The Hero Complex

While scrolling the internet, I came across something my friend Jimmy shared, and it struck me as a great writing prompt:

"Here I come to save the goddamned day."

That phrase explains why I became a psychotherapist. My journey from trying to fix myself naturally evolved into trying to save others. On one hand, I’m deeply motivated to help people. On the other hand, that same drive can unintentionally cause harm if not tempered with awareness.

There’s nothing inherently wrong with wanting to be of service to others. However, my efforts can backfire without a deeper understanding of my motivations and even create harm.

The notion that “if you can be helpful, you should be helpful” seems noble, but it’s not always that simple. The benefit quickly diminishes when I start doling advice like a Pez dispenser. Advice is often interpreted as criticism, and people rarely change when they feel criticized. Advice also implies the receiver lacks personal insight or experience with the problem. Yet, success is highly individual—there’s no universal recipe for solving the complex issues people face. Unlike baking a cake, where forgetting the egg might ruin the outcome, most problems are multifaceted. No single solution will fix them. Furthermore, advice often fails to account for the other person’s skill set, resources, or readiness to act.

In psychotherapy, countertransference—our thoughts and feelings about the client—adds another layer of complexity. Despite formal training, I still struggle with staying genuinely helpful without overstepping. It’s incredibly tempting when a client presents a problem in a way that seems to beg for a “fix.” With the best of intentions, I can still make things worse.

Here’s an example: When a client speaks, am I truly listening or just waiting for my turn to talk because I think I know the solution? Has my desire to solve their problem interfered with my ability to listen, validate, and offer empathy? That trilogy—listening, validation, and empathy—indeed facilitates change. Advice? Not so much. Am I secretly resenting the client for not following my advice? Am I dominating the session with my voice, inadvertently fostering their dependence on me and my “vast knowledge”? When clients share their distress, am I trying to cheer them up instead of sitting with their emotions? To the client, that might feel like I’m dismissing their experience.

There are countless ways to render therapy ineffective, and an unconscious hero complex is just one of them. While this post focuses on how that dynamic plays out in treatment, the same principles apply to relationships. Most of the time, my wife doesn’t want me to “fix” her problems. She wants me to listen, validate, and empathize.

While I may always carry some traces of a hero complex, awareness, and practice can help minimize its negative effects. Trying to save others is a profoundly human impulse, but it’s also a reminder that sometimes, the best way to help is simply to be present.

The Monogamy Agreement.

“What’s that?” he asked, leaning back, a skeptical brow raised.

“That’s when you and the person you’re sleeping with make an agreement about sex—like what’s okay with them, and whether it’s okay to sleep with other people,” I said, shrugging like it was obvious.

“But we’re not in a relationship,” he shot back. “We’re just hooking up.”

“Yeah, I know, but you still need one.”

“Why?”

“Well, first off, anyone you’re having sex with is technically a relationship of some kind. Second, a monogamy agreement can help you figure out what you want—and get it.”

He snorted. “All I want is to have sex now and then. No strings, no drama.”

“I get that, but here’s the thing—there are always strings. Even if you can’t see them. Even if you don’t think there’s risk, there is.”

He ran a hand over his face. “Man, I don’t wanna talk myself outta some pussy. All this talking—it can mess things up. I just wanna fuck, not get married.”

“Does she know that?” I asked, giving him a pointed look. “That’s all I’m sayin’. If you let her know what you want, it might actually help you get it. Hell, she might want the same thing. If she doesn’t, at least you’ll both know what’s up.”

“Or she could stop fuckin’ me altogether,” he muttered.

“True,” I said, nodding. “But you’re probably gonna stop fucking her anyway, once you start fighting over the terms of your ‘non-relationship’—because you’re not talking about it. You’re damned if you do and damned if you don’t.”

“That seems like a lotta work for someone I’m not even in a relationship with,” he grumbled.

“There’s a lotta dudes out there paying child support for kids they made while they were ‘not in a relationship.”

He let out a bitter laugh. “Talkin’ too much makes my dick soft.”

“Not as soft as child support court will make it. It will be like trying to put a marshmallow in a piggy bank, but honestly, having a kid is probably the least of your problems. I’m assuming you’re using protection.”

A long silence stretched between us. He shifted uncomfortably.

“Your bigger issue, is getting on the same page with whoever you’re sleeping with. Like, do you even know if she’s sleeping with anyone else?”

“Nah,” he said quickly, almost defensively. “She’s not.”

“How do you know?” I asked, my voice calm but sharp.

“I just know,” he snapped.

(And in my head, I thought: Motherfucker, you don’t even know you’re in a relationship with her, let alone who else she might be fucking.)

“But how do you know?” I pressed. “Are you seeing anyone else?”

He grinned, that cocky, smug smile that said everything. “Well, you know…”

“Look,” I said, cutting him off. “A monogamy agreement isn’t gonna solve all your problems, but it’ll at least make things clear. You’ll know what you want. She’ll know what’s up. And you can both decide if you’re in or out. That’s it.”

Exploring the Father-Son Relationship

A central issue some men face is a strained or poor relationship with their fathers. Our earliest relationships are the foundation for understanding ourselves, forming connections, and navigating the world. Questions like Who am I? What is a relationship? What can I expect from the world? Are first answered in childhood, often through our interactions with our parents. These early experiences shape how we relate to others as adults. Parental neglect, abuse, or even incompetence can leave lasting marks on how we approach relationships and life itself.

The intention here is not to blame fathers but to encourage personal accountability. Blaming others is easy; taking responsibility for where you are now as a man is much more complicated. If you’re reading this, it means you’ve survived your childhood—and that survival gives you the power to make changes. One step toward personal growth is to explore and reflect on your relationship with your father.

