’d rather escape given the chance.

The solution to worry is quite simple: take effective action to solve the problem. So the bulk of this book is actually about problem-solving techniques. Taking action to address the problem immediately starts to put our mind at ease, and if the action is effective in solving the problem, the worry ceases altogether.

Problem-solving is a skill that develops and improves each time we use it.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD)

Many of you may have heard of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder, or PTSD. Whilst there is no standard definition of PTSD, it is generally agreed that PTSD is an anxiety disorder that occurs when a person sees their life flash before their eyes. For example they are involved in, or witness, a near death incident, or a series of events resulting in them having the perception that life as they know it, is about to end.

Emotional overload in these circumstances causes the primitive region of the brain called the limbic region, responsible for brains involvement in emotions, to recalibrate in order to cope. PTSD occurs when the brain doesn’t go back to normal operation of its own accord.

So why talk about PTSD here?

Well it gives a great extreme example of emotions at play within us. You may not suffer from it, but you may demonstrate some of the same characteristics. This is very normal, and has occurred for the same reasons as someone with ‘the bug’ (I use the term bug, because it highlights that you can get over the disorder to live a normal life) – self defence.

There are many elements involved with a person suffering from PTSD, but one of the major ones is their emotions.… Continue reading…

By James Greenshields, ago

How to Defeat Depression for Men

I’ve been there myself, and I know how debilitating depression can be. It sucks the life out of you. There’s a zoned-out feeling in your head, a blank look on your face, and an all-pervading sense of hopeless like you’ve never felt before. The light has gone out of your eyes. It’s a different feeling to sadness, which tends to pass when you’ve cried it out. Depression hangs around like a dense fog, clouding your judgement and colouring everything a nasty shade of grey.

You Don’t Have To Be Trapped By Depression

Psychiatrists will tell you that depression is due to a chemical imbalance in the brain. They’re right, but this doesn’t say much; your brain is a complex biochemical system and pretty much any problem in there comes down to a “chemical imbalance” of some sort. The questions to ask are: what caused it, and what to do about it.

There’s no instant fix for depression, and everyone gets down sometimes. It’s part of being human. But small steps in the right direction add up. The following tips have worked for me, and will gradually get yourself feeling more hopeful and optimistic as the fog of depression clears and you get back to enjoying life again:

Exercise!

… Continue reading…
By Graham Stoney, ago
What you get in the Deep Inner Game package

Deep Inner Game

What you get in the Deep Inner Game packageI’ve been watching David DeAngelo’s Deep Inner Game program with Dr Paul, and it’s really brilliant. The program is about developing the mindset that men need to be successful, particularly focused on women, dating and relationships. This mindset is often referred to as our “inner game”, and it really extends to the bigger picture of being confident and successful in life generally.

Here are some of the key things that I’ve learned:

Boundaries

Many of our problems in relating to other people are caused by having a weak psychological and emotional personal boundary, often viewed as having holes in our boundary.

Saying “No” is how we patch holes in our boundary.

Expressing preferences also helps build our boundary, and demonstrates it to other people. Women find this very attractive, even if their preferences differ from ours. If you’re very bad at expressing preferences, you may feel like you don’t have any; in which case you may need to start with arbitrary preferences. e.g. I love dogs, I hate cats.

Immature boundaries either have holes, or are thick and impermeable. Mature boundaries have doors that allow us to control what gets in and what does not.

Perfectionism is caused by a hole in our boundary, projecting our own faults and internal ideals out onto other people.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago

Recovering From Nice Guy Syndrome

When I start hearing the same message coming at me from multiple independent sources, that usually gets my attention. Last year I kept hearing that women want men with backbone who they can “push up against”. They get tired and ultimately resentful of Nice Guys who always yield powerlessly to them, and everyone else.

Nice guy syndrome is caused by too much anxiety and not enough confidence.

I listened to an interview recently where Robert Glover described what is wrong with Nice Guys most succinctly by quoting a comment from his ex-wife, who said “How would I know that you could ever stand up for me, if you can’t even stand up to me?”. Robert calls it Nice Guy Syndrome in his book titled No More Mr. Nice Guy! He points out that while Nice Guys think that what they are doing will please other people, ultimately it just leads to resentment. In short, it really pisses women off.

At Passionately Alive, Nicholas talked about the importance of having relationships with people who meet us where we are at, with a similar level of passion. Women want guys who don’t just collapse or run away in the face of strong emotions, whether they be the pleasant or unpleasant variety.… Continue reading…

By Graham Stoney, ago