Archive for March, 2010

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A is for Active: Tips for Time-Crunched Parents

Wednesday, March 17th, 2010

Helping your family to be active and achieving helps them to find and fulfill their purpose in God. As we look at the specifics of how to increase the activity of your family, please be aware that it will come with a cost. The cost will come in the form of your time and commitment. You must spend time with your children, with your family, implementing the changes that need to be made. This will require you to look at what you’re currently doing and how you’re spending your time and to restructure your day so you can support these changes.

Let’s take a look at how a typical time-crunched parent, using a father in a two-income household as an example.

He gets up early (earlier, in fact, than he’d really like, given when he got to bed the night before) to get ready for work and help get the kids ready to go off to day care or school. With moments to spare, he’s dropping off kids at the bus stop or day care. All day is taken up with work, and before he knows it, it’s time to go home. If he gets off work earlier than his wife, he’s probably the one who picks up the kids. If not, they’re already home by the time he arrives. Dinner is eaten, homework is done, and all he wants is just a little bit of time to himself to unwind. In fact, he looks forward to when the kids are finally in bed so he’s able to spend some time with his wife.

When life is like this, finding ways to become more involved and spend more time with your children is hard. Hard, but not impossible. Here are a few suggestions I have for this dad:

  • Get up early enough to sit down and have breakfast with your children.
  • Take time the night before to choose a particular verse of Scripture to share with them as you eat together.
  • Use the time you have in the car with them to reaffirm your love and your desire for them to have a good day and to pray with them.
  • After work, take part in an organized activity with your children.
  • Take your children to the library on another day of the week.
  • Participate together in a midweek church service or Bible study.
  • Walk the family dog to a local park.

In other words, get out of the house and commit time to what makes your children happy. Sure, the easy thing to do is to come home each evening and determine, based upon your day, that the best thing to do is sit on the couch or in front of the television or computer doing just what you want to do. But your children need you to reserve time and energy and involvement for them, especially the younger the child.

What is the cost?

It means you won’t be able to watch that television show or get on the computer as much. It means you’ll need to reorient your focus from what you want to do in the evening to what’s best for your children. I think you’ll find, however, that the rewards of this connected, involved, and active time with your children will far outweigh the costs.

“Jesus said unto them, ‘My Father is always at his work to this very day, and I, too, am working.’” ~John 5:17

SOURCE: Chapter 4, “A is for Active,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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4 Steps to Healthy Anger Management

Tuesday, March 16th, 2010

If someone steals your wallet, you feel anger. If you come home after a much-deserved vacation and discover your house has been ransacked and burglarized, you feel violated and angry. If someone says something insulting to a member of your family, your anger may be so intense that you want to punch that person in the mouth. These are all understandable emotional responses.

You would hardly be a responsible human if you allowed these events to pass as if nothing had happened. However, we are also capable of doing irreparable damage to ourselves while we’re intent on attacking others. The missile of anger and hate that we launch will return to us every time.

Here are four useful ways to rethink your situation when you start to get angry:

1. Be your own person. Even if your anger has festered for yeas, you don’t need to let the actions of others dictate how you feel. Determine what you want out of the encounter. The old idea of counting to ten is still a good rule of thumb before saying anything at all. It will give you time to think about the situation and your response.

2. Don’t intimidate, and don’t be intimidated. Isaiah 1:18 says, “Come now, and let us reason together.” What a great idea. Be assertive by asking the person to be reasonable in your debate, even as you promise to return the favor.

3. If the shoe fits, wear it. There may be times when you will be confronted with the truth, but you may not want to hear it. That’s when your defenses may rise up like a ten-story building. Again, take a moment and listen to what’s being said. If you need time to think about it, say so. Then ask God to give you the courage to accept the truth and confess your fault if necessary.

4. Practice intentional kindness. God’s Word says that a kind word turns away anger (Prov. 15:1). Think of something positive to say to the person — even if it’s, “I hear what you are saying, and I need to take your comments seriously.” Take the offensive in praising the accomplishments of others. Edify those with whom you work and live. Tell them when they do good work. Anger and honest praise have difficulty living together. Be known as someone who sees the best in those around you.

SOURCE: Chapter 3: “The Poisons of Anger, Fear, and Guilt” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Are Everyday Activities Filling or Draining You? A Journaling Activity

Monday, March 15th, 2010

It is difficult to recognize, promote, and sustain positive attitudes on the inside when life isn’t measuring up on the outside. You feel as though you’re running and running and getting nowhere. It seems you keep smacking into the patterns of your past that complicate your present. Every time you get back up on your feet, it seems life throws you another curve. The glass always seems to come up empty for you and not for others.

In the midst of all that, how can you find and keep joy?

The answer is in taking back control, as much as possible, of the outside environment of your life. Each aspect of life — the pace, the patterns, the predicaments, the perceptions — can gather so much momentum on their own that it’s easy to forget how much control we really do have over our lives.

We can choose our attitudes. In a great many instances, we also choose our activities. Either we allow our activities and our circumstances to carry us along, or we take control of the direction our lives are going.

Take a moment to examine what you do each day.