Revisiting the Father-Son Bond

As children, we may idealize our parents to feel safe, avoiding confrontation or protest to escape their anger or disapproval. But as adults, we have the opportunity—and perhaps the responsibility—to reassess these early relationships with a fresh perspective. Start by asking yourself some honest, reflective questions about your father:

• One of my earliest memories of my father is

• When I was a child, my father made me feel

• The way my father showed love when I was growing up was

• Something my father did that shaped who I am today is

• One thing I wish I understood better about my father is

• When I think about my father, I often feel

• A conversation with my father that stands out to me is

• One thing I want my father to do differently is

• I’ve learned to forgive my father for

• A way I can strengthen my relationship with my father is

• The Impact of Fatherly Relationships

You can learn much about a man by understanding his relationship with his father. Many men face sadness when reflecting on this bond, revealing emotions they rarely show. For instance, one man shared how his father’s absence during his childhood shaped him. He recounted how his stepbrother’s father would visit, sparking feelings of abandonment. “I would see him come to pick up my brother, and it made me long for my father. I would wonder, What did I do? Sometimes, he would take me along and even buy me things, but none of it erased my sense of being abandoned by my father.”

Such experiences can profoundly affect a man’s behavior and emotional well-being. Often, men are unaware that much of their present behavior is compensatory—anger masking more profound feelings of hurt, sadness, and even depression tied to their relationships with their fathers.

Moving Forward

Reflecting on your relationship with your father can be painful but also liberating. It allows you to recognize patterns, process unresolved feelings, and, if possible, build a stronger connection with your father. It will also help you become a better parent yourself. And even if reconciliation isn’t possible, this process can help you find healing and peace within yourself. Remember, understanding your past is a decisive step toward shaping a better future.

Understanding Reality Evasion: A Journey from Childhood to Adulthood

A reality evader defends against reality by avoiding, pretending, fantasizing, and lying in a childlike manner. This term captures the essence of their behavior in a non-judgmental, descriptive way. It highlights the defensive nature of their actions while acknowledging the underlying struggle to engage with reality directly.

To understand this behavior, let’s revisit its roots: childhood. Children who experience adverse childhood experiences often cope with vulnerability, dependence, and fear by employing mechanisms such as avoidance, pretending, fantasizing, and lying. These defenses help them navigate a reality they neither understand nor control. After all, what does a child know about the complexities of the world or how to process trauma? It’s safe to say that children have limited agency, skills, and information to deal with such situations.

Childhood determines the "rules" for how the world works. Experiences shape personality, and the skills used to survive adverse situations often become ingrained. Stress doesn’t simply come and go—it changes us. These changes are adaptive in a challenging environment, enabling survival. However, when the environment changes, those survival skills can become liabilities.

In adulthood, people often go to great lengths to avoid reality. This tendency can form the foundation of addictive behaviors or, as Dr. Philip J. Flores describes in his book Addiction as an Attachment Disorder, a “repair attempt that fails.”

The Need for a "Software Upgrade" in Adulthood

Welcome to adulthood—where childhood coping mechanisms often require a "software upgrade." It may be time to reevaluate your operating system if you navigate adult life and relationships using the same rules you learned as a child. While avoidance, pretending, fantasizing, and lying may have served a purpose, their effectiveness in adult relationships deserves scrutiny.

Avoidance and deception can sometimes be necessary, but their overuse can hinder personal growth and connection. Below are prompts to help you explore how childhood coping skills may influence adult interactions. These exercises encourage deeper self-awareness and emotional development.

Prompts for Self-Exploration

Exploring Avoidance

"When faced with something uncomfortable, I tend to avoid it by ________."

"The situations I most try to avoid are ________ because ________."

"A recent example of avoiding reality in my life was when ________."

Exploring Pretending

"Sometimes, I pretend everything is fine by ________."

"I feel the need to act like ________ when deep down, I know ________."

"Pretending helps me avoid feeling ________, but it also costs me ________."

Exploring Fantasizing

"When reality feels too hard to face, I escape into fantasies about ________."

"The ideal world I imagine looks like ________, and it helps me avoid ________."

"I use my imagination to create scenarios where ________, but in reality, ________."

Exploring Lying

"I find myself lying about ________ because I’m afraid of ________."

"The lies I tell myself are often about ________, which helps me ignore ________."

"Lying feels like a way to control ________, even though it ultimately makes me feel ________."

General Reflection

"The pattern I notice in how I evade reality is ________."

"I’ve learned to use these defenses because ________, but now they’re keeping me from ________."

"Facing reality feels hard because ________, but if I could, I believe I’d gain ________."

In Summary

Many behavioral challenges can be traced back to childhood experiences. Understanding and compassionately examining those early experiences can connect the dots between what happened then and now. This awareness can empower us to let go of outdated defenses and embrace a more grounded, authentic way of living.

What If It’s You?

Relationships are challenging for everyone. After the shine of a new relationship wears off, it’s very easy to feel discontent. When things go well, we take credit. When things go bad, we place blame. But what if it’s you? What if you are the reason your situation is miserable? What if you cannot recognize your role in the relationship you are co-creating with your partner?

The Pros of Asking, "What If It’s Me?"

1. Personal Growth and Awareness

Taking responsibility for your actions and attitudes fosters self-awareness and helps you identify areas for personal growth. This self-reflection can improve not only your relationship but also your overall well-being. Understanding your triggers, patterns, and emotional responses makes you better equipped to handle challenges constructively.

2. Empowerment to Change

Recognizing your role in relationship challenges gives you the power to make positive changes. Focusing on what “you” can control reduces feelings of helplessness. It’s liberating to realize that you can shift your behaviors or mindset to help repair or strengthen the bond with your partner.

3. Healthier Communication

You may approach conflicts with more empathy and understanding by reflecting on your behavior. This reflection can lead to healthier, more productive conversations. Acknowledging your role often encourages your partner to do the same, creating a foundation for mutual respect and collaboration.

The Cons of Ignoring Personal Growth, Empowerment, and Healthy Communication

1. Stagnation in Relationships

Without personal growth, individuals may become stuck in repeating negative patterns, leading to frustration and dissatisfaction in their intimate relationships. This stagnation can create a sense of being “stuck” without resolution, making connecting and thriving as a couple harder.

2. Loss of Agency

Ignoring the possibility of personal empowerment can make you feel like a passive victim of circumstances. This lack of control may foster resentment or a sense of helplessness, further eroding the relationship. Over time, this dynamic can lead to emotional disengagement.

3. Escalation of Conflict

Avoiding healthier communication means unresolved issues may fester, leading to miscommunication, frequent arguments, or emotional disconnection. This avoidance often deepens relational rifts, making it harder to rebuild trust or intimacy.

