July 28th, 2010 khoward
Over the course of my 18 years as a psychotherapist in private practice in West Hollywood, California, I’ve come to utilize a number of phrases that summarize the wisdom of various theorists from Sigmund Freud, the “founder” of psychotherapy, to Louise Hay, an 80′s New Age inspirational author. But, also along the way, I’ve developed a few phrases of my own, “Ken-isms” I like to call them, based on my many observations, that have helped many people in various classic problem situations that I see over and over. Perhaps my favorite concept in treatment is “self-empowerment” (which is the name of my upcoming book, Self-Empowerment: Have the Life You Want!), because I believe in helping people empower themselves to improve their quality of life in various areas, such as your health, mental health, relationships, career, and finances. One of my favorite “Ken-isms” is encouraging my clients to spend their resources of Time, Energy, and Money according to their Values, Priorities, and Goals. What does this mean? Let’s take each one of those six elements: Read the rest of this entry »
Posted in Life Changes, Life Skills, Life Skills, Life in West Hollywood/LA, Money Management, Money Management, Motivation, Stress Management | No Comments »
February 26th, 2009 khoward
While the current economic recession may spare many of us as gay men, who are often considered an “affluent” segment of society, it will ensnare others. Even the threat of being affected by the recession is enough to cause anxiety, but for those who are laid off, have a partner who is, or who have to be the ones doing the laying off, anxiety pervades. How do we cope? Here are some ideas:
Handling Being Laid Off
According to the Alaska Department of Labor, being laid off includes acknowledging and coping with an entire series of stressors, including the loss of:
· Wages and benefits – the basic livelihood for our lifestyle
· Your role as a worker and provider; independence
· Dignity and self-esteem of work
· Expectations we had for the “American Dream”
· Trust in our economic system
· Feelings of control over your life
· Your daily pattern and comfortable, familiar routines
· Your “work family” of colleagues
· Feelings of patriotism and collective strength
These losses can cause symptoms of stress. But for every stressor, there is often a recommended resource and response. For example, for:
- Getting sick more often? Practice self –care of good food, exercise, and rest
- Feeling tired all the time? Sleep regular hours, eat balanced meals, do some cardio
- Sadness and depression? Seek counseling/therapy, especially cognitive-behavioral therapy
- Eating more or eating less? Eat a regular diet, small regular meals
- Having trouble sleeping? Ask your doctor for a prescription sleep aid, consider relaxation CDs
- Feeling shaky or dizzy? Consult your doctor, practice meditation, guided imagery, biofeedback or yoga
- Sexual problems? Cuddle, hug, take the pressure off “performance”, seek couples counseling as needed
- Not interested in anything? Seek therapy for possible depression; get outside of yourself and volunteer to help others
- Increased use of drugs or alcohol? Practice harm reduction; reduce or eliminate these; find alternative “treats” and indulgences
- Getting angry more easily? Forgive yourself and others; practice relaxation
- Feeling out of control? Identify things you can control; do 2-3 things per day in support of yourself; say “I could _________” over and over; volunteer for a cause; keep a journal of your small successes each day
Coping with a layoff also involves dealing with the obvious financial crisis this often brings. Various time-honored tips for financial crisis management include the following:
- Evaluate your financial situation – know your monthly expenses and any income or resources; make a budget and stick to it
- Pay minimums on your credit cards and other debts, but keep every debt current
- Negotiate your “exit package” with your employer before you leave your job – severance pay, job search “outplacement” or resume service fees, extended health and other benefits beyond date of separation
- Try to take copies of important documents before you receive notice of layoff or the day of, if you are allowed to according to your company’s intellectual property policy – such as your Rolodex or Outlook contact files, important memos you wrote, brochures you made, photographs of projects, PowerPoint presentations, successful proposals or reports you wrote, – things that would be part of a “portfolio” of impressive work product samples to show new potential employers
- Get recommendation letters from colleagues, and a letter from Human Resources verifying that you were laid off, not fired
- Enroll in COBRA quickly to preserve your health care coverage for emergencies and routine care
- Make personal/professional business cards on VistaPrint.com to network with – give them out constantly after your layoff
- Pretend you have to live on much less than you actually have – try $10/day for everything
- Use social networking sites – Facebook, MySpace, LinkedIn, Craigslist
- Sell any unused stuff in a garage or yard sale – (Avoid Ebay; its owner is a major Prop 8 supporter!)
- Go back to basics – food, sleep, exercise, stress management, family/peer support
- Brainstorm cheap entertainment – games, books, discount theatres, home-made dinners
- Separate “you” from “you in the job” – you are/were NOT your job – recognize that you have a professional self that transcends any one organization or title
- Research public benefits – Enroll in CA Unemployment, or if you have a physical or psychiatric disability (stress, depression), consider talking to your doctor about enrolling in SDI, the CA short-term disability program (which pays more than Unemployment).
