Free advice from an expensive psychologist:
If you are an anxious person, do everything for fun.
Go to a job interview for fun.
Submit documents for fun.
Start a blog for fun.
Anxiety feeds on importance.
Don't turn everything into a matter of life or death.
If you don’t think radical ideology can threaten this country, you weren’t watching the transgender movement.
In barely a decade we went from biology being a settled fact to being told gender identity overrides it, that kids can decide their own sex, and that anyone who hesitated was a bigot. It started as a fringe academic idea. Then it was in the schools, the hospitals, the boardrooms, and the government.
It didn’t take a majority. It took a small, disciplined movement that knew which buttons to push, compassion, victimhood, the fear of being called cruel. And it worked.
That’s the part to sit with. It was never about one issue. It’s proof that a determined movement can rewrite an entire society faster than anyone thinks possible. If it happened once, it can happen again.
Pay attention….
My personal truths as a clinical psychologist:
#299 Growth requires tolerating shame without collapsing into it.
*One thing I’ve noticed over the years is that growth often begins with an uncomfortable realization. You find out you were wrong. You see that your spouse, friend, coworker, or child had a point. You recognize that a problem you’ve been blaming on other people is partly your own doing.
Nobody enjoys these moments. They can be embarrassing and humbling. That’s why many people immediately look for a way out. They make excuses, change the subject, blame someone else, or simply refuse to think about it.
But growth requires something different. It requires being able to say, “I don’t like this, but there may be some truth here.”
That doesn’t mean beating yourself up. It doesn’t mean deciding you’re a bad person. It just means being willing to learn from an uncomfortable fact.
The husband who finally admits he’s been too critical. The employee who accepts that the performance review was fair. The parent who realizes their child has been hurt by their temper. The person who finally acknowledges that their health, finances, or relationships won’t improve until they make some changes.
In my experience, the people who grow the most are not the people who never feel embarrassed or ashamed. They are the people who can tolerate those feelings long enough to learn something from them. A little discomfort is often the price of becoming wiser.
Nationalisation of one of the rail companies which runs services in Surrey has "no long-term ambition" and is not equipped to deal with day-to-day challenges, a campaign group has claimed.
More here: https://t.co/bLxHTRAZhT
Sometimes I look back on all of the woke people that once comprised my social circle and wonder how they don’t see themselves as the brainwashed, pro-establishment, intolerant puritans that they are.
The obsessive desire to know yourself is itself a pathology. You're not healed when you wholly understand yourself but when you don't matter to yourself anymore. You're healed once you internalize you must fight for something bigger than yourself: you fight for your family; you fight for love; you fight for art; you fight for meaning. Maybe you fight for political change or perhaps you're a fanatical writer or scientist. The real goal of psychoanalysis is paradoxical; it's precisely to liberate you from yourself-to bring you to the point where you can finally forget about yourself and work for a greater cause.
Dear @LushLtd,
Mark Constantine (@MarkatLush[email protected]) & Hilary Jones, Ethics Director, please explain why Lush is celebrating & promoting the removal of healthy body parts from young people in the name of gender ideology.
As a lesbian woman & breast cancer survivor, I find this profoundly offensive. Many women have endured mastectomies & other invasive procedures because they were medically necessary, not because of a subjective belief about identity.
Women & girls deserve better than seeing life-altering medical interventions presented as something to be celebrated.
Please remove this advertising immediately.
Normalize being very direct, very straight to the point and very assertive. A surprising amount of tension in adult life exist because people avoid saying what they actually mean.
Here is a list of things to practice/work on (in sequence of which you should focus on) to become a “good enough” beginner-ish therapist. IMO. FWIW. It’s all stuff we continue to refine and master over years, but you can get the hang of it enough to be “good enough” first. 1/
You have to go the way your blood beats. If you don't live the only life you have, you won't live some other life, you won't live any life at all.
James Baldwin
I am a homosexual male.
I am same-sex attracted.
Ellen Page sliced off her breasts, started synthetic hormones, and changed her name to Elliot.
This does not make her a man, but I am ‘transphobic’ for stating this fact.
And this is why the ‘LGBTQ+ community’ is a fallacy.
Some of the most frustrating people you’ll encounter are those who aren’t self-aware enough to be villains or to take accountability but who still have a negative impact on others. Many people who cause harm don’t see themselves as harmful, as if their good intentions are enough.
A rule that will lower your anxiety: Don’t replay conversations you can’t change, and don’t pre-live ones that haven’t happened. Focus on the next right action. Most stress comes from living everywhere except the present.