The Challenges of Self-Reflection

While asking, “What if it’s me?” is a powerful tool for growth, it also comes with potential pitfalls.

Potential for Overthinking: Self-reflection, when taken to the extreme, can lead to excessive rumination or self-blame. This may harm your confidence and emotional well-being, leaving you feeling inadequate or overly responsible for relational issues.

Neglecting Mutual Responsibility: Focusing too much on your actions may overshadow relationships as a two-way dynamic. Your partner’s behavior and choices also play a role, and neglecting this reality can lead to an imbalance in the relationship.

Risk of Emotional Burnout: Constantly questioning yourself without balancing self-compassion can lead to emotional fatigue, making it harder to engage meaningfully in the relationship. Reflection should be balanced with self-kindness and boundaries.

Final Thoughts

When you ask, “What if it’s me?” you open the door to greater self-awareness, empowerment, and healthier communication. However, it’s equally important to approach this reflection with balance. Relationships thrive on mutual responsibility, so while owning your part is essential, don’t lose sight of the shared dynamic between you and your partner. Personal growth is a journey, and recognizing your role in your relationship can be one of the most rewarding steps you take—not only for your relationship but for yourself.

Intimacy and the Power of Conflict

When we talk about intimacy, we often frame it in romantic terms, focusing on closeness with a partner. But this perspective overlooks one of the most intriguing aspects of relationships: conflict. Intimacy isn’t limited to romantic moments; it also reveals itself during disagreements.

You can learn more about how someone truly feels about you in a heated argument than you might over months or years of quiet togetherness. Conflict can uncover hidden truths—beliefs, feelings, and perceptions that might never surface except in heightened emotions.

Conflict as a Window Into Values

We see conflict everywhere—at home, school, workplace, and relationships. It is an integral part of the human condition.

Conflict lays bare values, needs, and perspectives like nothing else. Consider this: when your heart beats calmly at 60 beats per minute, you are one version of yourself. But when it accelerates to 100 beats per minute during conflict, you become someone entirely different. Granted, about 80% of what we say under stress may be exaggerated or unfiltered, but the other 20% often cuts straight to the truth.

The challenge is that as conflict escalates, both people can get pushed beyond their emotional limits, becoming too defensive to hear or process what the other is honestly saying. This communication breakdown often leads to misunderstanding and missed opportunities for connection.

Conflict as a Tool for Closeness

Conflict, when approached with intention, can deepen intimacy. Instead of avoiding arguments, use them to understand your partner better. The next time you disagree, take a few deep breaths and reflect on what your partner is saying. Shift your mindset from defensiveness to curiosity.

Listening shows that you see and hear them and take their concerns seriously. This validation can help your partner calm down, creating space for meaningful connection. Like finding money on the ground, their expressed needs are a gift—you no longer have to guess what they want, allowing you to meet those needs more effectively.

Embracing Conflict

Here’s the truth: avoiding conflict kills relationships. Disagreements are not inherently violent or destructive; they are growth opportunities. When you approach conflict with curiosity and openness, it becomes a powerful tool for building closeness and understanding.

• Don’t fear conflict—embrace it. Use it to deepen your connection and strengthen your relationship.

• Main Takeaways:

• Conflict is a natural and essential part of all relationships.

• Avoidance doesn’t prevent problems; it creates distance.

• Conflict is a form of intimacy.

• Disagreements can build closeness when approached mindfully.

• Destroying conflict destroys the relationship.

• Conflict does not equal violence.

• Choose curiosity over defensiveness for healthier outcomes.

Fight Better

I recently read an article entitled, “How to Save a Relationship that’s Struggling (and When it’s Best to Let it Go)” by Jessica Estrada. Estrada offered numerous suggestions. The one I want to focus on here is fight better. Because in my clinical experience, working with couples interested in improving or saving their relationships, I stress learning to fight better.

Relationships can be challenging—even good ones. The emotional turmoil evoked by a failing relationship can make it difficult to determine if it can be saved or not. You may not have a very good understanding of how your behavior changes during a conflict or how you contribute to the conflict escalating. When things go well we take credit. When things go bad we place blame. You can't improve or save a relationship without improving your self-awareness. It's essential. Anything else is like trying to bake a cake without cracking an egg.

Even if you successfully avoid conflict, it can be the death knell for the relationship as resentments accumulate creating frustration, and distance between you and your partner. As you tiptoe around your partner in a vain attempt to protect them from your thoughts and feelings, self-betrayal rationalized as keeping the peace, more accurately amounts to holding your breath. Sooner or later, you have to breathe. Avoidance is useful sometimes, but rarely useful all of the time.

Emotional intimacy occurs under two conditions in a relationship. When you feel romantically bound to your partner and when you are in conflict with them. During romance, you whisper sweet nothings and express your deepest loving feelings to them. During conflict, on the other hand, you express other important thoughts and feelings about your partner and the relationship—things you might never say otherwise. In both instances, you communicate important information about how you view the relationship.

Learning to fight better actually means learning to communicate and control your own behavior better. Both of which are skills you can practice and improve. The trick to fighting better is to express yourself in a way that does not blame, hurt, or antagonize your partner. You want to help them hear and understand you rather than cower and withdraw from your wrath. If you find yourself fighting constantly over the same thing it might be because your conflicts are destructive rather than constructive. The object is to unlearn how to win—in the sense of using destructive power and tactics over them. Learning is winning. Solving problems and maintaining the connection is winning. Engaging in constructive conflict is the key.

Investing time to learn about your own conflict style and how conflicts work could help you acquire the skills necessary to fight better. Improving your tactics could increase intimacy, learning, and security between you and your partner. With those strengths, you could be well on your way to revitalizing the relationship.

There’s a way to improve your skill set. Me and my colleague, psychologist Dr. Lorie Hill have designed a digital course entitled Constructive Conflict to help you learn how to fight better. You can improve. Hit the link above and take a look at what we have created for you.

Conversation on Race, Racism and Mental Health

Click on my picture.

System Failure

How to Field a Complaint from Your Partner

"Hi baby."