- Register with temporary agencies or make yourself available for consulting. Always network with others with a, “How can I serve you?” attitude, not a, “Give me a job” one.
- Make your job-hunt your new job – Follow a Monday-Friday, 9 to 5 schedule.
- Get new training or go back to school for new work skills, if necessary.
- Be open to taking what you can get job-wise, and make the most of it. Read Jack Canfield’s, The Success Principles for a detailed description of great attitudes to adopt.
- Grieve and vent a little; you have to get these feelings off your chest with someone.
Supporting a Partner Who’s Been Laid Off
Maybe it’s not you, but your partner who has been laid off. What do you do then? Here are some other tips:
- Offer support as he wants it – not how you want to give it. Does he need you to just listen? Give advice? Make jokes? Talk about it? NOT talk about it? Help him with job networking? Role-play “mock” job interviews to build confidence?
- Discuss the issue as a two-person family – don’t think in terms of you/me; it’s “US”
- Review your household budget and try to make some sacrifices evenly between the two of you
- Try to boost your partner’s self-esteem by giving sincere compliments and recognition of things he does well outside of work (I bet you know a few…*ahem*).
- Discuss how if one partner picks up more expenses, the other “contributes” in non-monetary ways such as more domestic duties; discuss what might be fair in terms of money, chores, and other contributions to the household
Handling Laying Off Employees
Perhaps it’s not you, or your partner, who has been laid off, but you’re the one doing the laying off as a manager or director in your company. This is a thankless, unpleasant, and guilt-inducing task, but at times it must be done for the good of the company you represent.
These are ways to cope with this chore:
- Separate your role as a manager/officer of the company from your relationships with colleagues
- Keep in contact with your supervisor and HR – use them as resources so you follow proper legal protocols and not feel isolated in this process
- Focus on your role to keep your whole department “sound” – it’s not about individual employees when you are a manager
- Find trusted “buddies” to vent to – preferably on the same management level (don’t vent to subordinates or superiors)
- Balance the number of “bodies” on your staff in terms of quality versus quantity of workers
- Be quick, firm, but compassionate – offer to write letters of recommendation or take reference calls, if your company allows that
- Don’t be omnipotent. These people are going to sink or swim, with or without you. You can’t take credit if someone leaves and is a success, and you can’t take blame if they leave and have hard times. There are too many variables besides you affecting that person’s success, and they have to take responsibility for their own lives
- Motivate the employees you have left – keep up morale with low-cost recognitions. The book 1,000 Ways to Reward Employees can help.
- Stop feeling guilty – most laid-off employees do just fine, relatively shortly
Finally, remember that economic recessions are inherently temporary. These downturns are to be expected at several points in the long span of your career, and it might help to evoke the ancient wisdom of, “This, too, shall pass.” And then, my friends, the party is ON!
Posted in Anxiety, Career/Work/Job Concerns, Life Changes, Life Skills, Life in West Hollywood/LA, Money Management | No Comments »
January 11th, 2009 khoward
My friend Jackson is an icon of Gay Men at Midlife. Honestly, if he’s what 50-plus is like, sign me up. First of all, his thick head of gray hair is the envy of men half his age. Then there’s his body, sculpted and luxuriously muscular, despite well over a decade of living with HIV. Then there’s his adorable partner, who both provides a youthful giggle and evokes one out of Jackson on a regular basis, about everything from current events to a friend’s amusing trials and tribulations. These are not to mention his professional success, allowing him to afford what is by any measure a luxurious standard of living. For Jackson, midlife is not tantamount to gloom, doom, and “gay invisibility”. How does he do it? We’ll examine this in a moment.
But for too many gay men at midlife (which varies in its definition from “anyone over 30” to silver foxes in their mid-40’s and well beyond), midlife is not a time of thriving, but of striving to cope with perceived losses of social status, physical prowess, and professional effectiveness. But in their classic book, “Golden Men: Gay Men at Midlife”, author Harold Kooden, Ph.D. and Charles Flowers state, “Forty is the age that gay men stop living their lives for others and start living them for themselves.” Amen to that. How liberating! As gay children and adolescents, we have “had” to capitulate to others (the dominant heterosexist paradigm) so often, that by midlife it gets weary to accommodate others’ prejudices AT ALL – and it’s then that we become the most self-liberated and unapologetic about our gay selves. Unfortunately, this also coincides with a time of feeling the sting of ageism from our community’s socially-powerful youth – some more frequently feeling it than others.
