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Struggling to “Be Here Now”?

Thursday, October 23rd, 2008

Click here to read my English usage blogs.

Many of you know Ram Dass’s famous book, Be Here Now, the 1971 precursor to Eckhart Tolle’s The Power of Now. From the titles of these books, you get the idea that there is something to be gained from focusing on the present rather than being run by our painful past or anxiously awaiting the unknowable future. Easier said than done, perhaps.

We have all seen (or have) the bumper stickers that say, “I’d rather be ____.” And who doesn’t say wistfully, “I wish,” ending the sentence with fantasies of Friday/the weekend/vacation/a new job/a new relationship/more wealth. There’s nothing wrong with wishing and hoping and fantasizing. It’s a testament to our optimism and unique ability as humans to imagine the future. However, this same ability sometimes works against us.

One of my clients told me that he and his wife are going through a tough time. He’s afraid they may not make it. After a brief pause, he added, “Jane, I want to be hopeful. So I’m just going to put my anger and hurt aside.”

If it’s possible for this man to truly let go of his anger and hurt with the snap of his fingers, then more power to him. But if his hope depends on ignoring his painful feelings, that hope is bound to be short lived. Anger and disappointment, ignored and pushed aside, tend to recirculate. As much as we try, denying “what is” doesn’t make “what isn’t” more attainable.

Like this husband in pain, I often wish I were “there,” or at least anywhere-but-here, now. But we can only change that which we acknowledge exists. If we can practice sitting with our feelings as they are—all of them, not just the comfortable or happy ones—if we can stay present with the present, we notice that our feelings evolve.

Anger dissolves into hurt, sometimes tinged with regret. Hurt and regret give way to sadness and mourning. If we don’t run from this grief, it eventually leads to a unique combination of acceptance, forgiveness, understanding, and compassion. From this fertile soil, wisdom sprouts, flowering into grace. Grace releases us from the grip of suffering. We begin to notice that we feel free where we formerly felt constrained and tight. This process may happen slowly or quickly, but with patience, compassion for our struggle, and perseverance, it will happen. Isn’t this worth being here now for?

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Click here to read more about Jane’s popular self-help book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life, #15 on Amazon’s bestseller list in the spirituality category.

Dear Jane Podcasts
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Jane’s Coaching and Training
For over 20 years, Jane Straus has coached individuals and groups, facilitated organizational retreats, conducted training programs, and presented keynotes for corporations and nonprofits nationwide.
To get exceptional results from coaching and training, you need someone who knows how to assess blind spots as well as enhance strengths. Jane’s coaching helps individuals and groups maximize their potential and improve their productivity and work relationships. Jane works to ensure that each client receives the wisdom, skills, and support he/she needs to succeed and often co-facilitates with industry-specific leaders who have chosen to mentor the next generation.
Contact Jane directly at Jane@janestraus.com to discuss your coaching or training needs or visit JaneStraus.com for more information and testimonials.

Click here to read Jane’s article in USA Today on the lessons we can glean from celebrity breakups.
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Tags:anger, compassion, dear jane, disappointment, eckhart tolle, forgiveness, grief, hurt, Jane Straus, painful feelings, perserverance, regret, relationship, sadness, wealth
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Decisions, Decisions!

Sunday, October 5th, 2008

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Should I take this job or that one? This one offers security but is boring and has little room for advancement; that one offers a chance to grow but carries economic risks.
Should I get this car or that one? This car gets better gas mileage; that one is more fun to drive but has fewer seats.
Should I buy a home or rent? Housing prices may still drop so maybe it’s better to keep renting; but if I buy now, will the tax break offset the higher price?
Should I try to get pregnant now or wait? My relationship with my husband is wobbly so maybe we should wait; but my clock is ticking, and what if I can’t conceive later?

Decisions, decisions! We face choices—big and small—constantly. Even the decision between two good things, such as a vacation in the sun or one on the ski slopes, can cause us anxiety. How do we decide how to decide?

Most of us poll our family or friends. After all, they know us and will probably have some good pros and cons to offer us. But have you ever listened to their valuable advice, nodding your head in agreement, then walked away feeling just as confused or undecided as before? Why is it that some decisions are so hard to make?

Indecisiveness is sometimes a clue that we’re not considering the right criteria. For example, if you’re choosing a car, instead of starting with the sticker price or the fuel economy, you might want to ask yourself what it is you want to experience. Are you looking for fun? Is status important? Do you want to reduce your carbon footprint? Do you want to drive on all the school field trips? Do you want the safest car, short of a military tank, because you have a teenager about to get her driver’s license? By asking what you want to experience, you give the message to yourself that you are worthy.
When you remind yourself that you are worthy of choosing according to your own intrinsic criteria, clarity is sometimes instantaneous. You may say to yourself, “Of course, this is what I wanted all along. Why did I make it so hard for myself?” Maybe all you had to do was clear out the other “voices in your head”—the ones that said “I shouldn’t want this.” “This is too nice for me.” “Others will judge me for wanting this.” “I don’t deserve this.”

However, even using your own criteria for deciding, you may still feel confused. Why? Because your mind and spirit may be arguing so effectively that you can’t tell who’s who. If you want to know what your spirit wants, here’s a quick exercise: Close your eyes and imagine a traffic light. Then think about one of your alternative choices. Quickly, what color do you see: green or red? Now think about the other choice. Quickly again, what color do you see? Green is your spirit’s choice. (Yes, it’s possible that your spirit will see green with more than one alternative because it may be fine with more than one choice.)

What if your spirit didn’t see green with any of your choices? Then maybe it’s time to look into more options. We can get caught up in either/or thinking: I can pick this car or that one, this job or that one. Maybe there are more alternatives that you haven’t even considered that would result in a green light. Don’t limit yourself prematurely, especially with self-talk like, “I would never…” I worked with a single woman in her mid-thirties who said, “I would never have children without a mate.” She also told me, “I would never marry a man who already has children.” Well, by the time she was forty and still single, she was questioning her strong stances. By forty-two, she had adopted two children and couldn’t imagine her life any other way. At forty-three, she met a man through her single-parent support group and guess what? She’s now married raising four children. When I last saw her, she laughed as she told me, “Jane, at 35 I thought I had to play it smart. I know now that all I had to do was listen to what I really wanted and things would work out.”

