The Glass is Half Empty and Half Full

I'm sure you've heard this one before: "Are you a glass-half-empty kind of person, or a glass-half-full kind of person?" As if there are only two types of people in the world, and that we are supposed to be judged that way. I was thinking about this analogy today and I thought about something scientific (as I tend to do, you should see how I talk teens out of having sex..."swapping fluids" I believe is the term), and something occurred to me that I always knew, but never really thought of before.

The glass is both half empty and half full.

You can't just say that the glass is half empty and leave it at that. In order to acknowledge that the glass is half full, or half empty, you, by default, acknowledge the fullness or emptyness of said glass. This means that there is another side, otherwise, the glass would be completely empty, or completely full.

Now of course, you can start saying, "well, then in that case, the glass is completely empty, or completely full." OK, fine...but now you're just avoiding the idea that there is an opposite to whatever side you tend to go with.

The point is that you can be amazingly positive and miss the problems you have that need fixing. You can stare all you want at the portion of the glass that's half full, but in order for it to be "half" there has to be another half. Same goes with the negative piece. You can look at the empty space that comprises the negative elements of your life, but in order for them to be negative at all, there has to be something positive that balances that out.

I guess what I'm trying to say is this: Take a look at both. One can not exist without the other. Don't be so caught up in being positive that you miss the boat on reality. Don't be so negative that you miss what's good about you. Both of these are necessary for balance in life, a yin yang if you will. Without them, life is the same...all the time...with no changes in sight.

My Dog Arwen Ran Away From Home.

This is Arwen.

This is the runner that I tied her up on.


1 hour later, at about 11:30pm, this is what I saw...an empty latch, with no dog on it.

Immediately I panicked, ran into the house and told my wife. We each grabbed a leash and a jar of peanut butter (her favorite snack) and began a long walk over the neighborhood. Up and down streets we went, calling out to her, hoping to see her trotting around is if everything
is ok. After about an hour, we decided we needed to take a different approach. We made the decision to split up: one of us at home, and one of us roaming the streets. I thought it was better for my wife to stay home while I scouted around, because it was probably safer for me to be
scouring around the city at 12am than her.

Anyway, off I went, and for about an hour, I searched the streets of my neighborhood. In desperation, I called the police in the area, and they didn't have any reports on finding a lost dog. They recommended that I call Animal Control, which was closed, so that was a dead end as well.
And then, at about 12:15am I realized something. I was a Christian after all, and my family were Christians. Why don't we just, you know, pray. It couldn't hurt right? I decided to call my
mother (because after all, athat late at night, who else can you call) and ask her to pray. She did, and I continued to search for my dog.

At around 12:30am, I got really desperate, and words started coming out of my mouth that sounded something like this:"God, if you bring back our dog, I'll do anything you want. Just bring me back our dog."

People often make this sort of promise to God, and then immediately go back on it once God fulfills his part of the bargain. After all, what is God going to do to you, right? So I utter these words out to God, hoping that maybe he'd hear me, and give me a hand.

I decided that at about 12:45am, I would head home, put on some coffee, and sit outside my house with some peanut butter, hoping that my dog would smell it, get hungry or tired, and then come home. On my way up the street, a police car drives by and slowed down to talk to me. Not suprising really, considering I looked something like this:

"Hey, how ya doin?" the officer said.
"Not so good." I responded. "I lost my dog, and I've been looking all over for her."
"What kind of dog is it?" the officer asked.
"She's a white siberian Husky. Blue Eyes. Purple Collar."
They decide to pull over and give me a hand. A few walkie-talkie calls, and a search through the cruiser laptop later, and they tell me
something I did not expect from them at all.
"Someone spotted a white dog walking through traffic down over by the laundry mat a few blocks from here about a half hour ago."
I couldn't believe it! Could my dog really be OK? Could it be that she could be found tonight?
I thanked the officers and ran as fast as I could to the LaundryMat. I called my wife mid-sprint and told her what happened. She said she would get in the car and meet me there. I got to the LaundryMat and there was no dog. I talked to the guy at the counter who worked there (I didn't know people worked at Laundry Mats this late), and explained my situation.

"Oh! That was your dog?" he exclaimed.
"Yeah, have you seen her?" I asked
"Here let me show you a picture." he said

He whipped out his phone, and there was my dog, looking very forlorn.

"That's her!" I said "Where is she!"