What are your major and minor activities? On a page of your journal or on any piece of paper, make four columns:

1. In the first column, write “Activity.”

2. In the second column, write “Filling” (representing activities that you find fulfilling and energizing).

3. In the third column, write “Draining” (representing activities that tire you and drain your hope).

4. Entitle the fourth column “Overall.”

5. Choose the first six activities that come to mind. Write those in the left-hand column.

6.Evaluate what elements of those activities are filling and what are draining. Some of the activities may contain both filling and draining elements.

7. In the right-hand column, indicate whether, on the whole, that activity fills you with energy and joy of life or drains you of hope and optimism.

The environment you create for yourself is vital in overcoming your depression. It’s time to intentionally plan what you do on the outside in order to fortify who you need to be on the inside to overcome depression.

Are you depressed? Though no replacement for a formal diagnosis,  this survey can help you recognize the signs.

SOURCE: Chapter 3, “The Pressures of Life,” in Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Hear and Forgive: A Sovereign Act of Power

Friday, March 12th, 2010

In the Old Testament books of 1 Kings and 2 Chronicles, God gives us the “hear and forgive” example of his forgiveness. This is an easy example for us to identify with, for it involves hearing the plea for forgiveness and then granting it. In these two books, the people of Israel called out to God, who heard them from heaven and forgave their sin (1 Kings 8:30, 34, 36, 39; 2 Chronicles 6:21, 25, 27, 30, 39). Forgiveness follows a plea for the same. It makes sense to us that if someone does us wrong, that person should recognize it and ask for forgiveness.

Some of us desire nothing more than for the one who wronged us to cry out for our forgiveness.

We dream of being in the position of 2 Chronicles 7:14: “If my people who are called by my name humble themselves, pray, seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways, then I will hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin and heal their land.”

We want the person to acknowledge a relationship with us (”if my people who are called by my name”), exhibit an attitude of submission to us (”humble themselves, pray, seek my face”), and show their remorse (”and turn from their wicked ways”).

If all these conditions are met, then we will consider following.

God, of course, restores the relationship broken by sin (”then I will hear from heaven:”), agrees to the request (”and will fogive their sin”), and goes even further to provide blessings (”and heal their land”).

That is what God does, but it doesn’t always work that way with us.

Even if the person does all of the above, we may still withhold forgiveness because of the depth of our own hurt. We may not have the freedom of forgiveness, but we’ll gladly settle for the satisfaction of their humiliation. The truth is, their humiliation is what we desire most.  Through it, we feel vindicated and powerful, especially if their sin against us made us feel powerless, vulnerable, and victimized. We want them to beg for forgiveness in order to exact revenge.

We want to dangle the carrot of forgiveness in front of them in order to wield the stick of retribution.

This is not the purpose of forgiveness.

For example, God does not need to forgive us in order to feel powerful; he is almighty. It is not being in the position to forgive that exhibits power but the expression of forgiveness that proves it. The psalmist said, “But with you there is forgiveness; therefore you are feared” (Psalm 130:4, NIV). It doesn’t say that God is feared because he might forgive; it says he is feared because he does forgive.

The act of forgiveness is the sovereign act. It is not a submissive act; it is an act of power.

SOURCE: Chapter 3: “Forgiveness,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Food Quiz: Are You Obsessed?

Thursday, March 11th, 2010

Everything you have tried up to this point has not worked when it comes to losing weight permanently. Diets have not worked, powders have not worked, diet pills have not worked, and obsessively exercising has not worked. Every method of weight loss has been flawed. Each has promised you something it could not deliver. That’s why it’s time to ask yourself some personal questions.

RATING THE ROLE OF FOOD IN YOUR LIFE

On the following quiz, grade each statement on a score of 0 through 5. If it’s true for you almost all the time, give yourself a 5. If you usually do it, score a 4. If you seldom do it, score a 1. If you never do it, record a 0.

1. I have to be on a diet all the time.

2. I feel guilty when I eat a dessert.

3. I wake up thinking about food.

4. I dream about my weight and/or food.

5. At parties, I hang around the snack table.

6. I am ashamed of my body.

7. I feel it’s wasteful if I don’t clean my plate.

8. I seldom sit down to eat.

9. At buffets, I feel I must try a bit of everything.

10. I skip breakfast.

11. I often eat the leftovers after a party at my home.

12. I am afraid of losing control with food.

13. I eat most of the cookies I bake while they are still warm.

14. I buy popcorn at the movies even if I’ve just eaten.

15. There are only a few safe foods I feel I can eat.

16. When I’m bored, I get out the snack food.

17. I can gain weight overnight.

How did you rate yourself? Do you see a pattern?

If you had a total score of 65 or more, I am especially glad you are reading this blog, because there is hope for you. If your score was around 50, then you may or may not need to take action. If your total score was under 25, congratulations. I can only assume you are reading this so that you can refer this as a resource to a friend.

DISSECTING THE OBSESSION WITH FOOD

Sometimes I think the reason we eat by candlelight is because we have elevated food to a cathedral-like religious experience. Our “places of worship” are the open-all-night pavilions dedicated to the sale of fat, calories, and cholesterol, and all-you-can-eat troughs of food consumed by people for whom three full plates are never enough.