Things do tend to work out when we promise ourselves that we won’t regret our decisions as long as we honor our criteria, come from worthiness, and listen to our spirit.

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Tags:abundance, advice, anxiety, backwards thinking, choices, clarity, confused, dear jane, decision making, decisions, indecisiveness, Jane Straus, listening to spirit, pros and cons, risks, security, self-talk, spirit, worthiness, worthy
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Three Keys to Creating an Extraordinary Relationship

Tuesday, September 9th, 2008

Click here to read my English Usage blogs.

While love can make us soar to new and giddy heights, it can also bring us to our knees. Love can be difficult, daunting, and more often than we wish, devastatingly painful. Ram Dass, one of my favorite Buddhist teachers who speaks truths with both lightheartedness and great compassion, has said that relationship is the hardest yoga of all. So maybe we shouldn’t think any more highly of a monk meditating on a mountaintop than we do of ourselves for having the courage to struggle with loving another human being.

Most of us have secretly believed, at one time or another (or frequently), that if we just changed partners, it would be SO much easier. And we may be right. The problem is that our hearts don’t always know if letting go is the answer or is simply an avoidance strategy. What if we pick the same person/problems in a new disguise? What if our partner is right and we’re the problem?

When couples come to counseling, they want to know what I think: Are they better off apart? Is the relationship worth salvaging? Will it get better? How much better? Will it ever be good enough? Relatively pain free? Do they even dare hope for happiness? When will they know when they’re “there”?

Even with 27 years of experience as a relationship coach, I am terrible at predicting the future of relationships. I worked with one couple who I would have bet wouldn’t last another six weeks past our first session. Ten years later, they still write me holiday cards with photos of them with their growing brood, their smiles real and joyful. They always write something that gives me way too much credit for their happiness. I laugh, mostly at myself and how wrong I secretly was about their chances.

Another couple, who seemed to have only minor issues, left their third (and final) session grateful, holding hands, reassuring each other of their mutual respect and love. The next I heard, only a few months later, one of them was living with a new partner. Like many of their friends, I murmured to myself, They seemed so good together.

USA Today, in an interview I did for them, gave me the title of relationship expert. I chuckle at that. Is there really such a thing? What are the qualifications for such an exalted title? Should expert status be conferred by statistics? Is it how many couples I have worked with who have stayed together? Or maybe how many couples I have helped split amicably, avoiding costly attorneys’ fees? Or should someone be dubbed a relationship expert who is a good predictor of a couple’s chances?

We have such high expectations of relationship: We want to feel loved, safe, heard, respected, supported, beautiful/handsome/sexy, and…we are inevitably disappointed when our partner isn’t a deep enough reservoir. Should we give up and move on? Can we do better? Will learning tools or increasing our self-awareness really help?

If there are tricks or theories or strategies or paradigms or sociological studies, how do you know which one(s) to pick or whom to trust? A numerologist will give you one set of parameters for finding and keeping your “perfect” partner; an astrologist, another paradigm; a psychologist, a third set of compatibility factors. A Buddhist guide might help you see relationship through the lens of karma. The psychic has spirit guides, tea leaves, or your palm at his/her disposal. Most of us take the smorgasbord approach: We try a little of this, a little of that, hoping to cobble together our own paradigm for success in relationship.

So, as USA Today’s relationship expert and, more truthfully, humble observer of hundreds of couples, let me add another morsel to your plate with my three keys to creating an extraordinary relationship. I believe that these are the “must have” tools that will help you find your way back to trust, intimacy, and friendship.

Jane’s Three Keys to Creating an Extraordinary Relationship

1. Ask open-ended questions. When people tell me what makes them feel most loved, they’ll mention roses, sex, cards, candlelight dinners, long walks, back rubs—all the usual stuff. They never mention being listened to. But I’ve found that it’s the act of love that is most appreciated, melts even the most cynical heart, and is a more potent aphrodisiac than chocolate or flowers.

2. Provide a safe haven. You know that Allstate insurance commercial with the two hands cupped together, palms up? When the chips are down for your partner, be that. Don’t judge or give advice; just gently hold their precious spirit in your hands. This is as close to unconditional love as one adult can ever offer another.

3. Offer truth, not just mere honesty. You may be honest if you tell your partner, “You were an inconsiderate boor” or “You’re an idiot.” Honesty can be hurtful to a relationship because it can contain judgments and assumptions. The difference between honesty and truth is that truth is nonjudgmental. I can say in truth, “I am really angry that you talked about my weight loss struggles in front of our friends. It felt humiliating.” When I teach couples this distinction, they sometimes argue that the truth sounds so much scarier because of the vulnerability required. I say, “Exactly! How do you expect to have intimacy without vulnerability?” It’s a choice—a courageous one. Truth is a form of love. When we are willing to tell the truth and hear it, we let our partner know that we are risking everything for the sake of the highest good of the relationship.

In my book, Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life, I offer many more tools that will minimize your pain and maximize the intimacy and joy in your relationship. But these three may be enough to get you out of your relationship rut and back to remembering why you were attracted to each other in the first place. Here’s to your courage, your vulnerability, and your compassionate intention!

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Dear Jane Podcasts
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________________________________________
Jane’s Coaching and Training
For over 20 years, Jane Straus has coached individuals and groups, facilitated organizational retreats, conducted training programs, and presented keynotes for corporations and nonprofits nationwide.
To get exceptional results from coaching and training, you need someone who knows how to assess blind spots as well as enhance strengths. Jane’s coaching helps individuals and groups maximize their potential and improve their productivity and work relationships. Jane works to ensure that each client receives the wisdom, skills, and support he/she needs to succeed and often co-facilitates with industry-specific leaders who have chosen to mentor the next generation.
Contact Jane directly at Jane@janestraus.com to discuss your coaching or training needs or visit JaneStraus.com for more information and testimonials.

