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