And just as the police offer's news gave me hope, this man's news dashed them on the jagged rocks below.

"A couple came by here and took her. They put her in their car and drove off. I asked them if that was their dog, and they said it was theirs.
They took off in a white Corsica."

My heart sank. Someone came and took my dog away. My wife came in shortly after this news, and we retold the story to her.

Tears fell down her face as she wept in sorry and grief. Uncomfortably, the Laundry man shuffled his feet and apologized. I led my wife out the door, and we went to our car and got in.

But this is not the end of this story.

Before I left the LaundryMat, I gave the man my name, my cell phone number, and the description of my dog. Maybe, just maybe, he would see them, and they could contact me and bring our baby back to us.

We get back to the house and immediately I start up my laptop to make a "LOST DOG" picture. The ad was simple: $200 reward for the safe return of my dog. Cell phone number, picture, that's it. I'm in the process of trying to print four of them out, when I get a phone call. My
heart quickened. Could it be the laundry man? Who else would it be at 1am?

"Jim Valeri?" I answer.

"Jim, this is Ceasar from Laundro-Max. I've got your dog."

I honestly thought he was trying to play a joke on me. "Are you serious?" I respond.

"Yeah, its here, you can come get her."

I run and tell my wife, grab some money, and go get my dog. When I get there, a woman is outside the Mat, while the owner is inside keeping my energetic dog company. She told me her side of the story, how she called animal rescue, and that they weren't open. So she took
her home and would drop her off the next morning. However, Arwen and cats don't mix. She had a cat, and they didn't get along. So she couldn't keep Arwen there. Which led her back to the Mat.

Stupified at what just happened, I hand her $40, and Caesar $20 and I grab my dog. I thank them profusely, ask God to Bless them, and we go home. I decided paying people for good deeds was appropriate, because they could have just bagged her, sold her and God knows what else
to her.

My dog was tired, but happy, and back in our arms again. I know what you're thinking. This sounds a lot like "Bolt". Heck, my wife and I watched "Bolt" with our dog in the house, and wondered if she got the idea from there. She looks like him after all. I wish I could make this stuff up, seriously. But this really happened, and I told you the story
to point out a few things:

1. Consider for a moment the odds of what happened. The odds that I would run into a police car on the way home. The fact that they would give me a lead on where my dog was. That the LaundryMat guy (Ceasar) saw her, tried to keep her there, took a picture of her, and took my
information in case the people who took her came back. Then, consider the odds that the people that took her, decided she was too much of a handful, and brought her back to the LaundryMat.

Also consider that she could have been taken by meaner people, like people who do dog fights, or abuse animals. Or the fact that she could have been hit by a car.

2. Consider that things didn't start happening for us until I made a promise to God.

Call it fate, or karma, or whatever you want. But for me, that's too much coincidence. I'm no math guy, but I'd be willing to bet that the odds of all those things happening, and me getting my dog back within a few hours of losing her, with no tags, leads or GPS tracking, are likely
astronomical.

So now the question is, is God going to call my out on my promise?

Either way, a few lessons learned. Don't take things for granted, or assume they're going to work because they always have (like my runner for example). Tag your dog. We would have found her sooner if we had tags on her, so lesson learned there. But one of the biggest lessons I learned (aside from God answers prayer) is that sometimes, people will suprise the heck out of you. I live in a big city, in an area where people can be nasty if they want to be. My dog found some really nice people, and they were really nice to her. I never would have thought that would happen, but they proved to me that good people still exist in this world. They really do!

Don't be afraid to allow people (even God) to suprise you. They might just do it.

Fix Your Communication Before You Fix Your Problems

A lot of the couples I work with seem to come into my office with a general principle in mind: "We Have Problems, Fix Them." What I used to do was try to manage the problems first, and deal with the issues that are at hand. But then, I started to realize something: It doesn't matter how hard we try to fix them, if the couple's communication is lousy, then the management of the issues is going to be lousy.

So its a new approach to an old problem, and it got me thinking: how many others out there are having difficulty communicating, and if this is the case, how many problems we run into in relationships are the result of poor communication?

How do you know if you have poor communication? Here are some telltale signs:

1. Misunderstanding: Seems obvious, right? But if you find that your partner is not understanding what you're saying, maybe its time to assess how you're saying what you're trying to say.