Tags:couples counseling, couples therapy, dear jane, expressing your feelings, forgiveness, happiness, hearts, intimacy, Jane Straus, love, partner, ram dass, relationship, relationship advice, relationship coach, relationship counseling, relationship expert, soulmate, strategies, struggle, trust, truth, vulnerable feelings
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Generation E: Help Your Children Stop Enduring Now!

Thursday, August 28th, 2008

Click here to read my English usage blogs.

We pour our hopes and dreams into our children from the moment they are born. We want them to fare better in life and grow up more secure and presumably happier than . . . than what? Than we are. But despite our best intentions, today’s children are fast becoming a generation of endurers raised by a generation of endurers. And everyone pays a steep price. Parents run the risk of passing their ever-striving-never-stopping tendencies on to the next generation. Call them Generation E—a whole generation of kids for whom enduring seems, if not natural, at least normal.

For many parents afraid for their children’s future, childhood has become a race to the finish line, the brass ring being college and a good career. Isn’t it ironic that, in pursuit of our children’s “success,” we sacrifice ourselves and them by driving them so hard? If the road we’re on together is plagued with stress, resentment, and fatigue, then perhaps it is a vicious circle and not a road at all.

As parents who truly have our children’s best interests at heart, we need to take a different approach. We can help our children stop enduring by practicing a new mantra: Enough is enough!

•Don’t over schedule. Offering children the very best doesn’t mean keeping them busy every moment, even with what we believe are enriching pastimes and enterprises. Nowadays, 12-year-old children are using the term ‘burnout,’ and the sad part is, they mean it! Cut back on the extracurricular activities. Let your child’s moods, energy level, learning style, personality, and interests dictate how many activities they pursue. Then put your own energy level and needs into the equation.

•It’s okay, even good, if kids get bored. Boredom is beneficial, if not imperative, to the growth, creativity, and confidence of children. When children have moments to dream up new ways to entertain themselves and each other, their imaginations are developed in ways a controlled learning environment can’t compete with.

•Teach your kids the difference between endurance and perseverance. True perseverance involves the spirit. When we persevere toward a goal, we are listening to that still small voice within. We are inspired, not drained; empowered, not victimized. When we are enduring, however, we hear only our fears. Our spirit is drowned out by this fear-driven voice that warns us to remain hyper vigilant, ultimately leading us to exhaustion—victims of our To Do lists, the demands of our jobs, and our failing mental and physical health. We exude fear and dread, not enthusiasm. Stuck in a rut, lost in fear, how can we expect to be able to help our kids discover their path?

Begin to discern this important distinction for yourself and you will be able to help your children persevere rather than endure. Children mimic what they see parents doing. So the most important way to stop their endurance in its tracks is to get out of the endurance cycle yourself. Do you feel you never have time to stop? Do you resent never having the time to do things your spirit longs for? Do you look forward to an imagined future time when you will feel happier/ more energetic/debt free? Do you feel resigned and unappreciated as a parent, in spite of all you do? If you answered yes to any of these questions, you are enduring. Something needs to change—the sooner, the better.

•If you are enduring . . . It’s time to stop now. The primary source of endurance is fear. Are you worried about your children’s future so much that you can’t imagine taking a risk in your job or career, even for your own well being? Are you convinced that your child will not get into a good college if you don’t continue to sacrifice both your energy and your financial resources? Try not to let fear rule your life or theirs. Take a risk to live a more inspired life yourself so that this, and not powerlessness, is your legacy to your children. Live a life that is admirable by your own standards and your children will both notice your courage and want to emulate it.

•When they disappoint you, give time ins, not time outs. Next time your child doesn’t meet your expectations or misbehaves, don’t ground them or call a time out; provide a time in. Let them talk to you and you will learn more than you would have by closing the door on your communication. If we want our children to be honest with us, we have to make it safe for them to share with us. If we want them to take responsibility for their actions and their lives, what better way than to ask them to reflect on their behaviors and decide what appropriate steps they need to take next?

•Remember what is most important. Some of our worries about success and failure reflect our own need to prove ourselves worthy in our own and others’ eyes. But we want our children to know that they are inherently worthy, not for what they do, but for who they are. Remind them that they are so much more than the sum total of their successes and failures. And if you need to, remind yourself similarly.

Let your motivation to help your children come from your own spirit’s journey. Let yourself be a gauge of what feels inspiring and enriching. Ignore the fear-based need to charge ahead to the point of exhaustion. By learning to say Enough is enough!, together parents and children may just find life filled with more love, joy, and peace. We owe it to our children and to ourselves to shift our focus from fear for their success to just letting them blossom into the extraordinary beings their spirits already yearn for them to become.

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Tags:child, childhood, children, coping strategies, dear jane, enduring, fulfilling life, Jane Straus, learning style, over schedule, parent-child communication, parenting, parenting advice, parents, raising children, success, worthiness
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Insights on Bullying

Tuesday, August 26th, 2008

Click here to read my English usage blogs.

If only the saying, Sticks and stones may break my bones, but names will never hurt me were true. In reality, being judged, teased, or made fun of, that is, being bullied, can break one’s spirit and cause deep scars.

Children who are abused or ridiculed by their peers, siblings, even teachers or parents can’t help but believe that there is truth behind the cutting words or angry slap. To a child, everything is personal. They are likely to blame themselves for causing others to hate them enough to hurt them. What happens from there?
When someone is bullied, they are apt to go into endurance mode. In Enough Is Enough, I offer this about the dangers of endurance: Endurance is when you wake up in the morning assuming today will be as emotionally painful as yesterday and the day before. Endurance means that you don’t experience 365 different days a year; you experience the same day 365 times a year. Endurance is believing that your wishes, dreams, and goals don’t matter. Endurance is hopelessness, dread, and anxiety.

Those who have been bullied suffer from endurance and are likely to develop a belief system that is severely limiting, self-judgmental, and fear-based. What are the symptoms of this suffering?

If a child doesn’t commit suicide, get strung out on drugs, or have a fatal “accident,” he or she often grows up exhibiting Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome, becoming distrustful, secretive, self-abusing, and sometimes even abusive towards others as a result of all their pent-up hurt, rage, and humiliation. So how can we stop the bullying? How can we help those who are being bullied?

