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Friendship Wars

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: burgenschenker [ in slow motion ]

It starts off young. The moniker of "best friend." My 4-year-old is not immune to this, and while he has a stable "best friend," it can be hard to keep track of others that temporarily wear the label. At this early age, friendship is relatively simple: it is declared, and then honored by playing together during recess.

Sometime, around fourth or fifth grade, friendships change. There is an awareness of this concept called "popularity" and that begins to shift friend allegiances. Popularity, as we adults know, it something that is not ever real. I'm not speaking from insider information, but from what I've seen, those that are popular never feel comfortable with that status, as by its very nature, it can be fleeting. It is more a state of maintaining popularity rather than "being" popular.

Back to my 4-year-old, as he defines friendships as those that listen to him (and conversely do what he says) and those that don't. I overheard him playing with a friend recently, and he was instructing his friend around the rules of the game that he was making up. (The same rules would inevitably shift when the outcome wasn't what my son had in mind). I pulled him over and suggested that perhaps his friend might want to suggest a game for them to play. Without missing a beat, he said, "Hey, Ben, you should have us play a game that is like this..." And he proceeded to give detailed instructions.

I recently was talking to a parent who has a middle school aged daughter struggling with friendships. At this age, gossip is a powerful tool, as it can change relationships instantly. With the advent of texting and the internet, such news can be spread faster than one can imagine. The parent's struggle was with how involved should she be? Should she let the other parents know that her daughter has been advised to stay away from their girls? Is the onus on her daughter to set those boundaries?

As we age, friendships become more tricky, with more at stake. Friends contribute to our sense of happiness and well-being.

 

Be a Good Sport

Fatherhood Friday

With Superbowl Sunday around the corner it’s a good time to remind my wife how lucky she is.

I grew up a passionate, though not rabid, sports fan. My favorite sports were (and still are) baseball and hockey, with football and basketball a distant third and fourth.

I grew up in New York, but now live in the Midwest. This is important (in this context) for two reasons: first, since my favorite teams don’t play in the local market there is a limited number of occasions to watch them on television. Second, in the New York City area, professional sports were king, at least in the circles I traveled. We just didn’t really get into college sports.

What does this mean for me as a sports fan and husband today? I have plenty of friends who love – I mean love – football. College, professional, high school. It doesn’t matter. And when autumn comes around these guys seem to spend ten hours a day on Saturday watching college football and ten hours on Sunday watching professional football. When college basketball and the NBA come around the same thing occurs.

Since I don’t have an interest in college football and my NFL team is only on national television a few times a year, my wife knows that my weekends are not geared towards hanging in the man cave. Baseball, hockey – same thing, though spread out over the entire week.

In addition to that, I generally keep sports in perspective. If my team loses – even in the biggest of big games – I’m usually not thinking about it too much the next day. If I have to miss my favorite team on television I can survive. That doesn’t mean I don’t care. But I do try to keep it in perspective. Sports are entertainment, a diversion; not life.

Okay, so perhaps I exaggerate when proclaiming that these factors should make my wife feel lucky. In fact, it’s a two-way street. Because I don’t plan significant portions of my free time around sports, on those occasions that I do want to watch a game my wife recognizes the relative rarity of the event.  How our free time is spent during those hours almost never becomes a point of contention.

Every once in a while my awesome wife, who really isn’t in to sports at all, will make an effort to watch a game with me and try to engage. And while she may ask me what quarter the hockey game is in, how many runs the football team has scored or who’s winning while overtime is still being played, her willingness to participate makes me feel similar to the way I imagine she must feel every time I join her in watching a Reese Witherspoon or Kate Hudson movie: it doesn’t matter what we’re doing. What matters is that we’re doing it together.

(Photo Credit: http://thesportsfanjournal.com/wp-content/uploads/2011/11/man-and-woman-watching-football-together.jpg)

 

The Interminable Waiting Game

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: Dalo_pix2

I'm noticing that winter tends to be a season of waiting. Waiting for the weather to warm up or the days to get longer. Waiting for colleges to let you know if you should start making plans. Waiting for school to end and summer to begin.

I just got to experience waiting by proxy. The kind of waiting that I think is the most difficult of all: waiting for test results. The kind of waiting where you eagerly want the phone to ring, and simultaneously, are afraid of who might be on the other line. Waiting to hear "all clear," and yet being afraid to hope for that too much, less you jinx it (as if things actually work that way). What made this waiting a little more tough was that they weren't even MY results, but my mom's.

