For many, the security of having a job is essential for their well-being. If you know anything about Maslow’s hierarchy of needs, safety and employment are in the second level, just above breathing — so it’s pretty important.

If you are facing the threat of redundancy then I imagine you’re going through many different emotions right now, but there are some things you can do to help you deal with these rumors more easily.

Take my friends, for instance. A few welcome the idea of redundancy and are actively seeking to be made redundant. Others are struggling with the idea, mainly because of their unhealthy thinking about redundancy and how it will ultimately affect them.

It’s important to learn to deal with unknown threats well, otherwise anxiety can become overwhelming. Once that happens, it’s very easy to cause ourselves even more emotional, cognitive, and behavioral problems.

So what can those facing redundancy do?

First, understand that this is a rumor and may not be true. Worrying about something that doesn’t exist or over which you have no control is a waste of time and effort.

Second, check that you are not causing yourself anxiety by creating unhealthy thoughts and putting yourself in a “loss-condition.” That’s when you focus so much on the potential loss that you magnify it and take it to a catastrophic conclusion. For example, a person in a loss-condition might start thinking, “What if I lose my job? I can’t lose my job, that would be awful. What if I don’t find another one and can’t afford to pay my rent? My children won’t be able to go to school and my wife will leave me. I’ll then be alone and homeless on the streets. Oh God, I can’t stand it. This must not happen!”

The problem with creating this loss scenario is that once you think it, your mind will create a visual story of that thought and react accordingly. Your brain will begin to believe that thought is true. The more you think that irrational belief, the quicker your brain will recall that devastating visual and it’ll react to the threat by creating even more anxiety symptoms. Before you know it, you won’t be able to think clearly and cope with the threat or the reality of redundancy.

Essentially, you’ve created a fictitious scenario that your brain believes to be true. You’ll be convinced that this will be your ultimate outcome. This thinking is very dangerous to your health.

Third, while you are focusing on the loss scenario, you are not focused on what you might be able to do to help yourself if the redundancy does become real and does affects you. While you’re becoming more anxious and spending more time thinking about how awful life will be, you could have gotten your resume updated, gotten an idea about the state of your finances, checked out insurance policies to see if you have unemployment payment protection, and so on. (There are many good sites that offer practical advice.)

It’s perfectly healthy to have concerns over being made redundant, because it’s not a small thing. It’s also healthy to be cautious and prepared for the possibility that you may be made redundant. But it’s too easy to let our healthy concerns turn into unhealthy anxiety.

With just a small change in thinking, while rationally assessing the situation, you will be putting yourself in a healthier position to react, and manage any potential loss situation in healthier, more productive ways.

But one aspect of getting divorced — or breaking up with your boyfriend or girlfriend — that can and probably will cause all kinds of problems is if you end up having sex with your ex. Oh yes, it happens. Hey, don’t look so shocked, you know you’ve done it.

Sometimes it’s not a planned thing. Sometimes it just ‘happened’ that one night when he came over to collect his Eminem CD’s, slanket, and favorite Big Bird mug. Or you may have a regular thing going on because your ex is ‘so damn hot’.

Whatever the circumstance, you might want to ask yourself, “Is this really a good idea?”

Whom you choose to have sex with is up to you. However, having sex with your ex could be setting yourself up for an ultimately unsatisfactory, long-drawn-out experience.

For both parties, the idea of losing a long-term relationship and being alone can be scary as hell. Often the attachment with your partner is still going to be strong in the early stages of divorce or separation, so letting go of that is going to be incredibly hard. You’ll have much shared history and familiarity. Thinking you can just turn your back on that and move on overnight is unlikely. Which is why, if your ex calls, it’s easy to give in and go running to the safety of someone who knows you.

The trouble is, sex probably isn’t going to solve past problems, especially if those problems were around communication, appreciation, emotional support or trust.

It’s amazing how the world looks like a better place after sex. That sense of happiness that intimacy brings is due to endorphins being released into the brain. Essentially, sex is crack for your brain. For that brief period after sex, anything will seem better. You’ll forget the midnight arguments, verbal abuse, and how sick you feel when they clip their toenails in front of the TV while you’re trying to watch “Castle.”

If you’ve got to a place in your relationship where divorce is the only solution to your differences, then there’s a good chance sex with your ex will only complicate matters. But if you still want to go ahead and do it, then do it. There is no right or wrong in this situation, only what you think is right for you.

However, here are a few things to think about before making a choice to get jiggy with your ex:

• Why did you get divorced or breakup in the first place? Did you have a good reason? Will sex make that right?
• Do you still have strong feelings of love for your partner, or do you just have fear of being alone?
• Are you or your partner using sex to try to keep the relationship going instead of facing the discomfort of ending?
• Will having sex muddy the waters? If you plan on moving on from your ex, being intimate with them means you’re not moving on.
• Is this an exclusive thing? Are you OK being a sex-buddy? Who else are they having sex with? Are you using protection?
• How will you feel if your partner tells you they’re seeing somebody else?

Remember, the reason to get divorced or to breakup is to dissolve the relationship — dissolve, as in make disappear.

Getting back with your ex for the occasional night of passion might seem fun, but it usually prolongs the inevitable ending, which can make it harder to forge new healthy relationships. An ending that you face and accept, no matter how uncomfortable in the short-term, will be better in the long run. Still, the choice is yours.

Now, in addition to your original stressor, you’re under more pressure because you’re scrambling to find lost keys, dealing with hurt feelings or frantically reconstructing forgotten projects.

