Use Your Damn Skills

Lots of people have lots of perspectives on depression— what causes it, what it is, what to do about it. 

In fact, you’ll find people with VERY FIRM opinions on what depression is and isn’t. 

I’ve heard people say that depression is a “choice.” 

I’ve heard people say that depression is nothing more than a chemical imbalance in the brain. 

I’ve heard people say that depression is invariably the result of trauma or early attachment problems. 

And I’ve heard people reduce depression to a distorted patterns of thinking and interpreting the world. 

I think there’s validity to many of those perspectives— that many of them do add to our understanding of what does, or can, cause and reinforce depression. 

The one I have a problem with is the idea that depression is a “choice.” 

I don’t think anyone wakes up in the morning and “chooses” to be depressed. 

I think there are people who think, say, and do things that inadvertently deepen their depression— but I don’t think they do that because they want to be depressed. (I mostly think they do this because they don’t realize the connection between what they’re thinking, saying, or doing, and their state of depression.)

Some people assume that some depressed people exaggerate or fixate on their depression for “attention.” 

Believe me when I say: virtually nobody wants the kind of “attention” you get from being depressed. 

When you’re depressed, and when other people know about it, they usually DON’T flood you with sympathy or support. 

Do you know what happens most of the time when you let on that you’re depressed? 

People give you advice. 

So much advice. 

They mean well. Many of them really want to help. They assume that, since you told them you’re depressed,  you’re implicitly asking for their help to get out of it. 

The thing is, when we’re depressed, we’re often not in a position to take advantage of even the best advice. 

Among the most common symptoms of depression are lack of motivation and lack of energy and focus. 

Thus, when you’re depressed and people give you advice, it’s like telling a person who is already exhausted and dehydrated to go run laps. 

Then, when you don’t TAKE the advice— because you’re unmotivated, exhausted, and unfocused— it gets assumed that you must not really WANT to be anything other than depressed. 

If we’re really going to change how we feel on a consistent basis, we need to get real about depression. 

We need to stop beating ourselves up for being depressed. 

It’s not “weak.” Some of the strongest people in history have histories of depression. 

It’s not “stupid.” Very brilliant people have been depressed (in fact, some research suggests that especially intelligent people are actually MORE vulnerable to depression). 

And it’s not “attention seeking.” I’ve never met anyone who I’ve actually suspected was using depression as a strategy for getting attention. Most people I’ve known who are depressed— and I’ve known an awful lot, given my line of work– would strongly prefer to be left alone. 

When you’re depressed, I want you to be gentle with yourself. 

I want you to NOT demand that you be anything other than you are, or feel anything other than you feel, right now. 

I want you to quit playing tug of war with the voice in your head that says you “shouldn’t” be depressed. 

I need you to accept that you feel exactly what you feel, that you’re experiencing exactly what you’re experiencing right now…and that’s okay. 

Once we accept what IS…then we can start working to change it. Step by step, bit by bit. 

 

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Don’t try to feel all better all at once. 

Try to feel a little better. 

I know, I know. You feel miserable. You want to feel as un-miserable as possible, as quickly as possible. 

You want to get as far away from this feeling as you possibly can. You want to banish it. 

I get it. 

And I get that it might be profoundly unsatisfying to hear me tell you that I want you to make it your goal to nudge just a little to the right or the left of this current feeling. 

But that’s what I want you to do. 

If you’re overwhelmingly angry, I want you to focus on feeling just a little less angry. 

If you’re overwhelmingly sad, I want you to focus on feeling just a little less sad. 

If you’re doing self-destructive things all day, I want you to focus on refraining from doing self-destructive stuff for ten minutes out of a day. (You can still have the other twenty three hours and fifty minutes out of the day to do self-destructive things if you like.) 

If you’re doing all the drugs, I want you to focus on just doing most of the drugs instead. 

In psychology, we call this approach “harm reduction,” but what it really should be called is “real world change.” 

Because this is how we change in the real world. 

We change by taking baby steps. 

We shift our focus for finite, limited periods. 

Some people think it’s better to overhaul your life all at once— and I get why they think that. Overhauling a lot of things all at once is dramatic and stimulating and it’s how we see changes made in the movies. 

I’ll be the first to admit that I’m not looking for changes that are cinematic. 

I’m looking for changes that are real and sustainable. 

If you feel one way, and I ask you to create a feeling state that is 90% similar to the way you’re already feeling, you KNOW for a fact you can do it— after all, you’re basically doing it now. 