The good news is that bullying is finally receiving the attention it warrants. We are recognizing that bullying creates more bullying, is a trigger for depression, suicide, and drug abuse among teens, and often creates a lifetime of disorders that hinder people from thriving.

One story currently garnering major press began in my home town of Mill Valley, California, at my daughter’s school, Tamalpais High. Two sisters who attend the school, Emily and Sarah Buder, along with their mother Janet, read an article about a girl, Olivia, in another town, who had suffered from bullying at her middle school. Although the Buders had never met Olivia, they felt compassion and wanted to reach out. They began an e-mail campaign requesting other teenagers and anyone who had ever suffered from bullying to write to Olivia. Fast forward: After just a few months, thousands of letters had poured in from all over the world to support Olivia and her mother.

Olivia has come to believe that there are many good people in the world. In addition, truly eye-opening were the letters she received from bullies. What she and the Buder sisters learned from these bullies is that they are also victims of emotional or physical abuse themselves.

The story of these two girls making a difference in the life of a stranger and the lessons they all learned is now available as an inspiring book just published by HarperCollins called Letters to a Bullied Girl. If you have a child who has been bullied, if you know of someone suffering from bullying, or if you were EVER bullied, I encourage you to get this book, available at Amazon now.

Bullying is a cycle. To stop it, we must take it out of our collective closet, just as we have finally begun to do with sexual abuse and domestic violence. By opening our eyes to the symptoms of those who are being bullied—depression, self-destructive behaviors, frequent “accidents,” suicide threats, anxiety, poor performance at school, difficulty concentrating, drug abuse—we let those who are suffering know that they need not endure ridicule and abuse in silence. If you have the courage to ask, you may find that a child has the desire to share this secret with you. Few want to live with the secret of being bullied. Most think they have no other choice.

Most importantly, to stop the cycle of bullying, we must remember that anyone who bullies has likely been the target of bullying themselves. While we need to have zero tolerance for the behavior, we must reach out to the bullies, protect them from further abuse, and treat their emotional scars. As the writer Alexander Soltzenitzen wrote (slight paraphrase): “Wouldn’t it be wonderful to take all the evil people and put them over there, then we wouldn’t have to deal with them. And all of us good people would stay right here. The problem is that the line separating good and evil cuts right through the human heart.”

Let’s get out of Courtroom Earth where we label bullies and simply punish them, and set up Classroom Earth where we open our hearts, remembering that harsh and hurtful behaviors are disguised cries for help.

The Buder sisters didn’t know what a difference they would make in one girl’s life and now, through the book, in possibly tens of thousands of lives. They were simply compelled to do something. Whatever compels you, trust it. You are bound to make a difference.

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Tags:anger, bullies, bullying, child, childhood, children, dear jane, endurance mode, enduring, fear, hopelessness, Jane Straus, parenting, parenting advice, parents, peers, raising children, rejection
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11 Keys for Getting the Most out of Relationship Coaching

Thursday, July 31st, 2008

Click here to read my English usage blogs.

Every couple hits rough patches. Some may even find themselves suddenly “skidding on black ice.” But whether the problem in the relationship is chronic, causing simmering resentment, or seems to explode like a land mine, almost every couple contemplates getting help at one time or another.

In a tight economy, the pressures that couples experience intensify. This can put you in a push-pull situation: Already strapped for money, you are faced with the additional prospect of paying for a service that has no guaranteed outcome. Yet you suspect that if you don’t get coaching, your relationship won’t survive. You have to weigh the immediate costs of professional help against the potential costs of a breakup, including double rent or an additional mortgage, a forced sale of your home, moving expenses, attorneys, and additional childcare. Even if you aren’t married or don’t have children, breaking up isn’t just hard to do; it can be costly.

So how do you know when the right time for relationship coaching is? How do you know if it’s going to work? How do you know if your relationship coach/counselor is good?

Because each couple’s situation is unique, there are no simple answers to these perfectly reasonable questions. However, there are some things you can do to decide if relationship coaching is a good option and to maximize your chances of a satisfying experience. Here are 11 Keys for getting the most out of relationship coaching:

1. Don’t wait until you feel hopeless. Maybe you’re already at this crisis stage. In that case, don’t delay in getting help. If you’re on the fence about relationship coaching but think you want to salvage your relationship, consider this metaphor: When a scuba diver descends too quickly, her ears may hurt from the imbalance of pressure. At that depth, it won’t work for her to continue trying to relieve the pressure by swallowing. She must swim back up to the point at which the pain began, clear her ears with a good swallow or two, and then descend slowly, checking for pain levels periodically. Successful counseling is akin to the scuba experience. It is often a matter of finding the initial spot where the pain began. This is easier for everyone—coach and couple—if you don’t have so far to travel back or can’t even remember the last time you felt no pain. Crisis intervention leaves little time or energy for exploring the root causes of heartache, which may often include past relationships and childhood events. So, just as you wouldn’t let a physical wound fester without treatment, don’t ignore your emotional wounds.

2. Don’t use your coach as a referee. When couples are angry, they want someone to listen and see their side. That’s expected and reasonable. But don’t expect a good counselor/coach to take your side. That need can be met by friends who may commiserate out of sheer loyalty. A seasoned relationship coach knows that taking sides is counterproductive for the couple. She should listen to both of your feelings, fears, and complaints. She should then connect these to the deeper issues that precipitated your problems or even predated your relationship. A good relationship coach will provide you with useful insights (those AHA! moments), tools for communicating, and homework to raise your self-esteem, which often declines as a relationship deteriorates.

3. Don’t focus on being liked by your relationship coach. She’s not there to take sides; she’s there to help you find clarity, learn relationship skills, and develop higher self-esteem. If you try to be “teacher’s pet,” you may feel betrayed the first time your coach calls you on a behavior, which she will no doubt do if she’s any good. Don’t idealize her. Remember, when she’s not being paid to be the perfect listener and guide, she may not even be someone you’d like as a friend.

