Rethinking: A Mental Health Manifesto

Love yourself.

Love yourself more than anyone else ever could.

Love yourself for who you are, not for what you do. 

One day you’ll quit your job or retire, but you can still be a good person.

Loving yourself is contributing to society in a way that a productivity report can never capture. 

Love yourself more for the inside than the outside. Then you will still like yourself when you are old and wrinkled.

Take care of yourself first.

You can’t take care of anybody else if you don’t take care of yourself.

The best thing you can do for others is lead by example.

If you can't follow your own advice, it's probably not worth giving to someone else.

If you want to be wise, learn from your mistakes.

If you want to be happy, learn from your victories. 

There is no losing, only winning and learning. 

Be nice.

Be too nice.

Be as nice as you want to be.

You can be nice and still say no.

There is a shortage of nice in the world. We need all we can get.

Be especially nice to the people who say you are too nice. They need it the most. 

Trust yourself. You know what is good for you.

You also know what isn’t good for you.

Know the difference between what feels good and what is good. 

Have the confidence to do what is good for you.

Even when others disagree with you.

Especially when others disagree with you.

Trying to satisfy everyone else in your life is a recipe for misery.

Don't waste a second of your life proving anyone wrong. 

Prove yourself right. 

Confidence is the foundation that everything else is built on.

Have the confidence to try and fail.

Have the confidence to admit you are wrong.

Have the confidence to be honest with your emotions.

Happy people still get sad.

Calm people still get nervous.

Having emotions doesn't make you soft or weak or vulnerable.

It makes you human.

Focus on who you are and what you are. 

Saying "I don't want to be sad and angry" gets you nowhere.  

If you plan a vacation and only focus on where you don't want to go, you'll never leave the house.

Live in the moment.

Make sure your mind and your body are in the same place. 

Overthink to the positive. 

You always overthink to the negative, so you're good at focusing on the tiny details. 

Imagine how much better life would look if you used your powers for good.

And wear sunscreen.  

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Appreciation

There are 6 characteristics essential for good mental health: appreciation, curiosity, humility, introspection, empathy, forgiveness.

The ability to appreciate is the most important.

Thankfulness and gratitude imply personal connection. We are typically only thankful and grateful for that which impacts us directly.

Appreciation is a recognition of the world beyond our own wants and needs. It is the ability to look beneath the surface and find life's hidden treasures.  

When I was young and dumb, I would say dumb things like “Classical music is stupid.” As I got older and less dumb, I realized how stupid it sounds to say an entire genre of music is stupid simply because I don’t like it.

As I have gotten less young, I have developed a great appreciation for classical music.

I appreciate the years of dedication required to master an instrument.

I appreciate the precision it takes for 20, 40, or 80 people to come together and produce a majestic, unified sound.  

I appreciate that even though we don’t know the song name or the composer, there are pieces we all recognize as part of our collective consciousness.

I still don’t understand classical music or choose to listen to it, but I appreciate it.

Time is a zero-sum game. The more time we spend looking for reasons to appreciate the world around us, the less time we have to focus on how much things suck just because we don’t understand or enjoy them.

Happy Thanksgiving. Spend a few minutes appreciating the world around you.

Even the stuff that sucks.

Especially the stuff that sucks. 

For information on individual counseling, please contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Learning Life Lessons

Human beings only learn life lessons one way...the hard way. 

When time are tough, we are likely to think about the mistakes we made and how we can avoid them next time. We are not so introspective when life is going well. In fact, we often downplay the good times. 

I got lucky. 

Someone else deserves all the credit. 

Worst of all, we don't even enjoy the good times because we know they won't last. We are certain the sky will fall sooner than later and crush our foolishly optimistic spirit. 

It is important to learn from our mistakes. That's where wisdom comes from. However, if we admit that our questionable choices lead to our setbacks, we have to admit the flip side is equally true. 

When life is good, we need to acknowledge and embrace what we did that got us there. 

Giving ourselves credit for the good times is how we build self esteem. In those moments, we develop the confidence to face future challenges and say "I've been here before, I succeeded then and I can do it again." 

If you only learn things the hard way, you are doing yourself a great disservice. Look for your victories, embrace them and admit that you are more than an innocent, lucky bystander. 

We don't just dig our own hole. We also summit the mountains.

If you want to be wise, learn from your mistakes.

If you want to be happy, learn from your victories.

For information on individual counseling, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com 

Rethinking Tough Love

Dear parents, many of you believe tough love is necessary to teach your children that life isn't easy.  