Then, when you get used to that new feeling state, I can ask you to create yet another feeling state, that is 90% similar to the one you’ve gotten good at feeling, and again, you KNOW you can do it— because, again, you’re basically doing it already. 

That’s how we change in the real world. We nudge into a slightly different space; get used to it; then we nudge again. 

Over time, we’ve nudge, nudge, nudged our way to a feeling state that is entirely different from where we started out. 

It’s not dramatic. 

It’s not cinematic. 

Most of what I ask my patients to do is feel mostly the same— with little, consistent, intentional changes. 

Day by day, week by week, month by month, year by year…those changes add up. 

Canyons and caves aren’t formed all at once. 

They are formed over time, by the drip, drip, dripping of water. 

That’s how I want you to change your feelings and your behavior. That’s how we REALISTICALLY change feelings and behavior. 

Some days your progress will be barely noticeable— and that’s on purpose. 

Fast, dramatic changes are fast— but slow, steady changes stick. 

 

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When you’re trying to improve your life, you’re going to get a LOT of feedback that assumes either you’re not trying hard enough, or you don’t know what you’re doing. 

Everybody’s going to have a point of view about what you “should” be doing. 

Everybody’s going to have an opinion on where you went wrong. 

Everybody’s going to have a pet philosophy or concept that, if you only embraced, you’d suddenly see the light and have a much easier time of it all. 

The self-help industry, in particular, is all about this paradigm. 

Pick up any self-help book on the shelf, and you’ll likely be treated to a description of the author’s perspective on where the reader has probably gone wrong in their life. 

What they’ve misunderstood. What they’ve not realized. What they’ve been mistaken about. 

It’s a natural enough place for many people to begin when discussing mental health, I suppose. 

After all, if you’re looking for help with mental health and personal fulfillment, I guess there IS an implicit understanding that you DID go wrong at some point, or that you ARE missing an essential piece of the puzzle. 

The thing is: I don’t think most people ARE “doing it wrong.” 

In fact, I think the big misunderstanding most people have when they get involved with mental health or personal growth, is that they think THEY are somehow to blame for their struggles. 

I don’t think you’re to blame for your struggles. 

I think you’ve had lousy programming and traumatic experiences. 

I don’t think you asked for those, and I don’t think you’ve been perpetuating them out of some self-defeating impulse. 

I don’t think the story here is how much you’ve gotten wrong or misunderstood. 

I think the the REAL story here is how you’ve managed to endure and survive and thrive— even if your experience has been imperfect. 

The big myth is that because you feel bad or because your’e behaving in ways other than you’d prefer, that you’re somehow damaged or bad. 

You may be wounded. But you are not damaged. 

You are actually remarkably resilient. 

Whatever it was that happened to you in the past: you survived it. 

I know, you may feel like you are damaged beyond repair, but look at the facts: you’re here, reading these words. You survived. 

How did you do that? 

What strengths did you draw upon? 

What skills did you use? 

What HELPED you do that? 

You might have come from a place where you had very few resources available to you, almost no help, everything working against you.

And yet, you endured. 

How did you do that? 

See, I don’t think you’re “doing it wrong”— and you certainly don’t need a lecture from a therapist or self-help guru about HOW you’ve been “doing it wrong.” 

I think you need to get crystal clear on what you’ve been doing RIGHT. 

I think you need to get crystal clear on how you made it through, despite everything. 

I think you need to get crystal clear about what your strengths and advantages and gifts are. 

I think THAT’S the story. I think THAT’S where the money is. 

If you’re looking to be told all the ways you’ve been doing it wrong, I’m not your self-help guy. 

If you’re looking to identify and build upon the undeniable strengths that have allowed you to create the success story you’ve already started creating: I’m on board with that. 

 

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Do not compare your struggles or suffering with others’. 

I’m not talking about sharing your experience. I’m talking about comparing. 

There is a subset of people who have an impulse to respond to others’ expression of pain with a comparison to their own. 

They look at others’ struggle, and they judge them to have suffered either more or less than they have. 

This doesn’t end well, for anyone. 

If they judge others to have suffered less than they have, they often wind up feeling resentful.

If they judge others to have suffered more than they have, they often wind up minimizing their own pain, thinking and feeling that they “shouldn’t” be struggling as much as they have struggled. 

It’s not a competition. 

There is no virtue to winning the “Pain Olympics.” 