4. Commit to the process. Presuming you feel some “chemistry” with one another after the first session, your relationship coach will probably ask you to commit to a minimum number of sessions or length of time. If one or both people can’t make even a minimum commitment, there may not be enough elasticity in the relationship to make counseling worthwhile. If you have one foot out the door already, be up front with your coach. Don’t pretend that you are more invested in working on the relationship than you actually are or you’ll end up fighting the label of “the bad guy.”

5. Unless you have been abused, don’t threaten your partner with leaving during your counseling timeframe. If you’ve committed to three months of counseling, don’t walk in after three weeks and say that you’ve changed your mind. Give your relationship coach a chance to help you through at least one emotional abyss. I once worked with a couple where the husband threatened “the end” in the middle of every session (even though I asked him repeatedly not to do this). After enough of my calling him on his threatening behavior, he was willing to admit that his ultimatums made him feel a semblance of control. But he could also see that his threats fueled his wife’s distrust and provoked her in destructive ways. Once he stopped “crying wolf,” they both became more vulnerable about their underlying feelings and fears. From staunch enemies they grew (in just a few weeks) to become each other’s best friend.

6. Don’t withhold. If you have some big secret, there are many ways to handle this. Here’s how not to handle it: Don’t tell your relationship coach your secret in private and ask her to keep it from your partner. That’s poison for any relationship. If your counselor reinforces you in any way in keeping your partner in the dark, find a more ethical counselor. You don’t want to work with someone who colludes on secrets. How can you trust that she isn’t holding a secret of your partner’s that you would want to know? You’ve probably heard the saying, “We are only as sick as our secrets.” Your secret, be it about infidelity, credit card debt, or herpes, is already eating you up or you would have shared it with your partner. Because secrets reinforce our fears, they inevitably damage our relationships. Here’s what you can do if you have been keeping a secret from your partner: If you can’t imagine telling your partner outright, then go ahead and talk to your relationship coach privately. Tell her you need help finding the courage to share your secret. She won’t sugarcoat the consequences. Yes, you may lose your partner. But in my experience as a life coach, the relationships that almost certainly end are the ones where one or both parties had a secret they were unwilling or too afraid to confess. Think about it this way: You are afraid to tell because you are afraid of being abandoned. But the reality is that you are likely to be abandoned if you don’t tell. Why? Because your relationship is a mirror. If you are afraid of being abandoned, your relationship will mirror that fear in some way. If you think you are unworthy of your partner because of your secret, they will unknowingly mirror this back to you. Secrets set up a Catch 22, no-win situation. So you might as well offer the truth and find out if your partner can forgive you as you learn to forgive yourself.

7. Be truer to your values than to your fears. No one wants to be abandoned. But if you abandon yourself or your core values to keep somebody in your life, you will regret it. Most of us have done this at one time or another and know how bad we end up feeling about ourselves. Yet we sometimes try to “work around” our values in order to avoid loneliness or dissention. If your partner is behaving in ways that offend your moral sensibilities, speak up. If you try to talk about other, less sensitive topics in counseling when you are bothered by something bigger, you are wasting your precious time and money. Give your counselor an opportunity to help you honor your values and to explore your partner’s core values. Maybe your partner is behaving in ways that go against his/her own ethics and feels ashamed. If so, there’s a good chance that a relationship coach can help your partner realign with his/her values.

8. If you disagree with your coach’s interpretation, speak up. Even the best relationship coaches have filters based on their own life experiences. But a good coach doesn’t care more about being right than about the success of your relationship. While you don’t want to be rude, you don’t want to worry about objecting. You’re not there to coddle your coach’s ego just as she isn’t there to massage yours. She may disagree with your point of view and you may feel defensive. That happens. But you shouldn’t feel bullied, intimidated, or humiliated.

9. Don’t shoot the messenger. You may not like what you hear from your coach. But if it rings true, even if it bruises your ego, don’t blame her for doing her job well. Ignoring the truth translates to you and your partner suffering needlessly. Try to remember that a hard truth is better than a soft lie if your priority is a healthy, happy relationship.

10. Talk openly about financial issues. If you are wobbling about coming to a counseling session because of financial difficulty, let your counselor know before your next session. Obviously, it is respectful to give her time to think about how she wants to handle this. But perhaps even more importantly, she may make a connection between your financial difficulty and other issues in your relationship. Being truthful about financial stresses will help her put the pieces of your puzzle together in a way that could be quite illuminating as well as financially stabilizing.

11. Practice compassion. You might not be in counseling if this were already so easy, but if you can’t find any compassion for your partner’s emotional wounds or the fears that drive his/her counterproductive behaviors, it’s hard to move forward or find hope. Ultimately, the capacity to create a successful, intimate, joyful relationship lies in our ability to recognize and remember that everything that doesn’t look like love is simply a disguised cry for help. Your relationship coach should demonstrate enough compassion that it “wears off” on you. It is compassion that promotes healing, vulnerability, truth, and forgiveness. Although there are few promises that can be made about the outcome of your time in counseling, I guarantee that the more compassion you practice, the more satisfied you will feel about the experience.

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Tags:choices, choosing a coach, couples, couples counseling, couples therapy, dear jane, forgiveness, healing process, intimacy, Jane Straus, love, partner, relationship, relationship advice, relationship coach, relationship counseling, relationship rough patches
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Lessons from High-Profile Celebrity Divorces

Saturday, July 19th, 2008

To read my English usage blogs, click here.

This may not sound like the title of one of my usual newsletters, so let me explain. First, an explanation for the gap between newsletters: I was on a roller coaster ride for a number of weeks, first with a surprise health issue that is now fortunately resolved and then with some 15-minutes-of-fame experiences.

After two minor surgeries (one surprise, one planned) I flew to Club Med Cancun to teach my Creating Your Abundance from the Inside Out Seminar. The participants—a mix of savvy business folks, marketing experts, health professionals, and professors—contributed so much to my already jam-packed workshop that I decided to compile all this wisdom into an e-book, aptly titled Creating Your Abundance from the Inside Out, which will be ready for ordering in September.