Guess what? Your children don't need you to teach them that. Life is well equipped to do that without your help.  

Do you know when kids first learn that life is full of hard falls and sharp corners? The very first day they try to take their very first steps. 

They will then learn that some people can't be trusted and others will be openly hostile towards them for no good reason and no fault of their own.

Your children don't need tough love. They need love. 

They need you to teach them they are loved, heard and appreciated. Life isn't good at doing that. They need to know you will be there to comfort them and accept them without judgement. Without judgement. Without judgement. I'm naive enough to think I can speak that into existence. 

You need to love your children without judgement. 

Even if they do things you don't agree with.

Or make choices you wouldn't make now or when you were their age.   

Stop yelling at your children in the name of life lessons. The only things you are teaching them is that you are angry and they screwed up. Your kids are smart. They know both of these things.   

Love should be obvious, not something shrouded in anger and left for them to discover years later with their therapist. 

Love your children openly and overtly.

And without judgement. 

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Forgiveness

 In order to truly forgive someone, you have to do one thing most people are unwilling to do.

You have to be nice to someone who treated you poorly. Truly nice. Not the fake nice where you put on a smile but deep down you are cursing their existence.

Holding a grudge only hurts you. It's punching yourself in the face and hoping the other person gets a black eye. 

The target of your scorn has no awareness of your sleepless nights...your lack of motivation...your suffering. But you do. 

I don't like to say "be a bigger person" or "be the better person" because being a decent human being is not a contest. Life should be a collaborative game and we all win, like a team building exercise on the ropes course. 

This line of thinking is also a problem because it focuses on the other person. Do you really care about being better than someone who treated you poorly? That's a low bar to aim for. 

Focus on you because forgiveness is for you. Think about the kind of person you want to be. Do you want to live one more bitter, angry day waiting for a sincere apology you'll probably never get? Or do you want to give yourself the time and attention currently reserved for the person who wronged you? 

If you want to give forgiveness to the other person, that's your choice. The important thing to remember is doing what is helpful to you, not what is harmful to someone else.

Forgiveness is not about being better than anyone. It's about being a better version of yourself. 

Forgiveness is about you and for you. 

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com 

 

Rethinking the Flaw of Self Care

When we talk about self care, we only discuss what we do after the stressful event. An hour, day or week later, if you can find the time to squeeze it into your busy schedule, you have a glass of wine, some downward dog or jot a few words in your journal. 

That is the major flaw in how we think about self care. 

Self care IS NOT just your hobbies and leisure activites. 

Self care IS NOT just that stuff you do when you are far removed from whatever caused your stress. 

Self care IS NOT separate from the moment of stress. 

Self care IS what you do in that moment of stress. 

Self care IS how you handle yourself when you are faced with a difficult situation. 

There are only four coping skills:

1. Breath 

2. Take control of your body

3. Rethink your situation 

4. Self positive reinforcement. 

If you can use these four skills in the moment of stress, that is taking care of yourself. When you handle a stressful situation in a healthy manner, that reduces your overall stress. It also means you are less dependent on all those external self care tactics you use to get back to baseline.  

We need to move far far away from this pervasive notion that self care is limited to the stuff you do to make you happy in those few elusive moments of down time. 

Self care starts in the moment of stress. 

Handling stress in a healthy manner is self care.   

Your self care is not a coping skill.

The four coping skills is self care.

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Goals: Part 3

The motivation behind most of our goals is to be happier. We think the accomplishment will make us happy. No matter what your goal is, the only one that leads you to happiness is to focus on the process.

This is not an original idea. I've enlisted the help of multiple experts to tell you the same thing in their own words.


"Life is a journey to be experienced, not a problem to be solved." Winnie the Pooh

"The ability to be in the present moment is a major component of mental wellness." Albert Maslow

"Be here now." Ram Dass

"Do not ruin today with mourning tomorrow." Catherynne M Valente

"Life's a journey, not a destination." Aerosmith

"The first recipe for happiness is: avoid too lengthy meditation on the past." Andre Maurois

“Yesterday is history. Tomorrow is a mystery. Today is a gift. That is why it is called the present.” Alice Morse Earle

“If you are depressed, you are living in the past, if you are anxious, you are living in the future, if you are at peace, you are living in the present.” Lao Tzu

“Be present in all things and thankful for all things.” Maya Angelou

"There is only one time that is important – Now! It is the most important time because it is the only time when we have any power.” Leo Tolstoy

“If you worry about what might be, and wonder what might have been, you will ignore what is.” Author Unknown

And finally, more Winnie the Pooh...