You have struggled and suffered exactly as much as you have— no more, no less. 

Comparing your pain to others’ pain won’t change how much you’ve struggled and suffered. 

Sometimes we feel the need to compare our struggles with others because that’s how we’ve been conditioned to think about things. 

We’ve been taught that it can be useful to look at others’ suffering, to put our own in perspective. 

Over and over again I’ve seen people minimize their own pain by comparing it to others, and concluding that they don’t have a “right” to feel what they feel. 

Reality doesn’t care if we have a “right” to feel something. 

We feel what we feel— whether we “should” or not. 

Sometimes we’ve been told “inspirational” stories of people who have suffered greatly, which come with the moral of “if THEY can overcome their suffering, you SHOULD be able to as well.” 

It can be helpful to some people to hear stories of people overcoming pain to be successful. 

But it can also put pressure on us to “live up” to those peoples’ story…when their actual resources and needs and situations may be very different from ours. 

On social media, we see such comparisons all the time. They come from very political direction: “why are you so upset about (one type of suffering), but not as upset about (another type of suffering)?” 

No good comes out of those discussions. 

They only ever end with one person or group’s suffering being minimized and dismissed. 

Sharing your experience and empathizing with others’ suffering can be extraordinarily helpful. It can be soothing and encouraging to know you’re not alone. 

But avoid the temptation to turn sharing into comparing. 

How other people handled their suffering may or may not be truly comparable to how you’re handling yours. 

Whatever anyone else is going through, you STILL have EXACTLY what you have on your plate. 

Focus on what is in front of you. 

Don’t get distracted with counterproductive comparisons. 

You don’t have the time, energy, or need for it. 

 

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You don’t need to be ashamed because of your struggle. 

Struggling is not a shameful thing. 

It doesn’t matter WHAT you are struggling with: to struggle does not make you a “weak” person. 

I guarantee that the strongest, smartest person you know, the strongest, smartest person you could possibly think of, has struggled. 

Possibly in ways that nobody knows about— maybe in ways that nobody would even believe. 

Yet we often do feel shame because of our struggles. 

We tell ourselves we “shouldn’t” struggle with whatever we’re struggling with. 

We tell ourselves that, if anyone was to find out how much we struggle with something, they would think less of us. 

So many people you meet every single day are hidden behind an invisible wall of shame. 

They’ll never let on, because they don’t want to appear “weak.” They don’t want to be a “burden.” 

And this— the keeping of secrets about our struggles— makes those struggles even more exhausting. 

You may be reading this, and assume that I’m talking about everybody else— not you. 

I am talking about you. 

There are people reading this who are struggling with things that almost nobody knows about. 

There are people reading this who have just accepted that they will have to hold on to their secret struggle, alone, indefinitely. 

You’d be amazed at how many people are carrying around secret addictions, secret compulsions, and other secret struggles. 

There is a subset of men who are carrying around the secret that they’ve been sexually abused— but they don’t want to reveal it, because men being sexually victimized doesn’t fit into our cultural schema of what a “man” is all about. 

There is a subset of military veterans who are carrying around the secret that they service affected them more than they’ve ever let anyone know— but they don’t want to reveal it, because they don’t want anyone to assume that they are somehow disrespecting or dishonoring the institution or culture of the military. 

There is a subset of people carrying around the simple secret that they are depressed— but they don’t want to reveal it, because they’ve been conditioned to think that people only talk about their emotional struggles because they are seeking attention. 

People are carrying their secret suffering and struggles all around us, every day. 

As a culture, we very often try to convince ourselves that we are very open minded and non-judgmental of emotional and behavioral struggles…but we often fail to walk that talk. 

Most often, we expect people to “have their shit together” after a certain age. 

Most often, we expect adults to not struggle with things like controlling their calorie and alcohol intake. 

Most often, we expect people to be able to handle supposedly “simple” things like managing money and time. 

When someone struggles with things such as these, we, as a culture…tend to not be all that empathetic. 

So people keep their struggles to themselves. 

They only go in for therapy when something gets “so bad” that they can’t keep their struggle secret anymore. 

And even then, when they get into therapy, they start with a list of reasons why they SHOULDN’T need therapy. 

I’m not naive’. I know that people carry around their secret struggles for reasons. I know that it’s not as simple a just telling anyone to stop carrying those secrets, that they don’t HAVE to carry them in silence if they don’t want to. 

But for everybody who is carrying a secret struggle, a secret pain, a secret truth: 

I hear you. 