"Hi"

"Today at work, Sarah…"

"THERE YOU GO! Talking about your damned job again. You're always complaining about your job. You know what I think about that. Why don't you quit if you don't like it."

Ding! It's on. I think you can imagine where this communication is headed.

The goal is to make sure your partner always feels like they can turn to you.

Mammals are different from other animals. When we feel confused, frightened, or overwhelmed, we turn to each other. Harry Harlow, an American psychologist best known for his maternal-separation, dependency needs, and social isolation experiments proved that primates that experienced trauma, like the loss of their mothers, lose the ability to turn to each other for comfort and support. Rather than turn to each other they turned on each other. Establishing and maintaining a secure relationship is of utmost importance to us. One way to do that is to remove obstacles that prevent your partner from turning to you. Overreacting makes it difficult for your partner to turn to you for comfort—especially if they anticipate your reaction being more severe than the problem they are experiencing. Decreasing reactivity will help significantly. You always want your partner to trust that they can turn to you.

Because many of us have not received the best support in the past, many of us do not trust that we can turn to others when we need them. Especially when we have a complaint. We often rehearse in our minds what we are going to say to support our claim, strengthen our shaky confidence, and defend against being blamed for the problem we experienced.

Often, we express our complaints angrily. Anger in this instance is used to disguise, even from ourselves, our insecurity about asking for help.

As the receiver of the complaint you need to be careful not to respond to their upset in a way that escalates the conflict. That takes skill and practice. Here's a suggestion that may help. The next time your partner complains, try saying this:

"I'm sorry that happened. Thank you for telling me."

It's too easy for anything else you say to be perceived as criticism.

Next say, "Tell me more."

You may fear that they might talk forever, but that won't be necessary because you are listening to them. The object, at this point, is to allow them to sense that you are validating their feelings and that you are not criticizing them.

Active listening phrases like, "Awh, Uh Huh" work well.

When they stop talking, ask this question: "How can I make it right or what will fix it?"

They will tell you exactly what they need. The benefit is that you will not have to guess and because you are not guessing, you can meet their needs in the most efficient way possible. Many people fail to get that information prior to trying to work through the problem.

If what they ask for is something you can do, great. If what they ask for is something you need to check on, and get back to them say so. Give them a time when you will get back to them and hold yourself to it. That builds trust.

I know this sounds prescriptive and it is, but this is probably the best thing I have ever learned about how to handle complaints. Complaints handled incorrectly cost businesses thousands of dollars. Mishandled complaints in relationships cost happiness and friendships.

Strengthen your marriage. Learn how to handle complaints.

A New Way to Live

How do you want to live your life? If you want to make any changes you’ll need to wrestle with that question. Often we get so caught up pursuing the "American Dream," and following the dictates of others, that we fail to ask ourselves what we want. It’s as though pursuing the dream lulls us to sleep.

Too much automatic pilot mode can make you feel dissatisfied. Failure to identify and meet your own needs, clips your wings. Assisting others and following through on commitments can be accomplished without losing yourself in the process. The toll of ignoring your needs is too great. I’m not promoting selfishness nor encouraging you to ignore others. My suggestion would be to keep your needs in focus. To borrow an adage from personal finance, “pay yourself first.” My intuition suggests that if you had more resources, time, money, acceptance, gratitude, or creativity, you would have more to give to those you care about.

Lack of self-awareness may be preventing you from reducing stress and increasing personal satisfaction. If you are working yourself so strenuously that you’re over-extended emotionally, financially, and physically, you can’t be happy.

We all need time to reflect. It’s OK to interrupt what you’re doing to give yourself what you need. Repressing your feelings and desires can make you disappear from your own life. It never works to show up in everyone else's life but your own. Breaking out of that habit requires pressing the reset button and reorganizing your priorities in a more sustainable way.

What would your life be like if you had more disposable time? I don’t imagine you would fritter it away. I believe you would read a book, start a creative project, go to the gym, organize your stuff. These kinds of pursuits would rejuvenate you, increase your confidence and overall competencies, enabling you to meet your other priorities more creatively.

What do you think would happen if you took the time to reflect on your thoughts, feelings, and priorities? You’ll have to decide if you want to stage the experiment and find out. It’s worth a try. You’re worth a try. Your family is worth a try.

Trust

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When we think about trust we usually think about infidelity, but there is another way to think about trust in intimate relationships. It has to do with trusting that your partner has the best interest of both you and your relationship in their heart.

Sometimes we forget to trust our partners when faced with stressful decisions. We may believe they can’t help, they will interfere and prevent us from following our plan, or for whatever reason, we may feel uncomfortable about sharing our dilemma with them. Blinded by stress and our own needs, we may not see how a decision we feel pressed to make will affect our partner and our relationship.

When you are faced with a stressful decision one of the best things you can do is talk to your partner about it. Even if your mind tells you not to. That is often the best time to discuss your predicament with them. “But it will start a conflict,” often is what we tell ourselves. Yes, it might, but some decisions are worth fighting over in order to find the best way to address a pressing problem and to avoid a bad decision. In such moments, a constructive conflict might be the very thing necessary to get you to better vete your ideas about the best way to take action.

Trusting your partner in situations like that can be instrumental, not only in helping you avoid making a bad decision and making the situation worse, but it can also increase closeness between you and your partner by demonstrating to them that they are important enough for you to include them in your decision-making process.

What do couples fight over? Couples fight for numerous reasons but feeling unheard, ignored, and excluded tops the list. The decisions you make in your relationship not only affect you. They also affect your partner. They should be given the opportunity to opt in or out of those types of decisions. The trap you spring results from trying to avoid conflict by convincing yourself that your unilateral decisions are right, necessary, and insignificant to your partner—without discussing them together.

I’m not saying you have to run every decision by your partner, but I’m asking you to examine the decisions you find difficult to discuss with your partner. Why? Are you afraid they will disagree with you? Are you trying to avoid the feelings evoked by discussing it with them? Are you making the assumption that they feel the same way about the situation that you do and, therefore, there is no need to discuss it? Do you believe that they will get in your way? That’s when constructive conflict with your partner can be most beneficial.  You have to trust that you can tolerate your own strong emotions along with theirs and that they have your best interest at heart. You have to trust that communicating with them—even if things get heated—will help you both arrive at the best decision for both of you.