2. Unresolved Conflicts: If the last fight you had was unresolved, chances are it will play out in the next conversation you have. In fact, you may find that those old conflicts are coming up in your everyday conversations.

3. Angry Retort: Remember those unresolved conflicts? They often come with teeth. Angry emotions tend to fly and as a result, the communication is not about resolving the issue, and it ends up being a verbal firefight.

4. Silence: This is a clear sign things aren't going well. If there is no communication at all, then this is a sure sign. A lot of couples manage their communication this way, figuring that if their communication is bad, its better that they don't talk at all. This is probably the worst case scenario, and it can often be one of the biggest signs that something needs to change.

If you start seeing these signs, it might be good to consider getting some help. Sure the other issues are at the forefront, but its probably best to manage the communication issues first, then focus in on the bigger issues once you can talk about them without tearing each other's heads off.

www.NewHopeCounselingOnline.com/Jim.html

Faith (or the Politically Correct positive thinking)

Alright. I don't make any bones about the fact that I am a Christian counselor. A little while ago, I had a client call me and say that she was fine working with me, but her husband was concerned about my being a Christian, and due to this, they decided not to work with me. She said he was worried that I was going to try to convert him, or some such unethical nonsense that I would never do. As a result, I've grown a bit of a complex about broadcasting that I'm a Christian therapist.

However, its time for me to put all that behind me, simply because I'm not going to allow what happened to dictate to me what I'm going to do from here forward.

And besides, if Larry Winget and Tony Robbins can use the Bible in their stuff, then so can I.

Ahem. OK, now that I got that out of the way. Here's my positive thinking quote for the day.

whatever is true,
whatever is noble, whatever is right,
whatever is pure, whatever is lovely, whatever is admirable
- if anything is excellent or praiseworthy -
think about these things.

Yep. Its a Bible verse, but I didn't put the scripture location for a purpose. Ask yourself how close to a positive thinking model this is. Dwell on the good stuff about you, and don't let the bad stuff define you. That's the general idea, right? If this wasn't a Bible verse, maybe something from Ghandi or Bhudda, or some quote from someone else, perhaps it would be a lot more meaningful to some people.

I guess what I'm trying to say is that my Christian faith has allowed me to stay positive throughout my entire life. I grew up poor. My family lived paycheck to paycheck, and there were times when that wasn't guaranteed. But I still managed to remain positive no matter what, because I knew that it wasn't always going to be that way. So my faith in God allowed me to obtain a faith in myself to move beyond my circumstances and do something with my life.

Do what works. For me, this works.

So I just want to encourage you to consider what some may call a weakness in you, and think about how you can use that as a strength. I'm not sure what happened to that couple, but I can tell you that the couples that didn't let that stop them from seeing me are doing much better than when they started.

www.NewHopeCounselingOnline.com/Jim.html

Too Much Internet?

The internet is an amazing thing. Seriously, it helps me do so much more than I used to. But then I wondered if there was such a thing as too much internet. I have internet at my home, at my private practice, even on my phone. Did I actually need to be that connected all the time?
My wife watched Oprah one day, and saw Suzy Orman talking about cutting back on stuff to save money. Sounded like a pretty good idea to me. Then we thought about cutting back on two things that really were means of entertainment and business for us.

Our Cable TV, and Our Internet.

I capitalize Our, because it is something we had grown so accustomed to, and it felt like we were entitled to it. So my wife and I decided to go on a little experiment. We decided to go one month without solid TV (alright, we have rabbit ears, but still) and internet at the house and see if we could survive. We were scared to death that we would be climbing up the walls after the first day.

You know what we discovered?

We actually really like each other. A lot.

Instead of spending time ignoring each other and watching TV, crap started getting done. She's being more creative with her handmade jewelry. I'm designing my website (offline) and making progress there. I'm coming up with more things to blog about (imagine that). There are other areas that have improved dramatically as well, but I'll leave that up to your imagination.

The point is, we were initally trying to save money, and we ended up having a lot of fun instead. Sure, we'll save $105 a month, but what we've gained instead is so much more valuable, I don't know if I want it back...ever.

Are you up for the challenge? Give it a try. You may find that what you thought you needed, you really...well, don't.

Be True To Yourself...Who Are You Again?