You are not alone. 

 

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How do we realistically keep our focus on our personal goals and values, at a time when the world seems to be falling apart? 

There is no universally applicable solution to this problem. The truth is that it involves a lot of trial and error.

The way YOU will be able to maintain YOUR focus might be different than the way other people maintain THEIR focus. 

A lot of it depends on the resources you have available and your learning style. 

Even though there are a variety of ways that we can maintain our focus on our personal goals and values even in the midst of the social, cultural, and political hurricane raging around us right now, the really important thing is that we remain committed to not abandoning our persona projects at this time. 

Because you will be tempted. 

There will absolutely be a part of you that tries to convince you that it’s “selfish” to be focused on your personal projects right now. 

There will be part of you that tells you that it’s “too stressful” to be focused on personal projects right now. 

There will be a part of you that tries to use what’s happening out there in the world as an excuse to abandon the tough work of the projects you’d taken on. 

The voices that you’ll hear in your head that tell you those things are lying to you. 

They don’t care about what’s going on in the word out there. 

They just want you to give up. 

Those are the SAME voices that say similar stuff WHENEVER your personal projects get hard or anxiety-provoking. 

You probably recognize those voices. They’re the voices that, when you decide to quit drinking, try to tell you, “you NEED to take a drink at this social function, or else you won’t fit in.” Or sometimes it’s, “you NEED to have a drink, just to relax a little bit so you won’t come off like a weirdo.” 

As if that voice ACTUALLY CARES about you fitting in, or coming off like a weirdo? 

I assure you: it doesn’t. 

Similarly, the voices that are right now trying to get you to abandon your project of quitting smoking, or quitting drinking, or sticking to a diet, or whatever other emotional or behavioral project you’re tackling right now, because of what’s happening out there in the world…they don’t actually care about any of it. 

Those voices will ALWAYS be looking for a reason to get you to have a cigarette, or have a drink, or crash your diet. 

Acknowledging this is the first step to keeping your focus where it needs to be. 

You have to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that you WILL have those voices trying to knock you off track— and you have to know, without a shadow of a doubt, that those voices are trying to trick and sabotage you. 

If you start out from that understanding— if you are expecting those voices to pipe up, and if you’re crystal clear on the fact that they add NOTHING productive to your journey— then you can have strategies in place for dealing with them. 

You can be ready to respond to them. 

Usually such responses go something like this: “Nice try. But I’m committed to making this behavioral change.” 

Keeping your focus on your goals during stressful, upsetting times means setting aside time, every single day, to catch your breath and refocus. 

You’re going to want to sit down, at least once a day, and list the reasons why you are committed to making the change you’re making. 

You’re going to want to sit down, at least once a day, and make a list of the things that you have in your life that are HELPFUL to you in making this change. 

Your brain responds to conditioning. 

It may not be easy or natural to stay focused on your goals at times such as this…but you can condition it to do so by engaging in certain rituals— journaling, visualizing, affirmations— over and over and over again. 

It may not be easy to keep our focus on our own personal development projects and goals right now. 

It is possible— but only if we make them a priority. 

And you are worth making your personal projects a priority. 

 

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You’re going to lose people from your life. And it’s going to be painful. 

I’m not talking about death, although that, too, is an inevitable way we lose people from our lives over the course of time. 

I’m talking about the fact that there will be people who we decide not to have in our lives anymore, because their presence in our lives is inconsistent with who we are trying to be and the life we are trying to create. 

I’m also talking about those times when someone else makes the decision to excise us from their lives, for the very same reason. 

Sometimes we just have to draw a line. 

Sometimes the presence of someone in your life— the feelings they facilitate, the situations they seem to bring with them— is just too much. 

This is one of the most important types of boundaries to set in life. 

It’s also one of the hardest. 

Most of us don’t LIKE the idea that we sometimes have to cut people off. 

Many times we feel mean and guilty for cutting someone out of our lives. 

This is especially true if the person we’re talking about is a family member or someone we’ve had a close association with for years. 

Many of us have been taught that we HAVE to tolerate the behavior of someone, because our history with them does not give us the option of cutting them out. 

Sometimes setting this kind of limit with someone is difficult because you have shared responsibilities, such as coparenting. 

Many times it’s difficult because, somewhere in our history, that person has been helpful to or supportive of us, and we feel a debt of gratitude to them. 

None of this is fun. None of this is easy. 

But it’s very necessary. 