That requires thinking about trust differently.

Three Ways to Let Go of Your Need to Control Situations

Our evolutionary history suggests that human beings never evolved to be happy. We lived in small groups. Our encounters with others were often dangerous. We faced numerous threats—starvation, parasites, illness, injury, and childbirth—we possessed no painkillers and there was no police force. We spend the majority of our time in anxious goal-seeking activity, spacing out, avoiding perceived threats, and sleeping. We experience numerous unwanted feelings and physical discomforts. Our brains evolved to analyze past pleasure and pain and to maximize future pleasure and minimize future pain. Bottom line: we fret a lot.

One of our biggest worries is trying to control situations that we believe might make us unhappy or otherwise harm us in some way. Here are three suggestions from Dr. Ronald Siegel, Harvard University for letting go:

Gain insight into the habits of your mind that create suffering.

There are patterns of mind that create suffering, i.e. self referential thinking, worrying about the past, fantasizing about the future, zoning out, catastrophizing. By learning to understand these patterns of mind you can change how you view yourself, how you view others, and how you respond to not only the situation, but your thoughts about the situation.

Retrain your brain to not automatically react in its instinctual manner.

Five minutes of daily mindfulness practice can work wonders. It can interrupt thinking habits and behavior patterns that you may feel lie beyond your control. Mindfulness can be the difference between reacting and responding. When we react we instantly initiate some conditioned response that may or may not prove beneficial in the current situation. With mindfulness we can take the time to respond in a manner that integrates present moment awareness with current skills.

Learn to spend more time in the present moment.

Thoughts of the past eventually evoke regrets and sadness. Fantasizing about the future triggers worry about situations that we anticipate happening. Over eighty percent of the things we worry about never happen. Situating ourselves in the present provides us with the greatest opportunity to remain calm and feel safe. The decisions we make in this moment have the greatest bearing on the future. It’s imperative that we don’t waste the only time we have worrying about the past or worrying about the future. Mindfulness grounds you in the here and now.

Unfortunately if you were looking for a quick fix for easing the suffering discussed here, you may come away disappointed. These are lifestyle changes, that take time to cultivate. Your attempts to control situations, didn’t start overnight. So don’t expect to resolve them overnight. Behavioral change does not work work instantly so start practicing mindfulness today.

“Learn how to relinquish control intentionally, as a means of personal growth and self-discovery.

—Esther Perel

Be a Cheerleader for Your Partner

Photo by marekuliasz/iStock / Getty Images

According to divorce lawyer James J. Sexton, “In our day-to-day lives as professionals, parents and just plain human beings, there is no shortage of voices telling us what failures we are. We're bombarded with advertisements designed to make us feel inadequate. Whether there selling pistachio nuts or sports cars, the implication is often that something is wrong or missing.

In the face of this relentless onslaught, you are uniquely positioned to be a voice of support and encouragement for your spouse—a shelter in a storm of disparagement. If you want to keep your marriage healthy, don't squander that power. Resist the temptation to compare your spouse to an imaginary ideal you have created or what romance films have told you a perfect spouse would look and act like. Your partner needs a cheerleader. We all do. If there is no major achievement to cheer for at the moment. Cheer for the small things your spouse is doing well. When people have a taste of victory, they often crave more of it.”

Sexton confirms what research has revealed about relationships. Criticism is toxic to marriages. John Gottman, an American psychological researcher and clinician who has done extensive work over four decades on divorce prediction and marital stability, has written about the negative impact of criticism on marriages. If fact, he refers to criticism as one of the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse. The other three are contempt, defensiveness and stonewalling.

Criticism can gallop into your relationship making you or your partner feel vulnerable, rejected, and inadequate. While feedback is important in any relationship, criticism differs in that it can evoke such hurt, shame, and self-doubt that the effects prevent it from being constructive once the victim begins to feel anxious and defensive. Criticism is corrosive, not only to the victim's self-esteem and your relationship with them, but also to your own self-esteem when you criticize others. Unless you are a sociopath, harsh words or insults that hurt your partner don't make you feel good. We all have a tendency to move away from pain and toward pleasure. We want to flee and escape uncomfortable people and situations. As criticism increases, your partner will begin to create distance if not physically, emotionally. Many people report that verbal abuse is more damaging than physical abuse.

To improve your relationship, remember to encourage your partner. One good way to accomplish that is when possible soothe your anger before speaking harshly to your loved one. When you feel angry or frustrated you may feel the greatest urge to provide feedback, but remember that's also when you're most prone to insult, shame, or criticize your partner.

In any relationship from time to time we all communicate in unskillful ways. None of us are perfect. It takes practice to keep our communication upbeat and to accentuate the positive. Sexton is correct, “when people have a taste of victory they crave more of it.” Positive attention and encouragement are strong motivators. And they help raise your partner's morale while simultaneously improving your self-esteem. So if you want to keep the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse from trampling your relationship, look for opportunities to praise your partner for both large and small victories.  

WTF...

I was doing what I do on Sundays, sitting at home, reading the New York Times. A front page headline read: “Monticello Finally Opens Door Into the Life of Sally Hemings.”

According to writers Farah Stockman and Gabriella Demczuk, “Curators had to wrestle with thorny questions… And, thorniest of all, in an era of Black Lives Matter and #Me Too: How to describe the decades-long sexual relationship between Jefferson and Hemings? Should it be described as rape?”

“We really can't know what the dynamic was,” said Leslie Greene Bowman, president of the Thomas Jefferson Foundation. “Was it rape? Was there affection? We felt we had to present a range of views, including the most painful one.”

My phone rang.

“Hi daddy. Happy Father's Day.”

My daughter's voice sounded cheerful.

“Whatcha doing?”

“I'm sitting here eating ice cream and reading the New York Times.”

“Ooh. I want some ice cream so bad, but I'm trying to avoid dairy.”

It's good. Vanilla Swiss Almond. I'm reading about Sally Hemings. Wait, wait, wait… what do you think about this? Let me read you something.”

