Rethinking Nature Versus Nurture

It’s always been a two horse race: nature versus nurture.

This limited model of thinking does a great disservice to our clients. It sends a message that you are the way you are because of some combination of genetics and upbringing. It gives people a crutch, a reason to say, “I am who I am so don’t bother being more.” That is the opposite of empowering. If mental health professionals are to stay true to our mission of helping people lead fuller, happier lives, we need to give our clients a third option.

Nature versus Nurture versus New.

Yes, genetics play a part in who we are.

Yes, past experiences play a part in who we are.

However, if someone enters therapy thinking their fate is sealed because of their nature and their nurture, then counseling isn’t for them. For therapy and life to be successful, you have to believe you can control your situation and create the life you want.

You have to be willing to move beyond I was born that way...I’m just like my parents…It runs in my family…I will always be angry at them…You would be sad too if...

You have to believe something better is waiting for you. Something of your choosing. Something more than DNA and childhood. 

You have to believe in the new.

Nature versus nurture versus new.

My money is on the fresh legs.

Do you need help rethinking a situation in your life? Email me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

For information on anger management and individual counseling, contact me at

bradleyjabel@gmail.com

If you are a mental health professional and want creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking everything happens for a reason

Everything happens for a reason. Everybody says it. Everybody is right. Now here is what everybody leaves out.

The reason doesn’t come instantly. It can takes days, weeks, even years for you to make sense of life. When you face a big situation, you are busy being angry, sad, elated, etc… You are too clouded by emotion to start a scavenger hunt for reason. That’s how it should be. You deserve to be angry, sad, elated, etc… Take your time finding the reason. It will wait for you.

The reason is personal. Your life has to make sense to you as you see it through your eyes, not someone’s perception of what they think you are going through. Think of a mass tragedy like a natural disaster. There’s no way one event can mean the same thing for all people involved. Humans experience the same event in unique ways.

You have to want to find a reason. This takes work. It's hard. It can hurt. It’s not magically dropping from the sky. Simple as that.

You always find what you are looking for. If you think the reason is because you deserve to be punished, then you will find evidence to support that. If you think the reason leads you to a better life, then you will find evidence to shine a light on the path.

What trauma have you faced? Is it a ton of bricks holding you back? Is it a rocket waiting to launch you forward?

Rethink your life.

Rethink your options. 

Rethink your reason.



Do you need help rethinking a situation in your life? Email me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

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

If you are a mental health professional and want creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethinking Las Vegas

What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas.

This is garbage. Total garbage. Stop telling yourself total garbage. A witty ad campaign is not a good excuse to make a bad decision.

You might think you can do whatever you want, and your spouse and friends will never know. But your covert deed does not stay “in Vegas.” You are going to stuff it into your baggage, cram it into your overhead compartment and take it home with you.

You know what you did. It will always be in your baggage. It will affect you.

The next time you are at a party and someone jokingly says “what happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” you will laugh nervously and look around the room wondering what people know and why are they all staring at you.

Every time you think about what you did, you will feel that pang of self loathing, regret or whatever emotion it is you are trying to pretend isn’t there.

You’ve heard the urban legend of the poor soul waking up with a headache and discovering that some tiny insect crawled into their ear and laid thousands of eggs while they were sleeping? The problem grew and grew until his entire head was infested with insects? Your Vegas moment is just like that.

I tell my clients that they can lie to me, and I will believe their lies, but ultimately they are lying to themselves...and they know they are lying.

What happens in Vegas is the ultimate lie you tell yourself. You lie because you are ashamed of what you did. If you were proud of your actions, you wouldn’t keep them a secret.  

What happens in Vegas most certainly does not stay in Vegas.

Please don’t take mental health advice from the marketing department of America’s most hedonistic city.

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

If you are a mental health professional and need creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethink Ignoring

Just ignore them.

This is the most overused and useless advice we give our kids. STOP TELLING KIDS TO IGNORE THEIR PROBLEMS!!! Ignoring someone is impossible, and I will prove it.

Imagine you are arguing with a friend/co-worker/significant other and you are angry to 11, quivering with rage. To show that person you are ignoring them, you turn your back to them.

Who are you thinking about?

That person.

And when you get up and leave, slamming the door behind you, who are you thinking about?

That person!

Then you scream, “I’m ignoring you!”

Directly addressing someone is the exact opposite of ignoring them.

You cannot ignore someone who is in your head. You can distract yourself, but what always happens? They come back every time. Sooner or later you have to deal with them. You have to replace the angry thoughts with something more productive.

Relax, this isn’t that big a deal.

I don’t want to do anything I will regret.

I’m better than this.

It’s only temporary.

You have to find a way to rethink the situation. Everything else is the mental equivalent of spraying air freshener over the pile of smelly clothes you refuse to wash. Drinking. Exercise. Eating. Shopping. Once those activities are over, the person that made you mad is still in your head.