Often times, we want to think we can work something out. 

We want to think we can tough it out. 

We want to think we can tolerate whatever pain and chaos a relationship brings into our lives, because we was to be the “bigger person.” 

Sometimes we even realize that its not that person’s fault or intention to bring chaos and pain into our lives. 

Whether it’s their fault or not, we have to be realistic about what they do bring into our lives. 

And it’s absolutely the case that sometimes there really is no other option than to just cut the cord. 

When you get to this point, be gentle with yourself. 

Acknowledge your own conflict. 

Acknowledge your reluctance. 

Acknowledge the grief and loss cutting this person off will entail. 

Accept that this person (and others in your life) might do everything in their power to guilt you into changing your life. 

But if you’re at that point with a person…do it. 

Cut the cord. 

Block them. 

Block their number and delete it from your phone. 

Do not respond to their attempts to reach out. 

Do not respond to their apologies. 

Do not be persuaded by that hopeful little voice in your head that says “Mayyyyybe we can work something out…?” 

Its a bummer when you need to set that firm and final of a boundary. 

But do it. 

Do it, and move forward. 

A lot of self-help gurus start out by declaring that “many” of the people who come to them are looking for a “quick fix.” 

They decry what they label a superficial approach to personal development that they say many of their prospective clients take. 

I’m…not sure who these people are working with. 

Because I have YET to meet someone interested in personal development who has assumed it was going to be quick or easy. 

To the contrary, most of the people I’ve met who are interested in personal development, or who have sought my input on their journey, have been very prepared to buckle down and work— and, for the most part, very receptive to my approach and interventions, even when they’ve been difficult. 

Yet, you see it over and over again in the self-help community: gurus proclaiming that if you’re one of these people who expects a quick fix, than they’re NOT THE GURU FOR YOU!

You know what I think? 

I think these gurus are making it up. 

I don’t think they run into all that many people who think that personal growth is about “quick fixes.” 

I think these gurus PRETEND that’s the case, because they want to brand themselves as the “REAL DEAL,” and by implication they want to band their competition as peddlers of “quick fixes.” 

Over and over again, you see this nonsense from the self-help industry. 

One guru in particular loves to recount imaginary interactions with clients where he just BLOWS THEIR MINDS by telling them that MONEY ISN’T EVERYTHING; or that they’ll have to make some SACRIFICES in order to succeed; or some other nonsense that they (the guru) thinks makes them sound deep and profound. 

Give me a break. 

One of the things I love about the self-help community is that it is filled with seekers who are open and curious and passionate about personal development. 

One of the things I hate about the self-help INDUSTRY (as opposed to the COMMUNITY) is that so many wannabe gurus take such a condescending approach to their potential clients. 

If you’re reading my page, it is unlikely that I am smarter than you. 

It is unlikely that I am telling you anything you don’t already know. 

It is probably the case that you ARE smart, motivated, and authentic. 

And you don’t need me, or anyone else, talking down to you. 

Do not put up with anyone talking down to you, who then turns around and asks you to pay them money to help improve your life. 

One of the huge parts of self-help and recovery is remembering who you are and what your strengths are. 

You don’t need to be reminded of of beaten over the head with your limitations or mistakes— by me or by anyone else. 

Notice whether a professional starts out from a place of respecting and empowering you…or telling you all about how you’re doing it wrong. 

You can’t learn to respect yourself from someone who doesn’t respect you. 

That’s true in self-help, it’s true in recovery, it’s true in therapy, it’s true in relationships. 

It’s true in life. 

If you want to change a habit, you’re going to have to figure out a way to “sell” that habit change to your brain in such a way that there is a recognizable upside. 

The unfortunate truth is, many habits that are ultimately self-destructive— smoking, eating unhealthy foods in unhealthy amounts, unrestrained substance use— are pleasurable. 

We are not wired to give up pleasure easily. 

This is ESPECIALLY true if we struggle with mood or anxiety disorders, or have had a traumatic past.

If we don’t have a lot of pleasure in our lives in the first place, and if we have brain chemistry that doesn’t make it easy to feel good, our brains are DEFINITELY going to fight to hang on to the pleasure we DO have in our lives. 

For many of us, that means self-defeating behaviors. 

It’s true that, in the long term, if we want to crawl OUT of that hole of usually-feeing-bad, we need to give up those self-defeating behaviors…but our brains don’t often want to hear about the long term. 