Over the course of my time as a therapist for hire, I've found that a lot of people are not just looking to solve their problems, but they also want to feel better about the problems they're dealing with. Sometimes they feel as though they're "not being true to themselves", and as a result they're not happy. Usually when I ask what "being true to yourself" means, I get a lot of funny looks, as if I'm just supposed to know this.

If I were to guess though, I would say that being true to yourself probably means doing whatever feels good for you at the given moment.

Maybe that's my sarcastic way of looking at human beings, and maybe there's more to it than that. However, it may be good to take a look at who you are in order to identify how to be true to yourself. After all, in order to be true to yourself, you have to know who this "self" is. If you don't, its highly likely that you'll be false to yourself, and well, no one wants that now, do they.

If I were to suggest how to do this, I would consider taking some time to figure out who the heck you are. Tony Robbins, in his Lessons In Mastery series (No joke, this actually helped me double my caseload), asks the question, "Who are you?" right at the beginning. The purpose of this is to help you ask not just what you do, or the roles that you've created for yourself, but define yourself according to your beliefs and your values. So for me, the definition of self goes a little something like this:

1. Core Beliefs and Values
2. Talents and Skills
3. Life Purpose
4. Areas of Enjoyment
5. Interests

Is there any other way to define yourself? Consider these as a helpful tool to define yourself. As Shakespeare would say "to thine own self be true." Know thyself, and from there you can be true to thyself!

http://www.newhopecounselingonline.com/

False Empathy

Someone you know/love is mad. So they take it out on you. Ouch! Painful!

So you decide its a good idea to find something just as equally mean or worse, and fire it back.

They get hurt. Score!

So on goes the tennis match. Each person getting more and more angry at the other, and hoping to "win" the argument somehow. But we all know what really happens. Both people get hurt, no one really wins, and in the end, more harm has been done than good.

So what do you do instead? Well, just recognizing the fact that you're angry is a good start! Then figure out what you're angry about. Thirdly, make a choice not to argue with this person. Lastly, make an attempt to communicate this to whoever you're arguing with in as nice a way as possible.

See, throwing anger around at each other is false empathy. You want the other person to understand how angry or hurt you feel, so you try to hurt them back. This doesn't accomplish a blasted thing, and instead of understanding each other, you end up being more and more upset.

Remember, you can only control your feelings. How to do that? Well, that's another story for another day! ;)

I love you, but you make me sick!

There seems to be a recurring theme this week with my clients. I am amazed at how many people really do treat their significant others poorly just by how they talk to them. Not even kidding, I've seen people over and over not want to solve the problem, but merely be validated in their quest to show that they are right, and their partner is wrong. Its a debate really, with no winners or losers, just people getting angry.

So here's my two cents worth. First, recognize that as much as you think your partner deserves vomit friendly goodness, they probably think the same thing about you. Or if they don't, your attitude could commence with the ralphing sooner rather than later. Assess your own attitude about how you're approaching your partner. It could be that you play a role in this. In fact, its actually more likely than not. Relationships are a two way street, and even if your partner is in the wrong, your response is still a crucial role to how an argument plays out.

Second, figure out what makes you sick, and communicate it appropriately to your partner. Try this old-as-dirt formula: I feel ___________, because when ___________ happens, it reminds me of _______________. The purpose of this is to communicate how you feel to your partner, not to change their behavior. That's their repsonsibility. Love is a choice, and your partner has to choose to listen to your feelings and change behavior (that's two things, really) or choose not to.

You can control what you say and do, so remember those things when you're trying to share your feelings with someone you love. I may be doing a series on this, so stay tuned! :)

http://www.newhopecounselingonline.com/

What are you listening to?

The other day I was on my way to work, and I just felt like dirt. You know the kind of feeling I'm talking about...tired, out of sorts, really down about how things are going. I was talking to my wife about it, and she suggested I listen to some music. I had a lot of work to do, and I couldn't afford to feel lousy about myself any longer. So I put on some driving guitar music, and the most amazing thing happened...

...I started feeling better. What happened? What was the difference?

I realized I was listening to my own negative thoughts about how I saw myself and that day. Then I chose to listen to something more positive and uplifting (and somewhat heavy, to each their own :) ), and it got me moving.

I had a day full of amazing appointments. I felt like I was on fire!

Every day we have to make a choice to listen to what brings us up, or what pulls us down. Think about all the things in your life that bring you down, and how you allow those messages to affect your life (the evening news, for example).

So what are you listening to?

www.NewHopeCounselingOnline.com