My answer to the question: What do you do when you realize your life is in ruins?

I believe in short answers. As someone who has managed to blow up his life more than once and come back better and stronger, I think I can speak to this. You 1st have to acknowledge you are human and make mistakes. Deal with your feeling rather than avoid them. Take responsibility for your actions and yourself. Learn from your experience. You have no reason to feel ashamed because others have walked your path before you and will again and again.

Reach out for help. It is there if you look. We all need support and help at some time in our lives. Know that your present circumstances will not last forever. Create reasonable goals and focus on what is right in front of you rather than the past or future. Hope this helps someone.

A Bit of Advice About Self-esteem

This is by no means original. But I wanted to pass it along due to it being valuable advice.

What others think of me is none of my business.

In the Middle of the Night.

It seems I am developing a new habit. I wake in the middle of the night and my mind begins to work overtime. I am flooded with ideas. I know that all these brilliant ideas will disappear by morning. With the understand that my mind will not quite down, I decide to get out of bed and write down these ideas for topics for blog posts and articles.

I must clear my mind in order to fall asleep once again. The result is a nearly a page of topics and ideas. My mind now clear, I can return to bed and fall asleep. Two practical ideas: 1. If you have what might be good ideas in the middle of the night don’t try to remember in the morning (that never worked for me). Get out of bed and write them down. 2. If you have problems falling asleep or falling back to sleep, get out of bed for a while and then try again.

Understanding Self-Destructive Behavior and Overcoming It

Have you ever been told that you engage in self-sabotage or self-destructive behavior? For those of us who have been told this, it can be very confusing and frustrating. Others appear to be able to identify our patterns of behavior that cause issues in our lives. They also prevent us from having a meaningful and fulfilling life. These behaviors are habitual and come from a place outside of our awareness. Our life seems to be going just fine and seemingly out of the blue things fall apart. This can happen in one or many areas of our lives.

Others tell us that we are creating the barriers that keep us from having good relationships, stable finances, and other success in our lives. We find it difficult or impossible to identify what we do wrong. This causes us to blame and become victims of one thing or person or another. The result is depression, anxiety, the inability to have relationships, poor self esteem, and feelings of shame. The first step to overcoming any issue is to identify the problem. But, you must first overcome your fear of confronting the issues and changing.

There is a constant conversation in our heads. These are the thoughts that create what meaning we give things and how we feel. Our behavior is based on this process. We all learn how to navigate life by watching the adults in our lives when we are children. As child, we develop of our beliefs about ourselves, others, what to expect from the world, as well as our expectations of others. Be us and doing things how we do things is the only way we know how to be. Unless we are exposed to and open to exploring alternative thinking and/or behavior we are unable to change. We repeat the same behaviors again and again.

The best way I have found to identify the thought patterns that drive our behavior is to keep a journal. There are two goals. The first goal is to increase awareness of that conversation in our head that I mentioned earlier and paying attention to it. The second goal is identifying thoughts or meanings that may not be valid or stand in our ways. These two steps afford you the opportunity for find alternative thinking and behavior. I have found this process is extremely effective.

Working with a counselor or coach can vastly increase the likelihood of very important improvements in the quality of our lives. Give it a try. You have nothing to loose and everything to gain.

To be continued……………………………..

Getting Advice

Often time we are not sure about something and seek the opinion or advice of others. Many people are more than happy to advise you as to what you should do with you life or the decisions you make. Some of us ask multiple people and get a variety of responses. This can be overwhelming and confusing and lead to making decisions more difficult.

I would suggest that you limit the number of people you ask for advice and only consider the responses that come from those who make good choices in their own lives. Making good decisions and choices is a skill that is learned over time. Learn from those who have developed that skill.