After reading her the headline I continued:

“Curators had to wrestle with thorny questions. How to accurately portray a woman for whom no photograph exists? (The solution: casting a shadow on a wall.) How to handle the skepticism of those unpersuaded by mounting evidence that Jefferson was indeed the father of Hemings’s children? (The solution: tell the story entirely in quotes from her son Madison.)”

“And thorniest of all, in an era of a Black Lives Matter and #Me Too: How to describe the decades-long sexual relationship between Jefferson and Hemings? Should it be described as rape?”

“Daddy, it's rape. She was a slave. She was his property. If you can't say no, you can't say yes. There can be no consent. The way crimes are reported in this country has a lot to do with the color of your skin. Our society has difficulty pathologizing the behavior of white men, so they turned it into a love story”.

I felt gaslighted by the article. Thank you for clearing that up. Some white folks make my head hurt. Only they can have that fantasy.

After more conversation, she again wished me happy Father's Day and hung up.

I continued to read the article when I came across this, “John H. Works Jr., a descendant of Jefferson’s who is among the founding members of the Thomas Jefferson Heritage Society, accuses the nonprofit organization that runs Monticello of bowing to political correctness, and insists that the entire premise of the exhibit is flawed.”

Hey John, in a way, by maintaining narcissistic fantasies of innocents you are the one who has bowed to the political correctness of the day. And to Leslie Greene Bowman’s notion that there may have been affection between them, victims of abuse often identify with their captors in an effort to save themselves. In this case, that does not eliminate the fact that she was his property. A slave.

A very similar situation is going on at the National Memorial for Peace and Justice informally known as the Lynching Memorial that just opened in Montgomery, Alabama. From accounts I've read many white folks have difficulty wrapping their minds around the sheer number of black people lynched or even the fact that a memorial to lynching exists. It appears that some white people are straining under the weight of maintaining a non deviant image of themselves.

Wtf...

Something for Junot Díaz

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Junot Díaz, the Pulitzer Prize-winning author, recently wrote an article for The New Yorker magazine entitled The Silence: The Legacy of Childhood Trauma where he recounted being raped as a child and the toll it has taken on his life. Here’s an excerpt:

Yes, it happened to me.

I was raped when I was eight years old. By a grownup that I truly trusted.

After he raped me, he told me I had to return the next day or I would be “in trouble.”

And because I was terrified, and confused, I went back the next day and was raped again.

I never told anyone what happened, but today I’m telling you.

And anyone else who cares to listen.

What makes an experience traumatic? When it overwhelms your ability to cope. When it strikes where you are most vulnerable, when you least expect it, and when you are unprepared for it. When the experience changes the way you interact with the world. When it upends your sense of self and identity. Trauma is devastating because its magnitude exceeds your imagination, making it hard to believe.

Depending on a person’s age and stage of development, trauma can be even more debilitating because it can strike before a young person has acquired the coping skills and social support necessary to handle its effects.

We need to better understand trauma for ourselves and for others. Many people limp through life from wounds sustained from unresolved traumatic events. Hurt people hurt people. Unhappy wounded people often use cruelty toward others to compensate and feel better. We need to reduce suffering. As Díaz stated, it wasn’t just the rapes but “the agony, the bitterness, the self-recrimination, the asco, the desperate need to keep it hidden and silent. It fucked up my childhood. It fucked up my adolescence. It fucked up my whole life.” It also fucked up the lives of others and, while I am by no means apologizing for his behavior, I am using his admission to illustrate how trauma affects people.

At eight years old or eighty years old trauma makes you feel like an outsider. Alienation from yourself and alienation from others compounds its misery. We are social animals, hardwired to connect. When we are traumatized by someone we trust it decreases our ability to reach out and trust others. Often we may even find it difficult to trust ourselves and our core beliefs about the world we inhabit thus making it difficult, if not impossible, to form healthy relationships. For some people it can make them withdraw from others, and for others it can compel them to engage in high risk behaviors of various sorts. Trauma interferes with our ability to connect with others when it damages our ability to trust.

Trauma is a fall from grace. Prior to a traumatic experience we reside in a privileged place, an innocent place, and, as a result, we feel special. Trauma happens to other people, not to us. Trauma forces us to face numerous realities. We are not special. We can be hurt. And we can be hurt by people we trust. In Díaz’s case trauma ended his childhood and rendered him unable to fully utilize relationships by forcing him to satisfy a “desperate need to keep it hidden and silent.”

We all have various strategies for managing intimacy—the distance between you and another person. Intimate relationships require vulnerability. Problems will arise in any relationship if you are trying to simultaneously make a connection and avoid being seen. In fact, some people do not derive satisfaction from intimate relationships because the closer they get to another person the more uncomfortable they become. For some they destroy relationships before giving them a chance because of the fear and pain of revealing their secrets and the risk of rejection. Many trauma survivors unable to use relationships with people turn to drugs. Drugs serve as a substitute for relationships and also as a means of numbing the painful effects of trauma.

Anyone can benefit from a more thorough understanding of trauma—both victims and perpetrators. While a victim may not be interested in the psychological motivation of the perpetrator, what should be of interest is how victims can develop into perpetrators themselves. In Díaz’s case, he went on to abuse women. Perpetrators need to be held accountable and offered trauma-informed treatment options to help them change their behavior. Those who are best able to heal from trauma, both victims and perpetrators, are those who are best able to re-enter relationships with others with the awareness that they can both be hurt and hurt others by virtue of those relationships. Those who can face the world with that awareness do better.

Voicelessness in Married Men

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According to Harriet Lerner Ph.D. in a recent article, she wrote for Psychology Today entitled

The Invisible Struggle of Married Men.

“Men lose their voice in marriage far more than women do. They may distance or stonewall, telling themselves, ‘It’s not worth the fight.’ They may remove themselves emotionally from the relationship, and then feel devastated when a partner leaves them ‘out of the blue’.”

I didn't lose my voice in my marriage. I lost my voice in childhood. I lost my voice so early I didn't even know it was gone—almost like I never had a voice. Raised by old-school parents who struggled to parent, and who didn't allow a lot of discussion about feelings, my voice never fully developed. Our family was not a democracy. If anything was wrong, you either prayed to Jesus or you stuffed it. I had no sense of any other option when it came to discussing my feelings with my father. My relationship with my parents felt unsafe, and one contributing factor to feeling unsafe was talking too much.

