How Men Benefit from Psychotherapy

Although gender equality is on the rise, men are still reared and socialized differently than women. Women are nurtured to have and express feelings. Conventionally, men were raised that expression or acknowledgement of feelings is a feminine characteristic and therefore for men to have an emotional experience can be stigmatizing.

Emotional freedom considers the exploration of our relationship to our feelings. Although some may not be aware of having feelings, the fact that we all have feelings is undeniable, whether we are aware of them or not. So, what’s so bad about being unaware of feelings? Many believe that if you aren’t aware of something it somehow ceases to exist. However, the contrary is true: Truth is true, whether we believe it (or are aware of it) or not. Emotional experiences affect our thoughts, perceptions, physical sensations, mood, attitudes, self-esteem, life outlook and so much more.

When we isolate from our emotional experiences, we fail to recognize these above influences and subsequently become victim to them. We feel sick and self-medicate. We fall victim to our mood swings. We become distrustful of ourselves when we notice how much our thoughts, attitudes and perceptions change seemingly out of the blue.

Gaining intuition into our feeling states allows us to have more intuition into our motives, needs, and premonitions. We can allow our feelings to help guide our decisions that result in well-being and fulfillment, rather than hinder our path with indecisiveness and self-doubt.

These soft skills are not just extraneous variables in our fulfillment quotient; they are hard-wired tools that we would all benefit to sharpen. Men are at more of a disadvantage here because, other than anger/aggression, there are not many socially supported outlets for men to explore and express feelings.

Psychotherapy and life coaching provide safe places where men are supported and encouraged to listen to themselves and discover the subconscious emotional experience that can inform and transform our lives.

The holidays are in your hands -Coping with the holiday blues

You may think you are the only person who isn’t gleeful about the upcoming holidays.  However, for many (and for most adults) the holidays are accompanied with an understandable amount of dread.  We are around people, who push our buttons or that we don’t  enjoy spending time with.  For some people it’s the feeling of loneliness and lacking the relationships we think we ought to have. 

If any of these are your experience you are not alone.  Here are some tips to help transform your holiday experience:

1. Recognize that you are not alone and stop comparing yourself to people you think have the perfect family or “love the holidays!”  Unless you are a child awaiting toys on Christmas this is often not the case.
2. Don’t let guilt about spending time with others lead you to over-commit.  Being thankful also means being present to enjoy your life.  So, in addition to doing things for others, make sure to continue to do things for yourself. Maybe you will treat yourself to something special. 
3. Connect with the people that you are close with instead of fantasizing about the relationships with people who you are separated from.
4. Do something active take a walk, exercise, go to a yoga class
5. Treat yourself well (and I don’t mean by allowing yourself to eat until you have to put elastic on your pants).   I mean pamper yourself, take a day off work, treat yourself to a movie for example
6. Open your mouth.  It never ceases to amaze me how helpful it is to simply share with people what’s going on with you.  More often than not, people appreciate opportunities to be there for others and it often creates a reciprocal benefit by opening the door for someone else to share what’s going on with them.
7. Get rest and adequate sleep.
8. Get into the light.  Pathologize it if you like, (seasonal affective disorder), but just getting some sunlight just does the body good!
9. Ask for help whether it be personal or professional
10. LAUGH whether it’s for a reason or for none at all.  Just do it.  Laughing is therapeutic.