Club Med was followed by a “Cinderella at the Ball” experience in L.A., where I was escorted by my wonderful producer friends to meetings with TV executives for a possible reality show. From these gleaming high rises, I was taken to the Paramount Studios set of “Monk,” where I met Tony Shalhoub and reconnected with his co-star Jason Gray-Stanford (my buddy from the televised Grammar Bee that he hosted and I judged). When I flew home, I was still on Cloud 9 but grateful for my day-to-day life with my family.

Just as I was settling in, I was contacted by USA TODAY (They’d googled Relationship Expert and voila!) to offer some wisdom on how to have a “sane” breakup using celebrity divorces as backdrops. Below is the article as it appeared in USA TODAY online. An edited version appeared in print on July 11, 2008, in Section D, Life. If you’d like to see the original with all the celebrity photos, click here:

Staying Civil in Divorce Court is Hard to Do

Christie Brinkley and architect Peter Cook ended their brutal divorce trial Thursday with a settlement that gave the former model custody of their children, Jack, 13, and Sailor, 10, and all 18 of the couple’s Hamptons properties. Brinkley, 54, agreed to pay $2.1 million to Cook, 49, who was granted “parenting time.” The settlement, which followed allegations of affairs, expensive porn habits and bad parenting, was “a very bittersweet moment,” Brinkley said.
While the ugliness of the trial didn’t rise to the level of the divorces of Charlie Sheen and Denise Richards or Paul McCartney and Heather Mills, other celebrities have had more success in keeping their breakups civil. USA TODAY and relationship expert Jane Straus, author of Enough Is Enough! Stop Enduring and Start Living Your Extraordinary Life, look at the good and bad of celebrity divorces.

Ryan Phillippe, 33, and Reese Witherspoon, 32
Married: June 1999
Divorced: June 2008
Children: Ava, 8 and Deacon, 4
Issues: Irreconcilable differences
Back story: Witherspoon and Phillippe stayed amicable after their split, even after rumors surfaced that Phillippe was having an affair with his Stop-Loss co-star Abbie Cornish. Phillippe says that he and Witherspoon “have done a really good job at keeping things peaceable and completely focused on the children.” Witherspoon has opted to keep the details of their divorce private.

Straus says: If only more ex-couples could bite their tongues until time has had a chance to help them heal. Once nasty details have been publicly aired, it’s much harder to ask friends, family, or even the public to forgive and forget.

Hilary Swank, 34, and Chad Lowe, 40
Married: September 1997
Divorced: May 2006 (announced)
Children: None
Issue: The double Oscar-winning actress told Vanity Fair in 2006 that Lowe’s substance-abuse problem was at the heart of their split.
Back story: The two remain good friends, and Lowe publicly raves about the way Swank supported him throughout his path to sobriety. “In the end, it just didn’t work,” Swank told Vanity Fair. “But I would never look back on this relationship as failed. I look at it as 13½ years of success.”

Straus says: This attitude shows hard-won wisdom on both Hillary’s and Chad’s part. They’ve been through the agony of addiction and come through with grace as demonstrated by neither of them having to play “victim.”

Kate Hudson, 29, and Chris Robinson, 41
Married: December 2000
Divorced: October 2007
Children: Ryder Russell, 4
Issues: Irreconcilable differences
Back story: Maintaining her friendship with Robinson was very important, Hudson told Harper’s Bazaar in September 2007. “For both Chris and me, our main focus is, and was, Ryder. And happy parents, happy baby. Therefore, I love Chris to pieces.” Hudson is so at ease with their split that she spent Father’s Day this year with Robinson, Ryder, her new love Lance Armstrong and Armstrong’s three children.

Straus says: Some couples come to realize that their purpose has been fulfilled once they have a baby. If they have no stake in feeling wronged, they can split amicably and focus on their children’s well-being. It helps if money isn’t an issue, of course.

Paul McCartney, 66, and Heather Mills, 40
Married: June 2002
Divorced: McCartney filed for divorce in July 2006
Children: Beatrice McCartney, 4
Issues: Without a prenuptial agreement, Mills sought a financial divorce settlement of $250 million.
Back story: Despite his wealth, McCartney lives on a modest property, according to court documents, and offered Mills $30 million. Mills wanted $6.5 million a year for herself and daughter, $25 million for a London home, $6 million for a New York City apartment and $1.5 million for an office in an English seaside town, according to People magazine. In addition, both McCartney and Mills have blamed the other for leaking details of their private affairs to the press.

Straus says: “Most of us believe we would feel satisfied — even thrilled — with Paul’s seemingly generous offer. But we all get used to a lifestyle and can then feel offended or even threatened when it is being taken away from us. Maybe the lesson here is that it is a slippery slope from privilege to entitlement.”

Alec Baldwin, 50, and Kim Basinger, 54
Married: August 1993
Divorced: November 2002
Children: Ireland Eliesse, 12
Issue: Custody battle
Back story: Basinger has charged that Baldwin is “emotionally and physically abusive,” and Baldwin has accused Basinger, 53, of having “a pathological need” to turn their daughter against him. In 2008, Basinger filed a motion to stop Baldwin from publishing A Promise to Ourselves: Fatherhood, Divorce, and Family Law, a book reportedly about their divorce, though Baldwin told the New York Daily News that he has not divulged private information about Basinger. The book will be released in September.

Straus says: “This ex-couple demonstrates a need on each of their parts to get the public to side with them. If they could agree to keep their communications private, they would be letting the public know that their daughter comes first. Wouldn’t that be the best PR of all?”

Charlie Sheen, 42, and Denise Richards, 37
Married: June 2002
Divorced: November 2006
Children: Samantha, 4, and Lola, 3
Issue: Custody battle
Back story: Richards described Sheen in court documents as abusive, negligent of their daughters and a patron of prostitutes. She also has asked the court to give her final decision power, despite their joint custody arrangement. In a May statement, Sheen said Richards continues to publicly discuss and harass both Sheen and his new wife, Brooke Mueller.

Straus says: “Like many newlyweds, Denise may have thought she could change Charlie’s notorious ways. At the time of their split, she may have felt disillusioned and hurt. Many parents find themselves fearful and confused about the data on vaccination risks, so this battle shows concern for their children. Let’s not judge them for this.”