“What day is it?” asked Pooh.
“It’s today,” squeaked Piglet.
“My favorite day,” said Pooh.”





For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Goals: Part 2

Most people set a goal for one reason: they want to be happy. Unfortunately, accomplishment does not guarantee happiness. No matter what your goal is, if you want to be happy there is only one goal that will get you there. 

Enjoy the process. 

If you want to feel better about yourself, you have to learn to enjoy the journey, not the destination. Let's look at the three pitfalls of goal setting and how focusing on the process helps you avoid all of them. 

1. Goals create an all or nothing mindset. Focusing on the process is the exact opposite of all or nothing. Yes, you still have a goal to accomplish, but you aren't solely focused on whether or not you reach the finish line. Even if you don't reach your goal, you can still find countless reasons to feel good about the progress you did make.       

2. We are never satisfied. Focusing on the process teaches us to look for all the little victories we experience on the way to our goal. It teaches us to recognize what we are doing, to give ourselves credit for it and to take pride in our efforts. In short, focusing on the process allows us to be happy with ourselves whether or not we accomplish our goal.    

3. The goal itself doesn't necessarily make you happy. Happiness isn't automatic or guaranteed. You have to look for it. You have to acknowledge it. You have to make it happen. Focusing on the process teaches you to look for all the reasons you have to be happy.    

You've set a goal. Now consider these two options. 

a. You can delay your gratification, and you might experience a fleeting moment of happiness at some time in the unforeseeable future. A day. A month. A year from now, you might be happy but only when you accomplish your goal.

b. You can be happy every step of the way. Even if you don't reach your goal, you are focusing on the process and the hundreds of positive steps you are taking. 

Which do you prefer? 

If you're waiting for the end to find your happiness, you'll be doing exactly that...waiting. If you want to be happy, start right now.

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Goals: Part 1

A goal is a tool that can help you achieve what you want to do and be who you want to be. Like every other tool, you need to know how to use it to get the most out of it. If you're using it wrong, there's a chance you could get hurt. 

Let me be very clear: I AM NOT AGAINST SETTING GOALS. I have set and achieved goals. They can help give you focus & direction. It's not as easy as set it and forget it. People need to understand what they're doing when they set a goal. 

Here are three common mental pitfalls you need to be aware of before you set any goal.

1. Goals create an all or nothing mindset. When we set goals, it's easy to get sucked into extremist thinking. I achieved my goal, so I'm a success, or I didn't achieve my goal, so I'm a failure. Black and white thinking is one of the classic negative thought patterns. If you check the dictionary, you'll find opportunity between success and failure.    

2. We are never satisfied. This is less about the goal and more about us. Even if we do achieve our goal, we are very good at conjuring up reasons not to be satisfied. We can't let ourselves be happy with what we've done because we are convinced we can do more. We downplay and minimize our accomplishments. Basically, we keep moving the goal line, ensuring that we are perpetually chasing happiness. That leads us to the third problem.   

3. The goal itself doesn't necessarily make you happy. Not only does it not guarantee happiness, it doesn't even teach you how to be happy. If you think about it, the reason behind all of our goals is happiness. We do things that we think will make us happy. If you aren't happy doing what you're doing, you'll probably talk yourself out of doing it. That's one more goal, sitting in your basement with all the other old, broken goals that you keep as a reminder of what you didn't accomplish.    

If you want to be happy, or satisfied, or content, no matter what you want to accomplish there is only one goal that will get you there. 

We'll talk about that next week. 

For information on individual counseling, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking the Purpose, Meaning and Secret of Life

Admittedly, I am a simpleton. This time I might have gone too far. I have discovered the secret, meaning and purpose of life. It's all the same, and it's been right in front of me the entire time.

Our purpose in life is what we make it.

The meaning of our life is what we make it.

The secret to our life is that it is it what we make it.

Absolutely everything in our life is what we make it.

Our triumphs and tragedies. Our successes and failures. Everything in life has as much or as little meaning as we want to give it. If you believe you are a random accident aimlessly floating through space on a giant rock, then that is your choice. If you need more motivation to get out of bed every day, then name your own motivation.

Here's the real contradiction: We're a nation of independent, self made cowboys. We want to do our own thing, blaze our own trails. But when it comes to answering these questions of meaning and purpose, we want someone else to answer it for us. We think some expert knows us better than we know ourselves.  

