I spend a lot — and I really do mean a lot — of time on my radio program trying to explain to people that life requires persistence, endurance, courage, and patience, because things just do not always go our way and bad things happen to all people.
I have had to work hard to get people to stop making straight lines from something in their childhood to some notion of inevitability about what is going on in their lives right now.
Nonetheless, folks still want to know why, for example, they stay in some awful circumstance, what deep neurosis must there be.
In reality, change is difficult for everyone. It is tough in the first place to let go of the familiar without some guarantee that the alternative will be wonderful.
Pop psychology (and some traditional forms also) has led folks to always think that everything they are going through must have some connection to childhood, and they are almost trapped by history with little hope unless they undergo years and years of therapy.
Yet I have worked on helping people see the moment clearly and the options immediately available to them to make a difference. Yes, some folks have deep psychological illnesses that may require extensive therapy and/or medication — but I believe most folks need to be jostled into seeing the situation and their role in it in a different way — a way which frees them up to almost instantly make their lives better. I was surprised and thrilled to receive this letter in December from Joel Geleynse, a psychologist from Canada, who "got me"!
"I’m a clinical psychologist who has recently rediscovered your work after having listened to you as a teen. Your practical frameworks for case conceptualizing are eerily accurate for the short time you have callers on the phone.
"After spending years waiting for some patients to come to their own realizations and inner wisdom using the interventions I have been trained in and consequently tediously watching them stay stuck, I have begun channeling your approach more often in session.
"The feedback I have been getting is immediate and profound. I see patients daily who view their circumstances solely in terms of mental health diagnoses and pathologies when often it is a result of their psychosocial context and cognitive fallacies — e.g., a snowflake who doesn’t know they are one, or an emotionally parasitic mom who arrests the development of her offspring due to her need to be needed, or the pathologizing of normal everyday pain/suffering.
"I connect with the psychological, philosophical, and theoretical justifications for your approach and find it is empowering. You have helped me develop into a more confident psychologist and that is making an impact in the lives of my patients, thanks to you."
This month marks the 10th anniversary of my show on SiriusXM — and more than four decades in total on radio.
I have people calling me with their family issues who were first hearing me when in their parents’ child seat in the car.
That gives me at least three generations to talk to about morality, responsibility, maturity, selfsacrifice, compassion, productivity, endurance, challenges, and dealing with life and death circumstances, tragedies, and disappointments.
I try to help people do this by looking at the facts (not just their emotional feeling responses) and perceiving these facts in a way which makes enough sense that they can face living with pain and fears as simply a part of life and not perceive themselves as victims.
The victim mentality has made people weak and ineffectual because they are not focused on resolution and the future, but instead dwell on the past without accepting the possible truth of their contribution to their problems or the understanding that at this point in their lives they are keeping themselves from having a wonderful life by embracing ugly history and hiding there — ultimately hiding there from life.
Between now and dead, is this how you want to live your life?
Dr. Laura (Laura Schlessinger) is a well-known radio personality and best-selling author. She appears regularly on many television shows and in many publications. Read Dr. Laura's Reports — More Here.
Newsmax December
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