They’re preoccupied with the here-and-now, specifically the balance of feeling good or bad in the here-and-now. 

Why, our brains will quite reasonably ask us, should we give up this behavior pattern that actually gives us SOME pleasure in a world in which pleasure is hard to come by…all so we can MAYBE experience some pleasure eventually, in the long term? 

Nah, our brains will usually say. We’re going to stick with the behavior we KNOW will give us pleasure in the here-and-now. The long term can take care of itself. 

This is what we’re up against when we’re trying to change a behavior pattern. 

So we need to think in terms of salesmanship. 

We need to think in terms of the VERY REAL upside to whatever NEW behavior pattern we’re trying to adopt. 

We can’t just get obsessed with the pleasure we’re giving up. 

If all we think about is how much of a bummer it is that we won’t be able to smoke anymore, or we won’t be able to eat what we want when we want, or we won’t be able to get high anymore— if we don’t then transition into thinking about a new, replacement behavior that will lead to positive, potentially pleasurable experience that we WANT to feel…well, the behavior change just isn’t going to stick. 

We need to get very clear on the benefits we’re chasing. 

We need to get very clear on the UPSIDE of change. 

If that upside is in the distant future, we need to use the tools of visualization and self-talk to bring that upside into the present moment, so we can viscerally experience a “preview of coming attractions.” 

I get so dismayed by people who try to diet, and count on “willpower” to get them through. 

People who try to quit smoking, counting on “willpower.” 

People who try to swear off bad relationships or quit using drugs, and their only plan is “willpower.” 

“Willpower,” if it even exists, is vastly overrated. 

What you NEED is a vivid, realistic picture in your head of the GOOD STUFF that can and will come from this behavior change. 

What you need is LISTS of the BENEFITS of the new behavior pattern, that you can review and review and review and memorize. 

What you need to do, in short, is sell yourself on how AWESOME this change is going to be. 

Then you need to get used to using those feelings of deprivation and loss that are attached to the behavior you’re giving up as the trigger to review the benefits of the new behavior. 

If all you’re focused on in changing a behavior is deprivation and loss, it’s just not going to stick. 

Focus on upsides. Focus on benefits. Focus on what you eventual victory over this behavior pattern will look and feel like. 

Focus on these again, and again, and again, and again. 

 

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How do we know who we are, and what we’re all about? 

After all, it may not be obvious. 

Some of us have been through a LOT on this journey. 

We’ve been through storms. We’ve survived attacks. 

We’ve been betrayed. We’ve been momentarily silenced. 

After all that…it’s not weird that some of us have forgotten who we are and what we’re all about. 

The struggle to meaningfully develop your personal identity can be at the core of basic psychological struggles, such as depression or anxiety. 

Trauma, in particular, has a way of making us forget who we are and what we’re all about— or burying it under a hurricane of OTHER things to pay attention to, for the sake of survival. 

So who are you, really? 

Part of you knows. 

Part of you hasn’t forgotten. 

Part of you has hung on to what makes you tick. What’s important to you. 

What you have to do now is rediscover it. 

That involves a lot of listening— which, itself, involves a lot of patience. 

Rediscovering who you are and what you’re all about requires paying attention— and refusing to judge. 

Remembering who you are requires you to approach who you MIGHT be with compassion and curiosity…as opposed to scorn and impatience. 

Many of us have spent years trying to be who someone ELSE wants us to be. 

We’ve spent years trying to be someone we think won’t get made fun of. Someone who won’t get bullied. 

We’ve spent years trying to be someone who is acceptable to “them.” 

But what makes YOU smile? Like, really smile? 

What makes you laugh? Really laugh? 

What makes you cry? Authentically, spontaneously cry? 

The project of developing and affirming your personal identity begins with you sitting down and writing about who you MIGHT be. 

Your emotional life has clues. 

Your fantasy life has clues. 

What turns you on, what excites you, even what repulses and repeals and enrages you. 

These are all clues about who you are. 

Sit down and write out a list of people you admire. People you respect. 

People you like, people you are attracted to, people you love, even people you hate. 

Sit down and write out the music that moves you. The movies that captivate you. 

Then, step back, and look at what you’ve written. 

Themes will start to emerge. 

Who you are will start to take shape. 

What kind of person is into those things? Who loves those people? Who hates those other people and things? 

Form some hypotheses. 

Imagine who you could be, who you might be. 

Develop that picture slowly, consciously, patiently. 

This is your life’s work. Take your time with it. 

 

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