I got a call last week from my mom letting me know that at her doctor's appointment, there was a lump in her breast that was detected. Her doctor used a syringe to see if it was a cyst, and if it was, there would be liquid coming out. The syringe was inserted, but there wasn't any liquid. The next step was to get a biopsy. This would determine what kind of mass it was: benign or cancerous. I was able to be calm while on the phone, although I flashed back to my own waiting for results. I tried to mention this in a way to be in concert with her during this waiting. To protect myself from one of life's biggest fears (death), I wrapped some emotional distance from this news and put it "away."

Fast forward to Monday morning. I was getting my kids ready for the day, and the phone rings. It's my mom. I had forgotten that today was "Result Day" and I answered the phone. In an upbeat voice, I heard. "I just got the results back. Everything is fine. They are just going to monitor me." Three sweet phrases! As I was talking to her, I could feel my eyes well up with tears. The distanced emotion was raging full force! In that moment, I could feel what I almost lost. And I am grateful for this extra time found.

Stress in America

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by:  bottled_void

Last week, the American Psychological Association released their annual survey looking at our Nation's pulse. Literally. The study is geared towards assessing America's Stress levels.  Where do we stand? The good news: stress hasn't risen much in the last year, despite continued economic uncertainty, political unrest, and all the rest that this country is dealing with. In fact, the survey showed that we only feel we have an average of slightly above healthy levels of stress. The study also showed that stress is linked to our physical well being.

So that's well and good. But how do we identify stress? What is it? Stress is something that is part of our lives. We need it. This "good" kind of stress is called eustress. It is what helps us achieve and push ourselves. It's why we study for exams. Or feel a little nervous before a presentation. When stress becomes too much, it's "bad" stress or distress. That is the stress that the survey is looking at. And it's this kind of stress that I'm referring to.  

By some people's measures, I should feel stress: after all, I'm balancing raising two children (one of whom is a baby), my own business, dealing with others emotions on a daily basis (the nature of my job), financial pressures, parents growing older, etc. But I don't feel burdened by stress. Let me take that back: mostly, I don't notice it. But I was really aware of it over the holidays.

It just felt like everything was going quickly, and I couldn't keep up. I felt like things were slipping through the cracks and I was missing things. I actually enjoyed the days off that I took--where things basically stopped and there weren't expectations of me. In those moments, I realized that I was stressed--at least by comparison.

That's when I needed to figure out how to take care of myself. So I learned and practiced daily meditation.  I only get done what I can do. I try to protect my sleep. I attempt to eat well. Of course, I don't ALWAYS get it right. So I try to allow that to be OK. I also try to let people know when I'm feeling overwhelmed...small examples such as when I am in the middle of doing something, and I'm asked to do something else, I try to acknowledge that I'm at my limit (if I am) and I can get to the other task when I'm done. Again, easier said than done. But I am enjoying being a work in progress.     

How do you deal with your stress? When are you able to figure out that it's too much?

What's Your Resol-You-Tion?

Therapy Tuesday
Photo by: Noelle Buske

Happy New Year. I promise that this won't be another thing that chirps around the idea of a resolution. This won't be about those 10 vanity pounds that you want to lose. Or the promise that you made to yourself to be more involved at your kid's school. This is not about a superficial resolution, that tends to get broken about a quarter of the way through the year, despite good intentions.

No, this is about you. You are your core. Your fundamental self. When was the last time you did an inventory about what you like and dislike about yourself? (Again, I'm not talking about those vanity pounds). These are the difficult things to change. Those things that tend to linger, because they take real work to do something about.

This is the kind of resolution, or resol-YOU-tion that I'm talking about and the type that I'm working on myself. Not taking the people that I love for granted. Touching base. Being vulnerable and intimate. These aren't easy things, especially if recent patterns indicate otherwise.

These are core aspects, and changing them usually involves enlisting help. This help can come in multiple forms: if you are able, professional help is ideal (and doesn't mean that you are crazy). Otherwise, asking a spouse, close friend, or relative to point out (in a way that you can hear and tolerate) when you are acting with old patterns. This requires some pre-thought: what do you need so you can hear the cue so you can change your behavior? Sometimes, a random seeming word helps, so that defenses don't surround you like armor.

Resolutions are supposed to make us happier. They are measurable and time limited (lasting within a year or some goal-oriented date). They are helpful in reaching smaller and more superficial kinds of goals. I use the word superficial because they tend to be things that we are able to share with others without feeling threatened by doing so. Resol-YOU-tions are changing internal parts of you that might not be obvious to those around you. They are slow to alter. But they also bring happiness.

What are your Resol-You-tions?