And on top of that, when stressed, our emotions are running rampant. That scramble for the keys is anything but calm and a remark from your mother about that missed phone call can send you deep into guilt.

It’s easy to attribute these lapses in memory and emotional intensity to simple overload. When we’re stressed it’s typically at least in part because we’ve got too much going on and we just don’t have the capacity to keep up with everything.

Scientists have known what common sense tells us — that stress has an impact on memory and emotion.  But it’s not just that we have a lot going on and aren’t paying attention. Stress actually has an impact on how the brain processes information and stores memories. And research over the last several decades has pinpointed changes in certain areas of the brain during times of stress.

Now new research, published in the Journal of Neuroscience builds on previous understanding of the brain. It suggests that dramatic changes that occur in the brain when under stress are linked to our emotions and scattered memory.

Chronic stress affects two important areas of the brain when it comes to memory: the hippocampus and the amygdala.

In this new research, electrical signals in the brain associated with the formation of factual memories weaken while areas in the brain associated with emotion strengthen.

So, according to these researchers, with increasing stress, our brains are wired to discount factual information and to rely heavily on emotional experiences.

“Our findings suggest that the growing dominance of amygdalar activity over the hippocampus during and even after chronic stress may contribute to the enhanced emotional symptoms, alongside impaired cognitive function, seen in stress-related psychiatric disorders,” the researchers suggest.

So when you’re under stress — like when you’ve forgotten that important work document and your boss makes a comment that causes you to turn to jelly inside — keep in mind that your brain is wired to highlight the emotional part of her message. The factual part of the message may be lost altogether, which can leave you both intensely emotional and failing to act on important facts.

Begin to think about some new channels of growth for yourself, as the time of year for sprouts and buds and new green shoots has begun here in the northern hemisphere.

Seedlings and fresh growth are just busting out now, reaching for the sun’s light and warmth. The approach we take to our challenges, to what has been negatively buried or merely incubating, should be the same. Especially in this time of tremendous new growth, it is good to reflect on our own striving for warmth, insight, nourishment and potential to expand.

So what kinds of questions could you ask yourself to help nurture this growth?

Some questions to think on as your fingers work in soil or you tread paths in spring woods:

• Anything keeping you down, not allowing you to grasp for new means of expanding your life professionally, personally, in relationship?
• Just what are you experiencing that is keeping you from peace and wholeness?
• How did you previously move beyond past limitations, and how have past problems been a force for change in your life?

Upon our reflection, while the earth is engaged in upheaval, the past insight we have gained over challenges and transitions will allow for our own enrichment. And some of the best revelations happen when we allow ourselves not to think directly on problems but instead immerse in other activity. New means of understanding ourselves, our lives, and our world surely will sprout as well. In fact, we as humans are called to grasp for more, reaching ever beyond our boundaries.

Explore a different path in the woods. Take one you are not accustomed to and which evokes a little anxiety, for whatever reason. Go to a new coffee shop and challenge yourself to talk to someone you do not know (at an appropriate time).

Take a course, perhaps one of the novel MOOCs (Massive Open Online Courses) really coming into fruition now. They are free and offered both by the most prestigious universities or more casual ones. You’d have no excuse of inconvenience or cost as these cater truly to the individual spirit clamoring for knowledge.

What you cultivate literally will lift you up and out into an evolving, perhaps entirely new, way of being.
Channels of growth occur after seeds are planted in anticipation. Not all seeds flower. Some become different looking (or tasting) than they were supposed to. Great surprises happen.

Spring is a great time to ready yourself for what is about to flower. We are not meant to stagnate (though so many of us do, continually or periodically). Think of your own growth and just what channels that might take.

What sort of flower might you grow into?

I have seen enough episodes to ask the question, “Why?”

What draws people to watch faithfully every week or watch every series every week? What satisfaction is had by watching women backstab each other, trash-talk each other behind each other’s backs, steal each other’s men, lie and manipulate others for attention, and flaunt their excessive lifestyles?

In short, what is to be gained by watching women treat each other so poorly?

This type of show seems only to feed the drama and stereotypes often associated with female friendships. Somehow it has become “entertaining” to watch women beat each other up mentally, emotionally, and in some cases physically each week in the “entertainment” boxing ring.

In an effort to learn more about the appeal of the “Real Housewives” antics, I started to wonder if those addicted to the show related in any way because of their own real-life friendships. Do the most loyal fans watch to find out why these women behave the way the do, or do they watch because they can resonate with them or find aspects about the “characters” they relate to or even secretly admire in some cases? Loyal fans have their favorites and in most cases fans seem to be drawn to the most outrageous, vindictive, and despicable woman among the group.

Some fans argue they watch the show because it is like a train wreck that they can’t help but watch. However, the difference between a train wreck and the “Real Housewives” is that unlike a train wreck, which is a horrible accident, the “Real Housewives” is a horribly staged event with the sole intent of setting women up to knock each other down.

So for all of you who Real Housewives fans, I challenge you to take this mini-quiz to see how your real-life friendships stack up to the ones on this widely popular show.

