Overcoming Fears

1.       Realize Everyone Has Fears:  Successful people have worries and fears but they push themselves through them and take action regardless of their fears….that’s what makes them successful. 

2.       Watch What You Tell Yourself and Others about Your Fears:  The words you tell yourself in your head and the words you share with others have a powerful affect on your ability to conquer or be conquered by your fears

3.       Ask Yourself “What is the Worst thing that Could Happen? 

4.       The More Often You Push  Yourself and Force Yourself to Face Your Fears the Easier It Gets---Good Examples:  Meeting New People, Public Speaking, Taking Tests, Trying New Projects, Doing Something You Were Scared to Do, Job Interviews.

5.      “Only Thing We Have to Fear Is Fear Itself”:  Franklin D. Roosevelt

6.      Ask Others How they Conquered That Same Fear

7.      Use Positive Affirmations:  I Can Do This!

8.      Visualize Yourself Doing It Successfully and Practice this in Your Mind

9.      Failures are Good:  the most successful people had many failures.  It’s people who don’t try that really fail.  Success takes many attempts.  We learn from our mistakes. 

10.   Call onto God, the Universe, a Higher Power and Read Inspirational Books on Conquering Challenges.   Tell yourself, “I am not going to dwell on the past or worry about the future.  I’m giving it to my Higher Power or to God or that life will work out”

Men and Depression

Mental Health and Men

 Mental Health for Men is a silent crisis.  There are new and emerging pressures for men, stemming from changes at work or loss of work, and in family and personal life.   

Fatherhood

Social and economic changes have affected the family structure and have redefined the role of both straight and gay men within the home. Men have seen greater responsibility in contributing to housework and child-rearing. They may not have ever learned these skills.

Men and Medical and Mental Health Care

Women seek health care in much greater proportion than men. Men, on the other hand, traditionally shy away from the health-care system. When they do reach a physician, men tend to focus more on physical problems, and are less likely to discuss deeper emotional issues. Perhaps most influential are perceptions around male masculinity. As it is seen unmanly to discuss weakness, mental issues become masked and often go undiagnosed.

Depression and suicide

Researchers estimate that at least 6 million men suffer from depression each year in the United States. While this number is larger in women, men are almost four times more likely to suffer the ultimate consequence of their depression: suicide. Even though women attempt more suicides each year, men are more successful, in part because the methods employed by men are more lethal.  

Men are simply not seeking proper treatment. The issue is confounded because men’s depressive symptoms are not being readily recognized by physicians and by men themselves. Men are more willing to acknowledge physical symptoms---rather than sadness, worthlessness, hopelessness, and excessive guilt. It is these physical symptoms, and other signs such as alcohol or drug dependence and anger, that require greater recognition by men as possibly pointing toward an underlying illness of depression.

If you or someone you love is among the millions of men being plagued by the symptoms described above, it is important to seek help promptly.   There are numerous resource readily available online. While the cause of your depression may not be immediately clear, what is clear is that you’re not alone and should never feel ashamed. Depression is common and treatable. In times of mental hardship, your greatest enemy is silence. Overcome this and you are well on your way to having good mental health.

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Forgiveness and Gratitude

Two things that add to our happiness and counteract depression are Gratitude and Forgiveness.  Researchers in mental health are discovering the importance of gratitude and forgiveness for healthy living.  They are concluding that the “people who have aged most successfully are those who worry less about cholesterol and waistlines and more about gratitude and forgiveness.”
Gratitude and forgiveness are important healing factors.  Minimally, gratitude is an emotional response to a gift. It is the appreciation felt after one has been the beneficiary. It is also an excellent character practice that helps one flourish in life, a quality that can contribute to the completeness and wholeness of a person. Gratitude may be construed in a variety of ways---as an emotion, a virtue, a moral sentiment, a motive, a coping response, a skill, or an attitude.
Likewise, forgiveness is a more complex phenomenon than the saying “Forgive and forget” suggests.  Forgiveness can be seen as “a willingness to abandon one’s right to resentment, negative judgment, and indifferent behavior toward one who has unjustly hurt us, while fostering the undeserved qualities of compassion, generosity, and even love toward him or her.”
Forgiveness is not pardoning, condoning, excusing, forgetting, denying, or the restoring of a relationship.
Psychological researchers are actively investigating gratitude and forgiveness in people’s lives. A person’s happiness and life satisfaction grow as he/she increases a sense of gratitude. REACH is an acronym for the five steps involved in order to develop forgiveness: R—recall the hurt in detail; E—empathize with the offender to the extent possible; A—give the altruistic gift of forgiveness; C—commit yourself to forgive publicly; and H—work to hold onto the forgiveness you have begun to develop.
Gratitude and forgiveness are linked. If a person is filled with gratitude, he or she cannot help but forgive, and if a person is capable of forgiving others, then, he or she is much more able to be grateful.  If we cultivate these qualities in ourselves we are likely to live longer and happier lives!
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