Prior to my own experience with his violence and neglect, I watched my mother for years plead her case to my father only to learn that to talk back to him was not only useless, it was dangerous.

“Mom, please shut up before you get all of our asses whipped.”

“Who broke… Whatever?”

“I don't know.”

Those are good responses for anyone in an abusive relationship. They helped me survive my childhood and have remained difficult to relinquish to this day.

Voicelessness is a symptom of shame. Show me a man who is voiceless and I will show you a man who is ashamed. Shame pressed my mute button years before I got married. In a healthy family, different members are available to talk, provide emotional support, and help mitigate the ill effects of poor relationships with parents. Comfort can be found in them when unavailable from primary sources. I didn't have that luxury. I turned to the streets. I played sports from sunup to sundown to avoid feeling shame about what I was experiencing at home. Avoidance, distancing and stonewalling were my coping strategies that later led to drug use and other addictive behaviors to numb toxic shame. They became a way of being for me. I gave up on trying to discuss my emotional life with my parents or any other adults for that matter. My relationships didn't work that way.

On the playground, my behavior spoke volumes. I could conceal my frustration on the football field, baseball diamond, and basketball court by outperforming my peers thus gaining the acceptance I craved. Later, in the dope house, I expressed myself fluently. “Let me get another one.” My beliefs about both men and women while dormant hindered my ability to connect with intimate relationships I later discovered.

I didn't have much experience with healthy relationships. Superficial friendships built around my secrets made me a great candidate for becoming abusive once I got married. I was afraid of intimacy, of being too close to anyone. Marriage created the perfect conditions that triggered the very same behaviors that I used in my family of origin. I perceived my wife as an authority figure. I was an immature communicator. And, as a result, problems I encountered as a child manifested themselves in the family I created. Intimacy made voicelessness more uncomfortable and difficult to hide. It exposed the flaw in my game. I developed passive-aggressive tendencies from my inability to speak truth to power. I had an aversion to the authority figures in my life and I acted out behind their backs. Marriage forced me to continue what I practiced in all of my previous relationships. There was nothing wrong with marriage.

Alexithymia is the condition of having no words for feelings. Just like my father, I, too, had no words for feelings, except anger and happiness. By the time I arrived at couples therapy, it was rendered ineffective. I would have benefited more from visiting a veterinarian. I cried throughout the entire experience. My software was defective from childhood. It took the destruction of my marriage for me to break free from my previous programming and learn to take responsibility for my voice.

Men can use their voice and still end up voiceless. To compensate for perceiving themselves as powerless victims in relationships with women many men compensate by communicating from an anxious position, yelling and screaming in an effort to dominate or “win" arguments with their partners. That type of communication in relationships often has the net effect of rendering men voiceless in many ways. Yelling and screaming serve to divert the conversation away from the shame the man may feel, and it can emotionally flood and terrorize his partner. The inability to discuss shame and to thwart your partner from expressing his or her needs or concerns renders communication ineffective.

A more insidious problem resulting from voicelessness is how it undermines forgiveness. Without the ability to protest when wronged, any effort to forgive is bogus and rendered ineffective. You have to give yourself the opportunity to voice your outrage and move through that stage before you can let go and try to forgive. Any effort to bypass that stage is like trying to walk before you crawl. To deny your feelings is a denial of your feelings.

Voicelessness cost me much of my childhood and ended my marriage. It has taken individual psychotherapy, domestic violence education, and 12-Step recovery to help me clear my throat.

He Hasn't Changed

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That was a YouTube comment posted under the video of Megyn Kelly interviewing me on the Today Show.

When you go on nationwide television and admit being abusive to women in the past you have to have thick skin to face the opinions of those who view it.

A four-minute video doesn’t tell my whole story. It's hard to tell from the video that my abusive behavior occurred over twenty-three years ago. Nor can you tell that I have been clean from drugs, including alcohol, for that same period of time. Not that drug use led me to be abusive, but it did contribute to unmanageability which often triggered my abusiveness. From the video, you can’t tell that I have dedicated my life to ending domestic violence by stopping myself and turning to help other men and women who find themselves caught in the cycle.

No one can see in that four minutes how I came to the attention of producers at NBC. I was referred to them by my friend Nancy Lemon, a law professor at the UC Berkeley School of Law. She has written much of the domestic violence law on the books in the state of California. She teaches a Domestic Violence Law class and, for over ten years, has invited me to speak to her class about domestic violence, my personal story, and perpetrators of violence against women. Many of her students go on to work on family violence issues throughout the Bay Area and the state, designing and implementing more effective domestic violence laws, policies, and programs.

You might think with so much of my story left out, why would I agree to be on the show. There is a difference between being sorry for my past behavior and making amends for it. I speak up and talk about my past to help others reduce suffering and create understanding about the dynamics of domestic violence. When you experience something traumatic, even if you created the trauma yourself, sometimes the only way you can make sense of the experience is when you help someone else understand your experience.

I'm still trying to figure out why I behaved the way that I did when I was abusive. Many children went through far worse than I did and didn't go on to become abusive. Drug use didn’t make me do it. Drug use served as a repair attempt that failed, leaving me with more unmanageable problems than when I started. I used anger and violence to cope with my feelings of vulnerability and powerlessness, my responsibilities, and my fears. No, there's something about me that made me act the way I did. That same something enabled me to respond to individual psychotherapy, domestic violence psychoeducation, and 12-Step  recovery, stop using drugs, return to school at night while working, publish The Pocket Anger Manager, and became a licensed psychotherapist in California. That same something allowed me to walk into NBC studios alone and share a part of my story on a program about victims. A program with no other men and no other black people.

You can't see from the video the healing that has occurred for both me and my survivor. A producer on the Megyn Kelly show asked to speak to her, prior to my appearance, as a means of substantiating my story. I sat in on a three-way call with her and the producer while he asked if I had changed. “Yes, he’s has changed,” she said.

Recovery is available to us all. To say men who have been abusive cannot recover implies that women who have been abused cannot recover. That lie is dead. We do recover.