1. Do you spend most of your time with your friends gossiping and judging other friends or people in general? Or do you find the time you spend with your friends is often spent listening to them gossip about and judge other people?
2. Do you gossip about your friends behind their backs rather than talk to them directly about something that’s bothering you or about some ongoing conflict? Or do your friends gossip to you about friends they are having issues with versus talking to that person directly?
3. Do you get defensive if a friend tries to communicate to you their feelings or take it as an insult or criticism? Or do you find that when you try to talk to your friends about something they said or did that upset you, they react in ways that make you feel like you did something wrong and even some cases they stop talking to you?
4. Do your loyalties shift depending on which friend you happen to be with at the moment? Or do you find your friends’ loyalties seem to shift depending on who they are around?
5. Do you find you have very little to say to a friend if you aren’t gossiping about another friend or passing judgment on others in general? Or do you find your friend has very little to say to you other than sharing gossip or criticisms of others?

If you have answered “yes” to any of these questions, then it may be time to take a closer look at the quality of your friendships, and even how your friends would rate you as a friend. Are these the type of friendships you want to put your energy into, and is this the type of friend you want to be considered as by others?

If you are guilty of any of these “Real Housewives” types of behaviors, it is pretty safe to assume that the ones you are exhibiting this behavior with are doing the exact same thing with the other “housewives” in your group when you are not around.

As a psychotherapist, I can’t count how many times I have seen individuals and couples struggle with building healthy connections in their relationships.

The most common complaint has been that they feel unfulfilled, devalued or unappreciated in relationships with others. It is my professional experience that when we get caught up in what others can do to make us feel good about ourselves, we are likely to become angry and resentful.

So how do you avoid the resentment trap in your relationship?

Four Tips to Avoid the Resentment Trap

1. Ask yourself: Am I being realistic with my expectations?

Perhaps due to unmet needs, you project your disappointments onto people who are incapable of meeting your standards. No one person can meet all of your needs. If this describes you in relationships, you will ultimately set yourself up for feeling unfulfilled and empty. Friendships, work relationships, family and partners all participate in your life in meaningful ways. But in the end, it is up to you to love yourself the way you deserve to be loved.

One common theme of having unrealistic expectations is getting caught up in the fantasy of what a relationship is supposed to look like — for example, having expectations that your “Prince Charming” will sweep you off your feet and all of your troubles will slip magically away. Now if this isn’t a resentment waiting to happen, I’m not sure what is!

How many women have dreamed of having their lives turn out like the fairy tale endings of Cinderella and Sleeping Beauty? Realistically, how many women have had those fantasies fulfilled to their expectations?

2. Remind yourself: I am a valuable, lovable human being.

No one person can make you feel good all of the time. You can feel loved in another’s presence, but if you choose one person to define how you feel in a relationship, you will be setting yourself up for deep disappointment. If you don’t feel good about yourself, begin by acting as if you do by creating a loving mantra and reciting it each morning in front of the mirror before the day begins. Examples may include “I deserve love,” “I am lovable,” and “I am perfect just the way I am.” Recite a mantra often enough and you will begin to believe it!

3. Surround yourself with healthy people.

By healthy people, I mean people who accept you unconditionally. I am talking about people who don’t shame you or try to prevent you from making your own decisions. These are individuals who will support you with your day-to-day challenges, accept you for your “human-ness” and are okay with you making mistakes. Write a list of people you know who have these qualities and keep in contact with at least one of them on a daily basis. These are also individuals who you can give you a healthy reality check. If you struggle with an issue that keeps you feeling stuck, ask for their perspective.

4. Focus on self-care.

If you deplete yourself to the point of exhaustion, it is far more likely that you will be vulnerable to wanting your needs met by others. You may possibly go to a child-like place and demand that you get your needs met immediately. I see this sort of thing in my work with clients who are struggling in love-addicted or codependent relationships.

So what is the best remedy for healing the vulnerable child within? Replace your expectations with gentle guidance and nurture yourself through a walk, deep breathing, a yoga class, journaling or meditation. Get to know yourself better.

One exercise I recommend is making an inventory of your strengths and weaknesses. Think deeply about your interests and passions. How can you begin focusing more on the things that bring you joy? You deserve loving care — and who better than yourself to give it to you?

Proper treatment doesn’t suppress emotions or dull a person’s ability to feel things deeply. It builds a protective layer — an emotional resilience — to safeguard a depressive from becoming overwhelmed and disabled by the difficulties of daily life.

However, the tools found in happiness research are those I practice in my recovery from depression and anxiety, even though, theoretically, I can be happy and depressed at the same time. I came up with my own recovery program that coincides with the steps toward happiness published in positive psychology studies.

1. Sleep

Sleep is crucial to sanity because sleep disturbances can contribute to, aggravate, and even cause mood disorders and a host of other illnesses. The link between sleep deprivation and psychosis was documented in a 2007 study at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. Using MRI scans, they found that sleep deprivation causes a person to become irrational because the brain can’t put an emotional event in proper prospective and is incapable of making an appropriate response. Chronic sleep deprivation, especially, is bad news. It often affects memory and concentration. And, according to one recent study, it can cause a decline in cognitive performance similar to the intoxicated brain.

2. Diet

My mouth and brain are in constant negotiation with each other because while one loves white bread, pasta, and chocolate, the other throws a hissy fit whenever they enter my blood stream. My diet has always been an important part of my recovery from depression, but two years ago — after working with the naturopath and reading Kathleen DesMaison’s “Potatoes Not Prozac” — I could more competently trace the path from my stomach to my limbic system. Moreover, I recognized with new clarity how directly everything that I put in my mouth affects my mood.