Midlife implies much just in its name: Mid, meaning equidistant between two points, and Life – the entire experience of being. In midlife, we are youthful enough to remember where we have been since birth, growing all the while physically and socially, but we also are old enough to begin to contemplate the idea of our own eventual demise – something that is said to distinguish humans from all other animals. Poor coping with midlife is tantamount to the worst of both worlds: not learning from our mistakes, trying to be something (youthful) that we are not, fearing for the future, and failing to appreciate fully both what is behind us and what is yet to come.
Skillful coping with midlife, however, involves the practical application of both cognitive and behavioral skills that help us to thrive with the “best of both worlds” – appreciating that we are not yet elderly, yet appreciating that we have achieved maturity. These are the skills of successful aging that I work with my psychotherapy and coaching clients on all the time. Erik Erickson, Ph.D, the psychologist and theorist, said that we all pass through certain important developmental phases in the human lifespan, and that every age has both a challenge and a reward. Part of the key to enjoying life is to enjoy each stage as it is experienced – not obsessing over the last one, nor anticipating the next, but enjoying the exact phase of life where you are. The same holds true with the Pagan concept of the Wheel of the Year (the seasons); you don’t try to build a snowman in July; you might enjoy the beach instead. And you don’t try to run through the sprinklers for fun in February (OK, except maybe some days in LA) – you work with what Mother Nature gives you at the time. This is part of the concept of the “local food” movement. Staying in the present moment, and enjoying it – even savoring it – is to some, the key to happiness.
What are the most important points of advice that I have observed in gay men who are the most successful at coping with Midlife? Here are a few:
- Don’t let anyone tell you, you can’t. I started gymnastics training at 34, and aerial training (Cirque du Soleil-style) at 43. “No” is a word that my ears tend to filter out. When we push our bodies gently, they tend to go in the direction we want. Midlife bodies are capable of much more than we originally think sometimes.
- Take care of your physical self. – It is the tendency of men at midlife to gain weight easily. Fight it. Exercise in a way that you find both fun and consistent. It is a myth that men at midlife must always be “paunchy.” Don’t be afraid to start at the beginning; the only requirement for being at a gym is the desire to work out. There is no beauty contest; only sincere users of efficiently-designed equipment. Go early or late if you want to avoid the whole “intimidating scene” aspect, but better yet, go anytime you want.
- Let go of past hurts – Women have outlived men for generations, and it’s theorized it’s because they just know how to handle stress better. Take a hint on women’s superior life expectancy data: Don’t sweat the small stuff, and work to resolve the big stuff.
- Learn from your mistakes. If you filed bankruptcy at 39, get on the ball with making and keeping a budget, setting aside money for retirement, and addressing (through behavioral therapy, if necessary) maladaptive spending habits. Commit to the concepts of Lifelong Learning and Continuous Quality Improvement.
- Respect what is your body’s friend, and what is not. Sugar, fat, carbs, alcohol, preservatives, gambling, sex, shopping, the Internet, and psychoactive substances all might have a role in life, perhaps occasionally a positive or useful one, but their role should only be in proportion to their cost-benefit ratio. Once that ratio is exceeded, put them in their proper place by any means necessary – from a short-time diet, to therapy, to a life in 12-Step programs.
- Get over your parents. Whatever damage they did to you as a child, by midlife, you’ve been an adult long enough to set aside those early challenges and take responsibility for your own success and destiny regardless. Interact with difficult aging parents or others only to the extent that you protect yourself from Interpersonal Toxicity by limiting your exposure to them (see Susan Forward’s book, Toxic Parents, for an explanation of this.)
- Use mentors. Just because you’re old enough to be father to an adult doesn’t mean you can’t still learn from those even older than you, or those who are younger but whose expertise is in a different area. Resist the social notion that older people are worthless. What comes out of their mouth in words of advice should be marketed as a commodity worth more than platinum.
- Let the young be as silly and stupid as you were – and you were. You had your turn making mistakes, let them make theirs. If they are ageist and don’t appreciate you, it’s their loss and their mistake. Don’t take their word as gospel. If you like younger guys, there are plenty who will like you; you don’t need them ALL to like you, just enough to give you a few hot tricks a year, or even one good trophy boyfriend.
- Ring them bells. Go out and meet your neighbors, coworkers, and colleagues who share your interests and invite people to share important activities with you. If you get a “no” 6 times for every “yes” to social invitations you extend, accept that the proportion sucks, but the “yeses” are worth it. People are lazy; that’s OK; you just do the inviting and the organizing of movies, dinners, concerts, theatre, theme parties, camping, volunteerism, and activism. Someone has to direct this cruise; it might as well be you. One of my favorite adages I give to my clients is: The Antidote to Loneliness is Initiative. It’s a small price to pay for always having something to do, and someone to do it with.