Ignoring something is not an option for you. Stop thinking it’s an option for your kids. When you tell a kid to ignore their problem, you aren’t doing anything to help them deal with the situation or their anger in a constructive manner.

That is a fact that we as parents, mental health professionals and educators can no longer ignore.

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

If you are a mental health professional and need creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethink Respect: R.E.S.P.E.C.T is G.A.R.B.A.G.E.

Respect is overused and misunderstood. We have reduced a noble goal into a festering dung pile. Forget about respect. Aim for courtesy.   

I’ve spent a decade working with angry teenagers. If I had a nickel for every time I heard the “if you don’t respect me I won’t respect you” rant, I’d retire and sail the world on my own cruise ship.

If I had another nickel for every time the adult responded with the “you have to respect them as a person” speech, I’d fly to Jupiter on my gold plated rocket ship. What’s the best way to ensure a teenager won’t respect you? Lecture them about having to respect you.

I don’t normally do this, but Webster’s Dictionary defines respect as, “a feeling of deep admiration for someone or something elicited by their abilities, qualities, or achievements.”

In order to truly respect someone, you have to get to know them, identify something they have done AND admire them for having done so. That is hard to do within the first 2 minutes of just having met someone.

Do you know what you can do in the first 2 minutes of meeting someone? Be courteous.

Do you know what you can do if your paths cross for only a brief moment, never to see them again? Be courteous.

Do you know what you can do if you disagree with them? Be courteous.

Do you know what you can do if you think someone is a babbling moron? Be courteous.

Do you know what you can do if someone thinks you are a babbling moron? Be courteous. Kill them with kindness.

And if you are courteous enough long enough, you know what will happen?

You will earn their respect.

Need help rethinking a situation in your life? Email me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

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

If you are a mental health professional and need creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

Rethink Parenting: Is your kid Attila the Hun or Marco Polo?

A friend told me she still hasn’t adjusted to being a mom. This is a common refrain for parents with newborns, but my friend’s daughter is almost 3.  

When I asked what she struggles with the most, she said it’s the constant noise in her home. I suggested that instead of thinking of her daughter as an angry little invader plundering the village, think of her as a modern day Marco Polo, exploring and discovering her world. Kids learn by experimenting, trial and error. This is normal, essential for healthy development and frequently louder than we would like.

Now my friend isn’t getting frustrated trying to change her kid’s behavior. She is changing her perception of what is happening.

Noisy kids are like every other event in our life. The thing itself is not inherently upsetting; our thoughts on the event make us mad, sad, happy, frustrated, etc…

If you are a parent and all you hear is noise, you get angry and your goal is to stop the noise. This goes bad faster than unrefrigerated milk. Arguments. Power struggles. Fractured child-parent relationship. Stifling their natural curiosity and playfulness. All the things parents say they don’t want. It starts with your thoughts: WHY ARE YOU SO LOUD???

When you think of the noise as a normal part of play, then you hear your child entertaining themselves, exploring, solving problems, building the skills every parent wants their child to possess. It makes you happy to have a healthy creative child. Again, it starts with your thoughts.

I have little ones. I know it’s tough. No one said parenting would be easy or quiet. If you can reshape what you think about your kids, you will be happier, they will be happier and maybe years from now they won’t be telling a therapist about their rotten parents.

Need help rethinking a situation in your life? Email me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

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

If you are a mental health professional and need creative consultation for your professional literature or Psychology Today profile, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

My primary goal as a therapist

I tell my clients my primary goal as a therapist is to help them see in themselves what I see in them.

I have worked with ages 6 to 60. I can say with absolute certainty that 100% of my clients are far more capable than they give themselves credit for. No exceptions. No asterisk.

I work with teenagers who fight me tooth & nail when I try to reflect back to them how much talent they have.

I work with successful business people who stare at me like I’m speaking Chinese when I highlight how much they have accomplished.

Just this week I met a young woman who plays five instruments and has done so on stage with orchestras. To hear her tell her story, her future is hopeless.

Here’s what she sees: she will never earn a living playing the violin, viola, or stand-up base.

Here’s what she missed: she had the courage to get on stage and share her talents to a potentially critical audience. She displayed a high level of teamwork, interacting with dozens of other musicians in a primarily non-verbal capacity. She spent countless hours working on her craft, developing her talents, committed to the process, doing something that made her happy.

These are skills every employer in the world would cherish in an employee. These are things most of us would love to be able to say about ourselves. And she didn’t see it.

There is no value in beating yourself up and denying that you have something to offer to society. It might be easier than looking deep and seeing your strengths, but easier is rarely better.  

Having confidence will not solve all your problems. It takes more than confidence to overcome trauma. But it does make everything easier. Confidence is the foundation upon which everything in mental health is built upon.     

Give yourself the credit you deserve. Give yourself a pat on the back.

See in yourself what I see in you.  

Do you have questions about a specific situation in your life? Topics you want addressed in future essays? Email me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com

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

I’m an LPC and a writer. If you are a mental health professional and need creative consultation for your professional literature, contact me at bradleyjabel@gmail.com