We have our own answers. We know what we want to be. We know what we are here to do. We know what we want to do and how we want to do it. 

We need to have courage in our convictions. 

Our life is what we make it.  




For information on individual counseling, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Dysregulation

Mental health professionals can't get enough buzzwords & jargon. We have dozens of terms for self esteem. We are forever repacking CBT into cognitive triads, squares and other geometric configurations. There's one word that is the undisputed champion of all therapeutic gibberish.  

Dysregulation.  

It is a catchall term for everything. If something means everything, it means nothing. 

I work in a school. If a co-worker tells me a student is dysregulated, the logical question is "What is the student doing?"  

Are they actively throwing chairs and cursing at everyone (anger)?
Are they crying uncontrollably (depression)?
Are they huddled under a desk, too riddled with panic to move (anxiety)?
Are they running the halls, unable to control their physical urge to do so (ADD)? 

If a term is so opaque and open to interpretation, then it has no practical value. It's like going to a restaurant and telling the waiter "I want food." 

This sentence was actually written in a student's file: 

"Client struggles with emotion dysregulation, particularly associated with anger and frustration."

If someone struggles with anger and frustration, then say they struggle with anger and frustration.

We as a profession should help simplify and clarify life for our clients. We should not be gumming up the works with nonsense talk. 

We already have hundreds of words & phrases to describe the human condition. We can be sad, blue, in a funk, down, depressed, blah, in a rut, bummed out, dejected, miserable, out of sorts, off my game. 

We can be angry, infuriated, outraged, pissed off, at my wits end, irritated, exasperated, irked, peeved. 

Rogerian therapy teaches us that we should speak the language of our clients. No client has ever told me they are dysregulated. I hope they never do.  

Rogers also teaches us that we should meet our clients where they are.  

We should not be dragging them into our muck.




For information on individual counseling, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking the Danger of Self Care as Coping Skill

For decades, mental health professionals have perpetuated the myth that hobbies and self care are coping skills. This is inaccurate and dangerous. Our profession has spent far too long doing more harm than good.

There are three primary reasons we need to stop endorsing the faulty notion that self care & hobbies are coping skills. 

1. The four coping skills help you in the moment directly address your stressor. Self care is the exact opposite. It's what we do to forget about life for a while. Without a clear explanation of the difference, we are pushing people away from facing their problems. This is the exact opposite of what our profession should be doing. We don't want our clients going from moment to moment seeking a temporary fix. We should be helping them find healthy, sustainable, long term solutions.  

2. If we tell people hobbies are coping skills, it's hard to tell them their specific hobby isn't a coping skill. Most are innocent: exercise, arts & crafts, reading, journaling, etc... What happens when a hobby isn't so obviously harmless?  

What if someone says they like to start fires? They have a metal trashcan in the back yard & a bucket of water for emergencies. If anything is a coping skill, we can't tell someone their hobby doesn't make the list. We've opened a door that is going to be extremely hard to close.  

How often are you setting fires? Do you get the urge to set fires outside of your back yard? Does anyone know you do this? If you have to ask follow up questions, it's not a coping skill. It's a problem. This leads to the third major flaw with the notion with self care as coping skill.    

2. A coping skill should never lead to abuse or addiction. Self care as coping skill blurs the lines and causes confusion. How many clients have we unwittingly pushed down a slippery slope because we have validated their hobbies as coping skills? Glass of wine when you're stressed? Coping skill. Glass of wine every night? Coping skill. Two glasses every night? Glass every night & a bottle on the weekend? 

What about video games? Social media? Shopping? Collecting? Various sexual acts & preferences? There are numerous current or potential diagnostic codes that directly address "coping skills" gone wrong. If you can specialize in helping someone cope with their coping skill, it's not a coping skill.  

Self care is not a coping skill. Hobbies are not coping skills. Mental health professionals need to stop perpetuating the myth that it's all the same. For the betterment of our clients, we need to draw clear lines and properly define our terms.

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

 

Rethinking the Four Coping Skill

A coping skill helps us directly address whoever or whatever is bothering us. Hobbies are not coping skills. Self care is not a coping skill. They are diversions and distractions. 

Hobbies and self care are important. Sometimes we need a break. However, when we are ready to confront our problems, there are only four coping skills that can help us effectively manage the moment.  

These are most effective when used in succession, each making the next one easier to achieve.       