If these tips sound idealistic, they aren’t. I’ve seen guys in my practice apply versions of these frequently, and I’ve seen how the proper use of these skills raises the quality of life for gay men at midlife. Apply President-Elect Obama’s mantra: Yes We Can. If this interests you, learn how you can implement these skills and experience the same joy of this special time of life that we only pass through once.
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September 22nd, 2008 khoward
In my work as a psychotherapist and life coach, I am always grateful for the many and varied sources of inspiration that come my way. The latest uplifting piece of material I’ve come across is in music, in a relatively new song by country/pop star Dolly Parton, well-known by her fans and her colleagues for being so cheerful that she refers to herself as the “Dolly Lama” for being asked for her advice on how she keeps her perennially-positive attitude. Summarized in a song, “Better Get to Livin’”, (from her new CD, “Backwoods Barbie”) and featured in her new Broadway-bound musical version of “9 to 5”, opening soon in Los Angeles, Dolly describes her philosophy, available at iTunes.com or at http://www.dollyon-line.com/archives/lyrics/better_get_to_livin.shtml. The lyrics go like this:
:
“You better to get to livin’, givin’, Be willin’ and forgivin; ‘cause all healin’ has to start with you. You better stop whinin’, pinin’, Get your dreams in line, and then just shine, design, refine til they come true — and you better get to livin’.”
As simple as these words are, they reveal a similar philosophy about self-empowerment that I often teach my clients as I encourage them to identify, call forth, strengthen, and implement the skills of coping they need to face life’s challenges head-on. One of the best strategies for any challenge is to adopt as relentlessly positive an attitude as you possibly can, even if that’s hard to do. Earlier this year, when I was facing Total Hip Replacement surgery of my left femur bone joint in my left leg due to HIV-related Avascular Necrosis (crumbling bone), I took this attitude to prepare for my surgery. I worked out extra-hard the week before the surgery so that I would be in peak shape for my subsequent recovery and physical therapy. I was grateful for the not-so-bad hospital food, for the cute physical therapist, for the silly word games my fiancé played with me to pass the time, and for the nurses who took good care of me, I believe, in part due to the relentlessly polite and positive approach I gave them (I wanted them to be happy to answer my buzzer!). Later, I undertook my physical therapy not as a chore, but as a joy that the exercises would restore me to full athletic physical functioning — which they did, after only 12 weeks of consistent and diligent work. I don’t think it would have gone as fast or as well if I hadn’t been practicing Dolly’s advice — and this was before I learned about her song!
In daily practice with clients, I will often quote an inspirational song, story, script, or poem that I think might help them, or ask them to see if they can draw inspiration from a piece of music or literature that inspires them. Getting inspiration from the materials we are exposed to, and applying that material to challenging situations, is one aspect of emotional coping with the challenges that life inevitably tosses into our path.
Dolly’s song goes on to suggest that if “your life’s a wreck, your house is a mess, and your wardrobe’s way outdated, all your plans just keep on fallin’ through; overweight, underpaid, under-appreciated — I’m no guru, but I’ll tell you, this I know is true: You better to get to livin’, givin’, a little more thought about bein’ a little more willin’, to make a better way — Better start carin’, sharin’, tryin’, smilin’ — the day we’re born, we start to die, don’t waste a minute of this life — get to livin’.” All of these “in” verbs are a motivating list of how we need to jump-start our self-empowered attitudes. If something isn’t right, reach deep down into yourself and ask, “What do I need to evoke in myself to make things better?” Or, “What do I need to ask of others to make things better?” Knowing the internal resources we need (motivation, assertiveness, stamina, self-respect, effort, belief, inspiration, compassion) and the resources from others (information, elbow-grease, wisdom, time, compassion, faith, trust, courage, patience) helps us to assemble the tools we need to make change. Applying our resources — plus those we borrow from others — is what makes change in our lives.
Dolly’s more religious side suggests, “If it gets too rough, fall on your knees and pray — and do this every day.” For non-religious but perhaps more spiritual people, maybe it’s about meditating, concentrating, releasing, and believing. For people in AA, it’s about “giving it up” to a God of their understanding, or to their Higher Power. Sometimes, when it gets real rough, our spirituality has to augment all the resources that are within us and those near us. The anniversary of 9/11/01 comes to mind, or when things happen that seem to take all that we can give — and then some. When we really stretch at those times, we grow.
Lots of song lyrics can inspire us, and other materials that I can explain in therapy or coaching. What songs inspire you? Get to listenin’ — and get to livin’ — so that you, too, can Have The Life You Want!
Posted in HIV: Living Successfully, Health/Illness Management, Life Changes, Life Skills, Life in West Hollywood/LA, Motivation, Stress Management | No Comments »