Here are the bad boys: nicotine, caffeine, alcohol, sugar, white flour, and processed food — you know, what you live on. Here are the good guys: protein; complex starches (whole grains, beans, potatoes); vegetables; vitamins (vitamin B-complex, vitamins C, D, and E, and a multivitamin); minerals (magnesium, calcium, and zinc); and omega-3 fatty acids. I’m religious about stocking up on omega-3 capsules because leading physicians at Harvard Medical School confirmed the positive effects of this natural, anti-inflammatory molecule on emotional health.

3. Exercise

Dr. James A. Blumenthal, a professor of medical psychology at Duke University, led a recent study in which he and his team discovered that, among the 202 depressed people randomly assigned to various treatments, three sessions of vigorous aerobic exercise were approximately as effective at treating depression as daily doses of Zoloft, when the treatment effects were measured after four months. A separate study showed that the depressives who improved with exercise were less likely to relapse after 10 months than those treated successfully with antidepressants, and the participants who continued to exercise beyond four months were half as likely to relapse months later compared to those who did not exercise.

Even as little as 20 minutes a week of physical activity can boost mental health. In a new Scottish study, reported in the British Journal of Sports Medicine, 20,000 people were asked about their state of mind and how much physical activity they do in a week. The results showed that the more physical activity a person engaged in — including housework, gardening, walking, and sports — the lower their risk of distress and anxiety.

Exercise relieves depression in several ways. First, cardiovascular workouts stimulate brain chemicals that foster growth of nerve cells. Second, exercise increases the activity of serotonin and/or norepinephrine. Third, a raised heart rate releases endorphins and a hormone known as ANP, which reduces pain, induces euphoria, and helps control the brain’s response to stress and anxiety. Other added benefits include improved sleep patterns, exposure to natural daylight (if you’re exercising outside), weight loss or maintenance, and psychological aids.

4. Relationships and Community

We are social creatures and are happiest when we are in relationship. One of the clearest findings in happiness research is that we need each other in order to thrive and be happy, that loving relationships are crucial to our well-being. Relationships create a space of safety where we can learn and explore. Belonging to a group or a community gives people a sense of identity. Studies indicate that social involvement can promote health, contribute toward faster recovery from trauma and illness, and lower the risk of stress-related health problems and mental illness.

Plenty of evidence indicates that support groups aid the recovery of persons struggling with depression and decrease rates of relapse. The New England Journal of Medicine published a study in December 2001 in which 158 women with metastatic breast cancer were assigned to a supportive-expressive therapy. These women showed greater improvement in psychological symptoms and reported less pain than the women with breast cancer who were assigned to the control group with no supportive therapy.

Another study in 2002, published in the American Journal of Psychiatry, followed a group of more than 100 persons with severe depression who joined online depression support groups. More than 95 percent of them said that their participation in the online support groups helped their symptoms. The online groups here on Psych Central are a great resource where you can find support from people going through similar struggles.

5. Purpose

The father of positive psychology, Martin Seligman, explains in his book, “Authentic Happiness,” that a critical element to happiness exists in using your signature strengths in the service of something you believe is larger than you. After collecting exhaustive questionnaires he found that the most satisfied people were those that had found a way to use their unique combination of strengths and talents to make a difference. Dan Baker, Ph.D., director of the Life Enhancement Program at Canyon Ranch, believes that a sense of purpose — committing oneself to a noble mission — and acts of altruism are strong antidotes to depression. And then there’s Gandhi, who wrote: “the best way to find yourself is to lose yourself in the service of others.”

6. Gratitude

Gratitude doesn’t come easily to me. When my girlfriend sees a half-full glass of fresh milk, I see a half-empty glass of cholesterol-rising, cardiac-arresting agents. And when the kids’ school is called off because some road somewhere in our county apparently accumulated a half of an inch of snow, she thanks God for an opportunity to build snowmen with she kids. I have a conversation with God, too, but it’s much different.

However, I train myself to say thank you more often than is natural for me because I know that gratitude is like broccoli — good for your health in more than one way. According to psychologists like Sonja Lyubomirsky at the University of California Riverside, keeping a gratitude journal — where you record once a week all the things you have to be grateful for — and other gratitude exercises can increase your energy, and relieve pain and fatigue.

Shameless plug! Join me at one of three private screenings of “Happy,” a film that explores what makes us happy, followed by a discussion on depression and happiness and a book signing. Click the following links for more information:

When we function in a healthy manner, we don’t just experience joy and happiness, prancing around without a care in the world. We actually still experience a range of emotions, some of which can be very difficult to live with.

It’s absolutely healthy to feel anxiety, depression, anger, jealousy, envy, guilt, hurt or shame. But what makes experiencing these emotions healthy is that we don’t linger in them for longer than is good for us. We don’t demand that they ‘go away.’ We accept the appropriateness of how we feel, and do something about our situation.

Let me give you an example of how a person’s thinking can perpetuate depression.

Imagine that your favorite dog was very sick and you took her to the vet, who tells you she’s in a lot of pain and it’s best to euthanize her. How do you think you might feel? Very sad (most likely), guilty (perhaps), happy (to some degree if you know you can stop her suffering). So, do those emotions seem healthy and appropriate to you? Of course they do, and to experience them is human.

Given the choice, you may not have wanted to face that situation in the first place, but we can’t always pick and choose what happens to us in life. We can only choose how we deal with those situations when they arise.

So how could a person drive themselves into depression after such an event? It’s easy. When a person feels sad about a loss or death, if they start taking far too much responsibility for what happened and judging themselves negatively, then depression will be only a short taxi ride away. The kind of thinking that perpetuates depression will be thoughts such as “I’m such a bad person for killing her,” “I should have done more to make her life happy,” “I should have taken her to the vet sooner and I would have saved her.”