1. Breathe. This is the equivalent of rebooting your system. It's a way to remind yourself that you need to start the coping process. It also makes it easier to move to the next step.  

2. Take control of your body. Take a deep breath and exhale. Did you notice your chest and shoulders? They automatically rise and relax with your breath. If you can take control of your body, you can take control of the situation. It's almost impossible to think straight (foreshadowing) when your hands are fists, your shoulders are trying to reach your ears, your stomach is in knots. A relaxed body helps clear your head so you can move to the next step. 

3. Rethink your situation (TEA: Thoughts/Emotions/Actions). Remember when I said think straight? This is classic cognitive behavioral. You can't change the past, can't change the people around you, can't control every variable in your environment. You can control your thoughts. You can rethink your situation. It's TEA. Thoughts determine Emotions. Emotions determine Actions. Angry thoughts make you angry. Sad thoughts make you sad. Calm thoughts make you calm. It's your choice.

After you have taken control of your body and mind, the glue that holds it all together is...

4. Tell yourself you did a good job. Good old fashioned positive reinforcement. It's the Ringo Starr of coping skills, unappreciated and overlooked but critical to completing the song. If you don't believe in what you are doing, you will resort back to your unhealthy ways. Make good decisions and feel good about those decisions. Your inside has to match your outside.   

If you're feeling one thing but showing another, it all falls apart. You get angry, but you put on the mask. You're going through the "right" motions on the outside but you're still angry on the inside. 

You don't show your anger in the moment. Instead, you take it home and blow up at someone who doesn't deserve it. That's because you didn't cope with anything! You just delayed the explosion because you didn't actually believe in what you were doing.  

You might think your hobby is a healthy coping skill. It's not. It helps you feel good while you avoid your problems. You eventually have to confront what is bothering you, or it will always bother you. Once the movie is over, the book is read, you are cooled off from the exercise, the thing that bothers you will still be bothering you.

When you are ready to face your fears...your demons...your obstacles...

Take a deep breath...

Relax your body...

Rethink your situation...

And feel good about what you're doing. 

The only four coping skills there are. 

For information on individual therapy, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Coping Skills Versus Self Care

The term "coping skills" has been so distorted & watered down that it's lost all meaning. We need a clear vision as to what coping skills are and what they do. We need to understand the difference between a coping skill and self care. And we need to stop telling people self care is a coping skill. 

Self care IS NOT a coping skill. Our hobbies ARE NOT coping skills. They are distractions and diversions. For decades, mental health professionals have validated practically any legal activity as a coping skill: exercise, arts & crafts, writing, singing, dancing, playing video games, listening to music. Self care is important. Sometimes we need a break. However, self care and coping skills are entirely different animals. 

Here are four reasons self care is not a coping skill. 

1. A coping skill helps you in the moment of crisis. If you're at work and a customer or co-worker is driving you crazy, you can't clock out, go home to watch Netflix or run a few miles. Your hobbies do not help you in the moment, because... 

2. A coping skill helps you directly address what is bothering you. Hobbies take our minds off of our problems. It's what we do when we don't want to confront our emotions. We even tell ourselves that. I need to veg out. I need a break. That is the exact opposite of a coping skill. 

3. A coping skill helps you handle the same situation more effectively next time. You get sad, you watch tv. You get sad again, you watch more tv. If you keep getting mad/sad/nervous at the same situation, that's a clue your coping skill isn't helping you cope. It's helping you repeatedly avoid your problems. A coping skill is a SKILL, and the more you do it the better you get. We learn from our mistakes, we refine our techniques and we handle the next situation better than the last time.    

4. Coping skills are holistic and organic. They come from within. They require no trendy gadgets, memberships or a trip to your happy place. They are not addictive or able to be abused. If there is a licensed, certified professional who can help you overcome your coping skill, then it's not a coping skill. It's a problem. 

We have spent decades telling everyone that anything is a coping skill. We have essentially validated ignoring problems and emotions. 

And then when do we draw the line between what we think is a coping skill and what we fear is an addictive behavior? Playing video games is a healthy coping skill, unless you are doing it 2 hours a day? 4 hours? 10 hours?       

Self care is a distraction, a diversion, a commercial break from our problems. Coping skills are what we use to directly address what is bothering us. It's time we start to draw clear distinctions between the two.

Next week, I'll reveal the four coping skills. That's right. There are only four coping skills.

For more information about counseling or to schedule an appointment, please contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com