USA TODAY also asked me to write an introduction with advice for a “successful” breakup. Due to space limitations, it didn’t get printed, but I thought it might be helpful for some of you.

“Successful” and “divorce” are not two words we usually put together in the same sentence. Is it even possible? Well, if some celebrity couples can manage it, even with the paparazzi on their heels 24/7, maybe we can too. But just as it takes two to make a successful marriage, it helps if both partners are mature enough to abide by some basic rules when they come to the painful decision that it’s time to split up.
Rule #1: Don’t tell your family about all the terrible things your partner did. What if you get back together? You will feel embarrassed that you’ve forgiven your partner and your family may find it hard to forgive him/her for hurting you.
Rule #2: If you need to talk, which you probably will, talk to a counselor/therapist. You deserve compassion, but a professional listener won’t support you in wallowing in self-pity any longer than necessary. A counselor’s job is to help you understand your relationship patterns so that you can break the unhealthy ones and move on.
Rule #3: Never fight in front of your children or share any gory details. Getting them to side with you is nothing short of cruel.
Rule #4: Don’t talk about money too soon. During a split, feelings tend to be volatile. Anger and revenge can morph into remorse in the blink of an eye. You will want to get stabilized emotionally before you divvy things up. Even if you agree on how assets will be split, have your own attorney look everything over. But make sure you hire a lawyer who is supportive of mediation so that you don’t lose everything in a potentially futile court battle.
Rule #5: Keep your new life private for a while. While it can be tempting to show off new eye candy on your arm, why risk turning still-smoldering embers into a wildfire?
Rule #6: Remember the loving feelings you had when you first got together. Why? Because simmering resentment doesn’t help you get over the relationship; grieving does. Grieving requires remembering the good and feeling your sadness and loss. You may feel uncomfortably vulnerable, but you will also heal that much more quickly.

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Tags:celebrity divorces, couples, couples counseling, dear jane, divorce, forgiveness, Jane Straus, love, parenting, parenting advice, partner, relationship, relationship advice, relationship counseling, relationship expert, split, success
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Making the Bed with Gratitude

Tuesday, June 17th, 2008

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The other day a client sat tearfully in my office, in pain over something she prefaced as “silly,” dismissing her feelings and herself preemptively with a wave of her hand. But her sobbing didn’t stop simply because her mind was in judgment of her feelings. “Please explain,” I encouraged softly.

She pulled a tissue out of the box and dabbed her eyes, looking at the carpet as she spoke. “I’ve had a lot of health problems recently. I don’t want to be a complainer but it’s been a push just to get up in the morning and go to work. Yesterday, my husband got up and left the bed unmade.” With that, her voice broke and she sobbed deeply.

“What does that mean?”

“It was Sunday—my day to make the bed.” She looked at me waiting for me to get the connotation. I was starting to get the idea so I just nodded. “It was more important to him that I keep some stupid agreement about making the bed than to help me when I’m sick. The part that hurts is that he didn’t want to help me.”

My heart ached. I thought of so many times where I’ve felt that what I did for someone mattered more than who I am, that without having something to offer, I wasn’t worthy. It’s been a belief I’ve been working on for a long time, but the need to heal that one still presents itself in surprising and painful ways. I took her hand. “You can use this as evidence that your husband doesn’t value you or you can confront him with his behavior and ask him to explain.”

“I’m afraid he’ll just get defensive and say he didn’t do anything wrong.”

“So what’s your worst fear in confronting him?”

She looked me in the eye now, searching for the answer that was already within her. “That it’s true,” she finally whispered, “that he doesn’t value me.”

“But since you already believe that, what is there to fear?”

“I might have to leave him.”

Of course that was her fear: that she wouldn’t have confusion as her excuse to hide behind anymore, that the decision to stay or leave someone who didn’t or couldn’t uphold her worthiness was her responsibility to make. Perhaps most difficult, she would have to face how much she was willing to value herself.

Before she left the session, she admitted to feeling unloved many times before but that this was somehow a last straw. She was resolved to confront her husband and face the consequences.

The woman who walked into my office the next week looked very different. Her shoulders were straighter and she had the confidence that comes with having just met fear with courage. I wondered what I would hear. Had she left him?

“He admitted that he’d been an ass. He said that I was right to be upset. Then he said that he cherished me. I must have looked pretty skeptical,” she said, “because then he asked how he could prove it to me.”

“What did you say?”

She smiled slowly, “I said, ‘I will know that you love me by how you look when you make our bed.’”

“And?”

“The next day I watched him as he made the bed, smoothing out all the wrinkles in the comforter. I could see the gratitude in his hands. He’s made it that way every day since.”

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Tags:courage, dear jane, fear, gratitude, intimacy, Jane Straus, love, partner, personal responsibility, relationship, relationship advice, relationship coach, relationship counseling, relationship rough patches, worthiness
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What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?

Monday, June 9th, 2008

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What Would You Do If You Had No Fear?

“What would you do if you had no fear?” This is the intriguing question that my friend, author Diane Conway, posed to people. Their answers inspired her to write a book of the same name. Her question inspires me to stop often during the day to ask this of myself. Even when I don’t realize that I’m fearful, I find the question useful because fear has many symptoms and disguises.

When I am afraid but don’t realize it, I can feel everything from sleepy to nervous, antsy to dull, wanting to procrastinate or burying myself in minutiae. One way I can recognize that F.E.A.R. (False Evidence Appearing Real) is running the show is by reflecting on this simple yet invaluable question.

For instance, I had a meeting in Los Angeles the other day where the stakes felt high. As I entered the high-rise building elevator, avoiding my reflection in the brilliantly shined chrome, my stomach fluttered and my heart began to pound. Excitement? Anxiety? Both?

Regardless, it was certainly a good time to ask myself, “What would I do if I had no fear?” The answer came to me quickly: I would reveal more about my ideas and goals rather than hold back and wait to be sure I was safe. By the time the elevator doors parted, I felt more decisive and prepared for whatever lay in store for me. Interestingly, instead of focusing on the myriad of “what if’s” that could derail the project, I felt present and found myself enjoying rather than enduring the meeting. Although I don’t yet know the outcome of that meeting, I am relishing the “afterglow” we all get when we face fear with courage.