None of those statements is wholly true, yet when you repeat them, you start to believe it and you feel depressed. You’ll even start acting depressed. Instead of going out for a walk, which you used to enjoy, you might stay at home watching TV, because ‘there’s no point in going out without your dog.’ You might even stop socializing with other dog walkers and so you’ll become more isolated, which perpetuates the problem.

So from a healthy sadness about the loss of a loved pet, with unhealthy thinking and behavior, your mood sinks into depression. And once there, it is a lot harder to get out of than when you’re healthily sad.

Anxiety, on the other hand, is depression’s opposite. Rather than dwelling on the past, people with anxiety tend to focus on the possible threat in the future, and employ defensive mechanisms against that perceived threat or problem. Let me give you another example.

Frank gives a presentation at work that doesn’t go down well with his boss. Frank gets shouted at and bawled out for not doing a good enough job. His boss also tells him that he must improve before the next presentation or else! How do you think you might feel? Disappointed (sure). Frustrated (maybe). Concerned (oh yeah).

So how does Frank perpetuate his anxiety? The first thing he does is to fly into the future and use ‘what if’ and ‘if…then’ type thinking. “If I deliver another bad presentation, then my boss will fire me.” “What if I can’t do it the way he wants?” “What if I’m terrible?”

These ‘what if’ thoughts are the precursors to the unhealthy demands that lead to anxiety: “I must know that the presentation will go well.” “I must not screw up the presentation or my boss will fire me.” “I must be perfect.”

The trouble with these irrational demands is that they lead to anxious behaviors: spending hours on the presentation; not sleeping; seeking others’ opinions; asking for reassurance; feeling nauseous beforehand; sweating; feeling ill at ease.

Clearly, Frank is not in a good state to be giving a presentation. He’ll most likely deliver a sub-par presentation. What do you think will happen next time he needs to give a presentation? He’ll feel worse.

To end these destructive cycles, we need to understand that emotions — even the difficult ones — are healthy. Emotions should be used as a guide to let us know that something is off-balance and might need changing. When we demand unreasonable things from ourselves, we’re destined to feel strong, unhealthy emotions.

It’s a thin line between healthy and unhealthy emotions, but by understanding how our thinking perpetuates our emotional disturbance, we can become a healthier version of ourselves.

There’s something strangely comforting in looking at these lists and hoping that our life problems can be boiled down into five simple steps. I read them hoping for the answers, because I too want the secret to life, the universe, and everything.

However, I think the reality is this: As much as some lists offer interesting ideas, the majority mislead people about change. They offer false hope instead of facts. They generally encourage people to think their lives can be simpler if only they do those five secret things that may have worked for another person.

Come on, really? Life is so complex and the reasons why we feel and do what we do also are complex.

Take depression, for example. The reality is nobody really knows why people feel depressed; and nobody really knows what will cure each individual’s depression. When talking about cause and effect, there are so many factors to take into account: cognitive, environmental, social, biological.

What we do have is good empirical evidence that some therapies can help some people overcome depression. But that doesn’t mean everyone will overcome it through therapy. I’ve worked with many people and, for whatever reason, they remain depressed and sometimes become even more depressed. When that happens, the focus of therapy changes to learning to live with being depressed. No list is going to change that.

We know that medication can help. But it doesn’t help everyone. More often than not, medication is guesswork — an art more than a science. What works for one person can make another person sick. I’ve seen some people recover in a matter of weeks, and others poisoned to the point of hospitalization. Where’s the five-point list on that one?

Advances in neuroscience are helping us understand the brain and how it works. Yet, even super-intelligent scientists with the most sophisticated technology don’t fully understand what is causing depression. So, can a five-point list really tell us how to overcome it?

It’s clearly frustrating not knowing the secret to being well. As a therapist and coach, it’s my job to help somebody get well, so it’s easy to hope a list will provide me with the secrets that’ll help me and the person I’m working with.

But many lists just don’t cut it. I was reading a list on procrastination the other week and the first thing on the list was something like ‘just do it.’ I can imagine all the people who procrastinate reading that and thinking, “Wow, that’s amazing. Why didn’t I think of that?”

OK, I’m knocking these lists, so I must know all the answers, right? Nope. I wish I did but unfortunately I don’t (please don’t tell my wife I said that). With that being said, I will now counter everything I’ve just written and offer you my own secret five-point list to life, the universe and everything.

1. You are personally responsible for all that you think, do, and (mostly) feel.
2. Accept reality: Life doesn’t owe you a thing.
3. You are you. Nobody can ever know what it means to be you, so be kind to yourself and others.
4. Life is meaningless, except for the meaning that you give it — so use that power wisely.
5. Nobody has all the answers. We’re all just making stuff up as we go along, hoping for the best.

With social media a major part of teens’ lives, it’s important they have a healthy relationship with the Internet. What does this look like?

According to Udall-Weiner, it resembles any healthy relationship: It has boundaries.

It also shouldn’t have to meet all their needs, including emotional, social, intellectual and spiritual, she said. For instance, sites like Facebook, Twitter and Pinterest should never replace face-to-face interactions, she said. Instead, they should supplement them. That’s because online interactions lack the emotional depth and support of real-time relationships. “…[I]t’s hard to know whether someone is trustworthy, loyal, and invested in your well-being.”

