As someone who has experienced a truckload of anxiety myself, I was very interested to come across the recent 2019 BBC documentary Nadiya: Anxiety and Me. In this video, I watch the documentary and capture my reaction to Nadiya Hussain‘s experience seeking treatment for her panic attacks; and I bet it’s not what the producers were expecting… (more…)
Individualist western cultures traditionally tend to champion our rights as individuals over our responsibility to others in the community. Things are kept in balance by the legal system which dispenses justice by limiting the freedom of those who choose to consistently break the law, and the capitalist economy which rewards us for providing value to other people who we might not even know or otherwise care about. These safeguards prevent most people from focusing too much on themselves to the exclusion of other people.
For the most part, this system works fairly well. When it doesn’t work, the person who suffers most is usually the one who is unwilling or unable to exercise their freedoms constructively within the confines of the legal and economic system. While there is certainly structural inequity in all cultures, this can often be overcome by playing the societal game effectively and reaping sufficient rewards. The key is to exercise personal responsibility at all times and avoid playing victim to our circumstances. Those who choose to do so, despite whatever hand they may have been dealt in life originally, get rewarded. Those who rebel mindlessly get punished either directly by the legal system, or indirectly by their failure to contribute to the economic system. (more…)
It looks like we’ve all got about 6 months to fill in social isolation. How you are going to spend the time? Are you going to use it productively, or waste it bingeing on NetFlix until you can’t see any more?
It’s times like these when thinking creatively is particularly important. And since I’m here to do your thinking for you, here are ten positive things to do during the COVID19 lockdown that will leave you better off in the future when we can all go out again: (more…)
Today is Valentine’s day: the day on which people traditionally express and celebrate their love for each other. But what about loving ourselves? Many people have had the idea of self-love beaten out of them through early life experiences, so here are Ten Steps Towards Loving Yourself: (more…)
Martin Seligman is one of my favourite personal development authors. Not only are his books easy to read, but as the founder of the Positive Psychology movement he’s got the academic credentials and professional experience to know what the research says, and what he’s talking about.
His book What You Can Change and What You Can’t is billed as “The Complete Guide to Successful Self-Improvement”. I was drawn to this book while contemplating the question: “Just how much can a person change?” I was particularly interested in whether it’s possible to make major changes in how we relate to other people, like if an introvert can become an extrovert. I’ve done the Myers Briggs Personality Type Indicator a couple of times in the past and I was never certain whether I was really an introvert, or just a traumatised extrovert. I love hanging around people when it goes well, but it hasn’t always gone as well as I would have liked and some of my early interactions with people were quite traumatic. I believe this is what led me to develop tremendous social anxiety. (more…)
When we are young, we learn to manage our emotions through the interactions with our immediate caregivers, principally our mother and father. The way our parents manage their emotions leaves a dramatic imprint on our developing nervous system that can last long into adulthood. This is particularly true of strong emotions like anger.
Two common adult reactions to poor emotional management by our parents are to submit or to rebel. We either live the rest of our lives managing our emotions they way they taught us out of fear and submission, or doing the opposite out of anger and rebellion. Neither of these two reactions represent true freedom. A better approach is to make our own choice in each situation but this takes insight and practice, especially if we choose to do things differently from the default programming we got from our parents. (more…)
Anxiety sucks, especially when we don’t know what’s causing it and what to do about it. When we feel anxious all the time for no obvious reason, it’s called generalized anxiety. However there are often things we can do to reduce, eliminate or manage generalized anxiety so that it doesn’t ruin our life.
There are many reasons why we may feel anxious. Solving this problem can sometimes involve trying a number of different approaches until we find one or more that work for us. Based on my experience of what works for me and my clients when feeling anxious, here are some strategies to try: (more…)
I was recently interviewed by Christopher from The Craft of Charisma podcast about the work that I do with my clients to help them regain their natural confidence. The full interview ran over two hours as we went deep into many of the issues that have impacted our self-confidence in the past, how we worked through them and how we both now help other men too.
I just got this question about dealing with an abusive father from my article about How To Recover From a Critical Parent:
I have a 50 year old father who has always been over-controlling, mean, critical, manipulative, judgmental and border-line abusive. These traits are becoming more pronounced as he ages (except the abusive part) and he has tried to use psychological tactics to separate me from my girlfriend and to make me feel guilty for not spending time with him. I just want to move out but Sydney housing is the most over-inflated in the world at the moment. I’m not sure how much longer I can take it. I think the reason behind his issues is he never knew his father but it’s ridiculously unfair to burden your son with this cr@p. He has a girlfriend of 7 years who you can tell isn’t compatible with him. They fight all the time and she’s depressed. She’s cheated before as a form of escapism but he manipulated her to stay with him (probably because he feels lonely). The whole situation is so pathetic. Because of his emotional and physical abuse as a kid, I live with anxiety and depression. Do you have any advice?
Sounds like your father is a real challenge to live with, and you’re still carrying the emotional scars from how he treated you as a kid. The really important thing when you have a father who is emotionally and/or physically abusive is good boundaries. That’s hard to do while you’re still dependent on him for your physical needs such as housing, so the first thing to do is to start working towards getting out of there and into a place where you’re living with sane, reasonable people. I get that Sydney is a nightmare housing-wise, which is why I did share accommodation for a long time when I first moved out of home.