My recovery springs from acknowledging that I hurt someone that I loved. You can't tell from the video that not one day passes in which I don't think about my past behavior. Recovery doesn't clear your conscious; it allows you to live with what's on your conscious. That’s impossible to see in a four-minute video.

I continue working to help people—men, in particular—reflect on their behavior and take responsibility for it—as I do the same.

Resentment

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Noun: bitter indignation at having been mistreated.

When faced with obstacles that prevent us from achieving our goals, anger often arises. If we perceive this interference as a personal attack on our rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, it is natural to become upset. This response to goal frustration is common, but what follows when we walk away and nurture feelings of anger and revenge is resentment. Resentment is a challenging emotion to deal with, not only for the person experiencing it but also for those around them.

Although we have come a long way from our primitive instincts when violence was a common response to resentment, we still encounter situations that evoke these more primal emotions. Sometimes, our resentments overpower us.

Removing ourselves from a primitive state is not an easy task; it requires conscious effort. Our evolutionary history predisposes us to react in ways that reflect our time spent in the wilderness.

One approach that can improve our ability to control our emotions, including resentment, is to acknowledge our inclination towards violence. Our society is plagued by violence, and it is time to stop denying this reality. We are violent towards ourselves, towards others, and towards the planet. Have you ever paid attention to your internal dialogue? While you may not act on every violent impulse or thought you have, much of what goes on in your mind can be violent. Have you watched the news recently? It bombards us with stories of destruction, shootouts, and wars. The consequences of our violence towards the planet are evident in the plight of emaciated polar bears and seagulls consuming fast food.

Just last week, there was a shooting at YouTube. According to news reports, the female shooter was enraged. CNN Wire stated, "The woman's grievances against YouTube appeared to focus on censorship and revenue." Driven by her resentment, she took her pistol, drove to YouTube headquarters, and opened fire on people she didn't even know, injuring three and killing one before ultimately taking her own life. Despite her parents' awareness of her resentment towards YouTube, they had no knowledge of her violent intentions and notified the police to no avail.

Interestingly, news reports revealed that she was a vegan. This detail highlights how resentment can blind us to our own values. On one of her social media pages, she wrote, "Animal rights are human rights." She refused to eat a chicken wing, yet she was willing to shoot and kill people due to her resentment. Equipped with our primal instincts and the ability to purchase a firearm, she exacted vengeance on others before ending her own life. We may never fully understand her motivations for committing such a heinous act, but resentment undoubtedly played a significant role.

In a previous mass shooting, it was initially assumed that the shooter's motive was rooted in gender bias. As Jane Coaston writes in her article about the Pulse nightclub shooting, "After a mass shooting, observers, including journalists, often search for a motive, sometimes even before the first victims have been identified. But the Pulse shooting proves that initial narratives about mass shooters' motivations are often wrong — and those narratives can be far more powerful than the truth." Human behavior is driven by numerous factors.

Recognizing that our resentments can lead to violence and irreparable damage to our relationships, I implore you to exercise self-control. Let us prioritize anger management and impulse control. It is essential to maintain mental hygiene. I suggest that we acknowledge the destructive power within us to combat gun violence effectively. We all bear personal responsibility for our thoughts and emotions. Resentment corrodes us from within; it destroys us. As the old saying goes, "it's like peeing down your own leg and expecting someone else to feel it."

When you feel angry, reach out to someone and communicate your feelings to better manage them and prevent resentment from taking hold. Avoid resorting to permanent solutions for temporary problems. Stay calm. If you own a firearm, use it responsibly, such as for duck hunting. Above all, anticipate that anger will arise in the future and develop a plan to safeguard yourself and others from any violent tendencies that may surface. Only you can help prevent gun violence.

Craving: One Day at a Time

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""I crave; therefore, I am. My desires have their desires. I yearn for a multitude of experiences. I'm captivated whether it's salty, sweet, greasy, or moist. If I envision it bringing me joy, give me two of them. You might not understand what I mean if you've never entrusted Pookie with twenty dollars to fetch something while you waited in the rain. Most of the time, I'm not fully aware of myself. I'm too preoccupied with executing the algorithm to take a step back and analyze the software. That's just the way I am, somewhat superficial."

What would Earth be like without cravings? Many of our actions here stem from the motivation to fulfill our desires. Without cravings driving us, how would we accomplish anything? What if the first and only attempt at something brought us lifelong satisfaction?

"Would you like a slice of chocolate cake?"

"Nah, I had one twenty years ago, and I'm still content."

What if we engaged in sexual activity just once and never desired it again?

You must acknowledge the fact that not only do you experience cravings, but you also grow accustomed to people and things. You become accustomed to new situations, and you long for something new once the novelty fades. You step onto that hedonic treadmill, push it to the maximum, and the pursuit for the next pleasurable experience continues—salty, sweet, greasy, and moist.

But what is craving? Is it a thought that generates a feeling or a feeling that produces a thought? It could be both. Does it truly matter?

According to Dr. Katrin Schubert, author of "Reduce Cravings: 20 Quick Techniques," "Most of us experience cravings for pleasurable things like food, drinks, shopping, or sex. This doesn't imply addiction to those substances or behaviors. Cravings are natural and only become problematic when we can't control them, negatively affecting our well-being and quality of life."

We perceive the world through our senses, any of which can trigger thoughts and memories that give rise to cravings. However, cravings serve as a means to avoid unpleasant thoughts and feelings, at least temporarily. One of the most effective ways to evade an uncomfortable thought or feeling is by replacing it with a more pleasant and less challenging alternative. This subconscious mechanism repeatedly occurs to shield ourselves from confronting difficult emotions. You can relinquish your responsibility to your cravings.

An alternative approach is to accept the fact that uncomfortable feelings are inevitable. They are an essential part of being human, a natural facet of life. While your feelings may trigger cravings, you don't have to act upon them. You can meditate, take deep breaths, and allow the desires to pass. You can turn to a trusted friend and openly discuss your urges, diminishing their power by realizing everyone experiences cravings. You can surrender. Cravings, distorted thoughts, and unpleasant feelings lack the power to impede you. You are free to choose. Like storms, urges can fade away.