The Internet also lets people keep a comfortable distance from others. Udall-Weiner cited MIT professor Sherry Turkle, who believes the Internet provides “the illusion of companionship, without the demands of friendship,” and “people are comforted by being in touch with a lot of people, whom they also keep at bay.”

Fortunately, parents can teach their kids to use the Internet in healthy ways. Below, Udall-Weiner shared five strategies.

What Parents Can Do

In Udall-Weiner’s experience, parents approach Internet use with extremes: “they either prohibit it, or they pretend it doesn’t exist, since they’re quite terrified to find out what their child is really doing online.” Instead, she suggested communicating with your kids and teaching them to be more aware of how they use the Internet.

1. Talk to your teen about their time online.

Talking to your kids about how they use social media and technology helps them break out of autopilot and become more mindful of their actions and reactions, Udall-Weiner said. “[This] is an important skill when it comes to developing emotional competence.” It’s important for teens to understand how being online affects them (such as their mood).

She suggested asking your kids these questions: “Which websites do you often visit?  How do you feel emotionally, both during and after using these sites? Have you ever had any uncomfortable experiences online, or seen anything upsetting? Do you believe that there are any downsides to viewing the sites you regularly visit, or to using the Internet in general?”

2. Teach your teen to be media literate.

A mistake parents often make, according to Udall-Weiner, is that they don’t teach their kids about media literacy. But it’s vital for kids to understand that what they see isn’t what they get online. For instance, “Parents need to actively remind their children that images are not reality—that no one is as thin, perfectly-muscled, unwrinkled, or flawless as that person in the ad.” She suggested visiting Media Smarts for more information.

3. Set time limits on Internet use.

Teens are still developing their executive functions, which include monitoring behavior, organizing information and setting goals, she said. Plus, spending too much time on sites like Facebook can make teens feel worse. “My clients regularly tell me that they become very upset after looking at Facebook, since everyone looks happier, thinner, or more popular than they feel.” So parents might need to set restrictions on Internet use.

4. Surrender all phones before bedtime.

“This is a way to ensure that kids aren’t up late texting or surfing the web, rather than getting precious sleep,” Udall-Weiner said. This rule also applies to parents’ phones, “since kids emulate what they see.”

5. Know the research about Internet use.

Research has suggested that looking at images of thin models — which are splashed all over the Internet — may be associated with various negative consequences. “After seeing these images, people report things like decreased self-esteem, poor body image, depression, guilt, shame, stress, and an urge to engage in eating-disordered behavior, such as restricting food intake,” said Udall-Weiner. She also specializes in body image and eating disorders and founded ED Educate, a website with resources for parents.

Research also has suggested that the Internet makes us feel more disconnected from others, she said. “It’s important for teens to know the research on Internet use.” Talk to your kids about these findings.

Udall-Weiner shares more information and tips on supervising your child’s Internet use in this video.

You are wonderful, fantastic, downright spectacular. No? You don’t think so?

Every day I hear people put themselves down. They curse themselves for being stupid, a failure, or weak. My answer to them is always the same — sure. But let’s be clear what we’re talking about. You, the totality of you, is not stupid. The whole of you is not a failure. Your entire being is not weak.

Oh, it’s true that you may fail at certain tasks. You may act stupidly, and do dumb things. You may also show weakness in the face of difficulties. But these are things that you do, not who you are.

And by making this simple but important distinction — the things that you do versus who you are — you are taking a big step toward being a happier, healthier you.

The problem of rating the totality of yourself as good or bad, rather than rating your actions, or behaviors, is that you are setting yourself up to be an emotional mess.

When we make the mistake of rating ourselves as good or bad, we feel miserable for not thinking we’re good enough. Or, when we rate ourselves as good, we run the risk of setting ourselves up to feel bad when we fail at something. Either way, we’re in trouble.

Humans cannot be all good or all bad. So rating yourself this way is totally irrational. Learn to let go of this old rating system and you will feel better about yourself.

Today you may screw up that report for your boss. You may forget to wish your wife a happy anniversary, and you may act selfishly and somebody else might feel hurt. But that makes you human, as human as anyone else. For all those things that you do that may not be so great, there will be a million things that you do that are stunning. Yet most of those actions you won’t even recognize, or remember, as they’re automatic.

Yes, you are a flawed human being — but you are also amazing for it, not despite it.

One of those things was eat ice cream. A lot. So I gained a few pounds. It was time to buy new pants anyway. The only important thing was that my medicine was working and I was feeling good. I felt like participating in my life again. Feeling good and eating ice cream were natural.

But then I broke the couch.

Maybe it was a coincidence that I was the one whose bottom touched the couch and made it go POP and collapse. But it had occurred to me, in that moment I felt the couch break underneath me, that I had gained a lot of weight. And that was enough to tell me that all this weight gain was starting to bother me.

I finally realized that as my mood had gone up, so had my weight; maybe my medicine came with a trade-off. I’d never had a medicine that made me gain weight before or gave me cravings that led to weight gain. But here I was.

I’d always told people in the same situation that it didn’t matter if they gained weight. Obviously mental health is more important than gaining a few pounds.

But is there a line that can get crossed, where weight gain can make the scales tip in favor of switching meds? What’s the number? 15 pounds? 25 pounds? 30 pounds? 50 pounds? In what span of time? One month, three months, a year? What is OK and not OK?

Mental health is most important, but at what point does weight gain also affect health? It affects physical health, like blood pressure and risk factors that come with obesity (I am now technically obese), but I’m not even talking about the physical drawbacks of weight gain. What I’m irrationally worried about is the emotional toll that weight gain can cause.