When last week my 15-year-old daughter came to me to talk about some hurt feelings following a conversation with a friend, I asked her gently, “What would you do right now if you had no fear?” Her sobs subsided and with renewed strength in her voice, she said, “I would call her and ask her what’s going on.” That one magic question empowered her to find her own wisdom. All she needed from me was some TLC and maybe a little cheer leading.

Not letting fear stand in our way is something most of us need to learn repeatedly. Even though I have lived through a brain tumor, I can still get caught up in the day-to-day “what if’s” that generate fear. In my book, Enough Is Enough!, I give keys for saying “boo” back to fear. This is not a one-time event; courage requires ongoing vigilance…and no excuses.

So thank you, Diane, for posing the question that all of us deserve to ask ourselves. And thank you to my family, friends, and clients who, every day, show me how to respond to this question with courage, vulnerability, and truth.

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Tags:backwards thinking, courage, dear jane, fear, feelings, healing process, Jane Straus, painful feelings, personal growth, self-talk, strategies, trust, truth
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Who Do You Think You Are?

Wednesday, May 28th, 2008

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Do you have a trait, an addiction, or a disorder that causes you suffering? If you were offered an instant, painless way to stop the OCD, ADD, depression, panic attacks, addiction, angry outbursts, impatience, or shyness, would you want it? What if this treatment could wipe out a particularly traumatic memory for you?

This isn’t science fiction. Many of the disorders that were once considered to be in the domain of psychology and psychiatry are now treated as neurological problems or chemical imbalances. MRIs are giving us a window into the mind/brain that is creating a proliferation of treatment options never before imagined.

In a recent article, researchers described implanting a pacemaker deep into the brain of a severely depressed woman. Minutes later, a smile lit up her face. By her own description, it had been twelve years since she had smiled. Other people suffering from depression were also implanted with the device and the results look promising, not only for depression, but for Obsessive Compulsive Disorder (OCD).

If a small electrical device sending out intermittent pulses can, within minutes, literally put a smile on the face of someone who has felt emotionally dead for years, what does this have to say about our personalities? How much of how we identify ourselves is really our Self?

As children, we are often compared to others who share our genes. “She has her mother’s eyes.” “That pout is just like his uncle’s.” “She’s stubborn, just like…” We learn to identify our Self by our traits, which we usually feel at least somewhat stuck with. By the time we are working adults, many of us have further identified ourselves (or our employers have) through personality profiles such as the Myers-Briggs Type Indicator. We know whether we are ESTJs (Extraversion, Sensing, Thinking, Judging) or INFPs (Introversion, iNtuition, Feeling, Perceiving). Discovering our personality style can help us understand our motivations and quirks as well as help us get along with others. However, is it possible to over-identify with our labels?

Perhaps you have researched the Sufi-derived Enneagram. If so, you know “your number.” For example, a Four on the Enneagram is the Romantic, Aesthete, Individualist. According to the Enneagram, as quoted by Wikipedia, “Fours embrace individualism and are often profoundly creative and intuitive and at best they are very humane. However, they have a habit of withdrawing to internalize, searching desperately inside themselves for something they never find and creating a spiral of depression.” This may be very helpful information for a Four. But might a Four (or any other “Number”) take this data and invalidate other aspects of him/her Self?

If a little electronic device could be implanted in a Four and the depression circumvented, is the person no longer a Four? Was the depression part of this person’s personality or was it a byproduct of a “misfiring” of the brain that required only some high-tech tweaking to correct it? Would the Four miss aspects of the depression? Did it fuel his/her creativity or intuition? Is the Four’s capacity for empathy/humanity a result of a deep understanding of what it means to suffer? Would others miss something in the Four? Would some of life’s lessons be lost along with the depression? Does growth require suffering?

If you are waiting for me to answer these questions, you will have to wait longer because I’m still finding more questions to ask! If a shock from a tiny electrode can instantly lift years of depression or alleviate the symptoms of OCD, it becomes compelling to question what “free will” means. Is our Self simply the sum total of our brain’s synapses? If these synapses are altered, how does this impact our sense of Self? What do you want to change about yourself? Are you willing to risk letting go of your former sense of Self to make the changes?

If depression or rage or shyness can be “zapped,” might this information encourage us to let go of our prior judgments about others’ behaviors or even our own? Maybe for all our best efforts, some of us are simply more prone to being quick to anger or too shy to make eye contact or too lacking in self-esteem to give ourselves a pep talk or feel inspired by affirmations. Maybe laziness or self-centeredness is built in.

What if you were just one quick fix away from being “cured” of any of these “flaws”? If flipping a switch eliminated the need for therapy, reading self-help books, meditating, taking anti-depressants and/or anti-anxiety meds, or having to risk your health, relationships, job, and freedom because you self-medicate with drugs and alcohol; that is, if a zap could eliminate your suffering and, most importantly, make you happy, would you utilize it?

Brain pacemaker research doesn’t lead me to answers to these questions but it does lead me to realizing the value of paying attention to my thoughts. Every day, we consciously or unconsciously choose our thoughts, which then trigger our emotions, which either change or reinforce our beliefs, all contributing to what we call our personality.

The Buddhists teach us that no enemy can harm us as much as our own worst thoughts. The opposite is perhaps also true: No one can help us as much as our own best thoughts. Our thoughts, whether stimulated by a machine or by a sunset, by biofeedback or by listening to music, influence our perceptions, our identification with our personality, and our sense of happiness. Implant or no implant, instant fix or years of meditation, therapy or medication, exercise endorphins or affirmations, if we pay closer attention to our thoughts, allow compassion for our own and others’ feelings, and question the authority of our beliefs, hopefully, we will find both meaning and delight in discovering our truer Self.

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Tags:addiction, anxiety, brain research, chemical imbalances, dear jane, depression, enjoying life, fear, feelings, happiness, healing process, Jane Straus, painful feelings, personality, personality type, self-esteem, success, suffering, suffering from depression, true self
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