I’m not satisfied with what the medicine is doing with my body. I don’t feel like myself. I feel like myself when I was pregnant, only without a baby, meaning I feel too big and tired and slow. That is affecting my mental health. Not in a serious, clinical way. But in a way that is still real.

Still, I would never stop a drug that’s working in favor of nothing, or one that didn’t work, to be able to lose weight. I’ve been in the dark hole that depression is, and there’s no way I would jeopardize my own quality of life or my family’s with my vanity. But it’s a little tempting, when I’m still on my meds and they’re working well, but there’s just this one side effect…. And I think, maybe I could stop. But I wouldn’t just stop; I would switch to something else, after talking with my doctor like I should. I’m more vain than I realized, but I’m also even more terrified of falling into depression again.

One of the most disconcerting things is the feeling that I don’t have power over my body. Even when I eat well, and exercise, and sweat off what feels like pounds of water, it turns out I have actually gained weight. I haven’t lost a single pound since I started my medicine several months ago. That unsettles me and makes me feel a tiny bit like I do in a depressed state: I am not in control of my body.

This doesn’t cause me to lose hope in general, to think that there won’t be a better time. But it does cause me to lose confidence in myself. I’m already on shaky ground, living with mental illness. Will I feel good today or bad? How am I feeling? But now, I add, How do I look? How much have I gained? to the daily evaluations. I can’t always depend on my mind; now I can’t depend on my body.

Having a mental illness throws new challenges at me at every turn. Even when I feel well, it still reminds me of its presence, in this case, through these extra pounds clinging to me. I believe that there might be side effects and trade-offs to medication, but I also believe they saved my life, or at least saved the quality of my life, and that it’s worth it. And I believe the perfect medication might be out there, waiting to still be discovered for me.

Maybe I’ll always have to make the decision between effective medicine and side effects like weight gain. But I have hope that someday I won’t have to.

Some people believe that humiliation is a good teacher. You gotta learn. You must not forget. You will be punished if you don’t do it right. Humiliation will make a lesson stick.

These folks are right — humiliation is a good teacher.

But the lesson you learn is not what the teacher is intending. You don’t learn to do things better. You don’t learn to upgrade your skills. You don’t learn to trust your ability to learn.

What you do learn, instead, is to:

• Embrace rigidity. “I can’t do this. No way. No how.”

• Play it safe. “I’ll just make a fool of myself so I’m sticking to the tried and true.”
• Shirk responsibility. “It’s too hard for me; you have to do it for me.”
• Develop a fixed perspective. “I’ve never been any good at this and I never will be.”

Yes, humiliation throws cold water on the joy of learning and shuts down the joy of risk-taking. Indeed, a single dose of humiliation in a vulnerable child can lead to a belief that “I can’t do it,” while a regular dose of humiliation will profoundly cripple a child’s belief in himself and in his ability to learn. “I’m dumb. I’m stupid. I’m no good. And don’t try to convince me otherwise.”

If you’ve been exposed to the debilitating effects of humiliation, it’s time to rectify the damage that has been done. Here’s what you must do:

• Know that there’s nothing immutable about what you know and don’t know. All you can honestly say is that you don’t know how to do something yet. Put the time and effort into it, and you’ll be surprised at what you can learn.

• A mistake is not a felony. And it’s certainly not deserving of capital punishment. The most you can say is, it’s a misdemeanor or an oops! Just an error. Something that slipped your mind. Something you forgot because you were distracted. Next time you make a mistake, don’t agonize over it. Instead, acknowledge it. Fix it (if you can). Learn from it. Move on to your next challenge.
• Keep stretching. Keep reaching. Keep learning. Make new mistakes; it means your mind is active. You have not given up on yourself. You are not content to live within a comfort zone the size of a postage stamp. No, that’s not for you. It’s a big wide world out there, with lots of things to learn. You want to be a part of the world. Not apart from the world.
• No matter how much you learn, how much you know, there will be stuff you don’t know. This is not proof of your stupidity. It is not something to be ashamed of. It is simply life. We cannot know it all.
• When you don’t know what to do, improvise. That’s what everybody else is doing (whether they admit it or not). Make it up on the spot. Sometimes it will work out well. Sometimes it won’t. That’s the nature of life.
• When something intrigues you, go for it. Don’t tell yourself “I’m no good at this.” Take up the challenge. Put in the hard work. Ask for assistance. Tolerate the discomfort. And watch yourself bloom.

Whatever humiliating experiences you have had in the past, do not let them continue to define you today. Right now, this moment, this very moment, before you put this article down, say something that gives homage to who you are and what you’re about. If whatever you say brings a smile to your face or warmth to your inner being, you know you’ve chosen the right words.

This is one of those studies that take a moment to get your mind around.

Imagine you are an itinerant individual living in absolute penury in a third-world country. You survive by going through other people’s garbage and extracting your food for the day as well as other essentials like clothing and footwear. You live your life hand to mouth and what your hand finds are the things others have discarded. You recycle what you can for money, and this considerable effort earns you about $3 a day.

By downward social comparison, almost anyone seeing a person living in these conditions would assume the individuals engaged in this activity would resent their life circumstance and view their life as anything but happy.

But this study shows this is a false assumption.

Not only are these people not depressed, they are optimistic, have good relationships, and many of them play sports and read. The majority of them are happy with their lives.

Extreme poverty is considered to have a negative effect on happiness. In those instances, when poor people are happy, it is attributed either to their having very low future expectations or having adapted to their circumstances. But this study showed something different. Overall these rubbish collectors’ attitude is better about their future than their present. They believe their tomorrow will be better than today.

Research has shown that being a consumer of material goods does not in and of itself make us happy. What does increase our well-being and happiness is more leisure time and activities, support and connection with family, and being involved in good relationships. We are social creatures first and foremost. The desire to belong and identify with others is woven into our wiring as human beings. Everything from our health to our happiness improves when our social relations improve.

This is also true when we are involved in meaningful work — particularly work where we have an opportunity to develop our abilities, work toward objectives, have supervisory support, feel safe, and get status from the work we do. But these are hardly the conditions for rubbish collectors. Trash pickers are exposed to health problems, violence, and severe social stigmatization. This is despite the fact that the work they do provides a benefit to society. Recycling problems around the world are ubiquitous and trash pickers render a service that is both environmentally useful and economically practical. Still, this group is typically marginalized by society.

Yet the trash collectors of León are a resilient group and this study sheds some light on the relationship between income and happiness. Rather than any connection to income, the research found that the key to feeling happy is having a positive expectation for the future. Of those who rated themselves as happy, more than twice as many trash collectors could see brighter futures for themselves than their less optimistic counterparts. Additionally, men were happier than women, as were those who lived with fewer people.

But what about having enough food?

The pioneering work of Abraham Maslow and his hierarchy of needs proposed that we must have lower needs satisfied before having higher needs met. He argued we need to have our physiological needs met (things like food, water and sleep) before concerning ourselves with safety and security needs — and that these have to be satisfied before we move toward our need to be loved, esteemed, and eventually self-actualized.

The current research shows that having enough food is, indeed, a significant factor in whether an individual ranks himself as happy. Almost 90 percent of the trash collectors who rated themselves as happy had enough food to eat during the last month. This was a statistically significant finding in the study and would seem to be an indication that Maslow was right.

But in the article Vazquez points out an interesting fact: While not statistically significant, more than 70 percent of those who did not have enough to eat still rated themselves as happy. These individuals did not have the most basic ability to find enough food to feed themselves properly the month prior to the rating. This means that in spite of hunger, optimism and relationship may be more satisfying than knowing where our next meal is coming from. Socrates could have been talking about the trash collectors of León when he said: “Worthless people live only to eat and drink; people of worth eat and drink only to live.”

What can we learn from the stigmatized, impoverished, yet resilient trash pickers of León? We discover that optimism about tomorrow is important to us today; that good relationships are better than money in the bank; and that Maslow’s hierarchy of needs may not always be true.

In the words of Vazquez we come to find: “… the majority of the collectors are happy, and are convinced that they can achieve a better quality of life in the future with hard work and perseverance.”

In other words — like many of us.

Reference

Vázquez, J.J. (2013) Happiness among the garbage: Differences in overall happiness among trash pickers in León (Nicaragua), The Journal of Positive Psychology, Vol. 8, No. 1, 1–11. http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/17439760.2012.743574

It could be argued that, if we grow up healthily, we are encouraged to question the world.

Ideally, we would be taught to form our own opinions and respect other people’s opinions, but not necessarily subscribe to them. However, if we aren’t encouraged to question things, if we are told lies by adults we look up to and trust, we’ll probably learn to follow what we are told. We will learn to think as we have been told and act on this information without questioning its validity.

Take this all-too-familiar scenario: Mary’s third marriage is coming to an end. She’s depressed and angry at herself for ‘ruining’ another marriage. She tells me that the same thing happened in the last two marriages, which proves that she’s a useless person and terrible wife.

For one, she’s incorrect because she’s globally rating herself as useless, and that’s irrational. Second, she’s taking all the blame, another thinking error. It doesn’t take much questioning to find out that her mother left her father when she was 3 years old, and her father told Mary that her mother left because of her. It was all her fault!

Really? It doesn’t take a genius to see how utterly crazy and untruthful that comment is. Yet, because Mary was told this by a significant authority figure, and was too young to cognitively question the irrationality of that statement, she internalized it. The lie became her truth. It was because of her that her mother left. End of story.

This type of internalized irrational belief can be devastating to a child’s life and growth. Just imagine: You’re 3 years old and you have the power to push a grown woman away from her husband and family. You somehow make it impossible for two adults to support each other. You make it impossible for them to manage a small child. You even have the power to prevent them from asking for help from others, if they so need it. Wow! That’s power.

Now imagine taking that belief into every relationship you go into. As soon as it looks like the other person might be moving away from you, that familiar, irrational belief kicks in. “They absolutely must not leave me. I can’t bear it if they leave me, because it means nobody will ever love me again.”

You’ll probably react one of three ways:

1. Desperately hold on. Beg and promise to do anything the other person wants as long as they stay.
2. Withdraw and let them leave because you know it’s inevitable
3. Go look for a carving knife, because you’re not letting them leave – ever.

None of those solutions will work in the long run. To move on, somebody like Mary needs to understand that her thinking is at error here. The irrational belief she’s cultivated since she was a child is what drives her in all her relationships. It’s unhealthy and destructive.

To change this behavior pattern, she’ll need to uncover that old belief, and figure out a new, healthy way to think. Once she’s done that, and practiced the new rational belief over and over, the next time she starts a relationship she’ll be on stronger footing. It probably will give her an opportunity to make better, informed decisions about her future relationships.

It’s all too easy for a lie to be taken as truth, but it still doesn’t mean it’s true.