Those with food obsessions believe that:

  • Food is relief from stress
  • Food is reward for pain
  • Food is the epitome of success
  • Food is the wafer and wine for the religion of the obese
  • ‘Food is comfort in a time of storm
  • Food is life!

When people with eating disorders come to see me I ask them how much time they think about food. They often say “about 110 percent of the time.” That’s one of the most honest statements they’ll ever make during treatment. They do spend the majority of the time thinking about food: about when they are or are not going to eat, what they are or aren’t going to eat, and where they are or are not going to eat. But the feelings of control these individuals think they have are nothing but a fraud. In fact, the eating disorder is controlling them, consuming their relationships, ruining their self-esteem, destroying their health, and wasting their time. Ultimately, attempts to control food are failing to control pain, anger and fear.

SOURCE: Chapter 3, “Eating as an Art, in Losing Weight Permanently: Secrets of the 2 Percent Club by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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How Brad Learned to SOAR: O is for Optimism

Wednesday, March 10th, 2010

Brad came to work with us at The Center as a young man in his twenties. He was struggling with self-esteem issues that translated into a dependence upon alcohol. Unable to hold a job, he continued to live at home, making constant demands upon his parents. These demands drained their emotional and financial resources and alienated him from the rest of his siblings. Everyone in the family, including extended family living nearby, seemed to have tried to help Brad but was burned in the process. Many family members had already given up on him, deeming him beyond help and not worth another chance. Others saw our mental health and chemical dependency treatment agency as his last chance.

We were able to address and treat Brad’s reliance upon alcohol as well as work with him to uncover the roots of his addiction. Brad’s answers and demeanor began to reveal that his drinking was fueled not by an attraction to alcohol but by repulsion from something else. Brad had turned to alcohol due to some pain he was attempting to self-medicate and numb. As we worked with him to dig deeper, we helped him discover how and when his world had turned upside down and he had lost his horizon line of hope.

Most people know the half empty/half full glass analogy. It goes something like this; when people look at a glass containing liquid up to the middle, some will see the glass as half empty and some will see the glass as half full. Those who see it as half empty are pessimists, and the half full people are optimists. I’ve used this analogy as a way to illustrate to clients how subtle perceptions can alter their worldview. When they look at the glass, they’re actually seeing their own reactions to life.

Now, when Brad’s parents looked at Brad, they expected to see a completely full glass. After all, they were prosperous, hard-working people themselves, and they could envision nothing less than a full glass for Brad at all times. Sometime around Brad’s early adolescence, however, his parents began to perceive that Brad’s glass was less than full, for he began to operate below their expectations. In their minds, they had worked hard to fill Brad’s glass all the way to the brim, and Brad kept behaving and performing in a way that made the contents of that full glass spill out. This produced feelings of frustration, anger, and disappointment in his parents.

The only optimism they had for Brad’s future was centered not around what Brad was capable of achieving on his own but rather on what they had provided. He was expected to mirror their success — a success that mirrored their definition. Brad’s future was not really about him and actually about them.

Somewhere around 15 years of age, Brad decided he wasn’t capable — that his glass without his parents refilling it was actually completely empty. He turned to alcohol to stem the growing fear and anxiety of reaching adulthood.

Now, I believe that everyone is responsible for their own behavior, especially as they arrive at adulthood. In fact, the R in SOAR is all about responsibility. But as we identified this pattern of behavior between Brad and his parents, what became clear to me was their total lack of belief in a bright future for Brad — as Brad. He certainly didn’t have it, and neither did his parents.

The only thing the three seemed able to initially agree on was a paralyzing fear of what Brad’s future held.

Because of their own achievements, Brad’s parents couldn’t see the true horizon line when they looked at Brad. They kept looking inward at themselves and refused to see Brad for who he was. As his struggles with life increased in adolescence, they began to avoid really looking at Brad at all. It was too painful, for they truly loved their son, but when they looked at Brad’s failures, they caught a glimpse of their own.

What this family desperately needed was a restored vision of optimism and hope for the future. Brad’s parents needed to believe in God’s power to help Brad overcome his drinking. Brad needed to trust God’s plan for his life and stop fearing the future. They all needed to grasp God’s grace and learn to forgive each other. Fortunately, they’ve been able to heal and reestablish their relationships, but it took years of diverted time and energy to bring their family back on the right track.

I applaud your decision to put your energies into your family now!

SOURCE: Chapter 3, “O is for Optimism,” in Healthy Habits, Healthy Kid: A Practical Plan to Help Your Family by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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10 Questions for Finding the Source of Anger, Fear, and Guilt

Tuesday, March 9th, 2010

Are you aware that what you are feeling as burnout and emotional exhaustion are really only the tip of a much deeper iceberg? Would you like to get to the source of your problem? Would you like to be able to throw your whole self into your life — like you did when you were a kid — free of anger, fear, and guilt? Are you ready to prepare yourself to smile, laugh, praise others, relax, and let your heavenly Father speak to you in fresh, new ways?

If you really want to work at this, then first I’d like you to answer some simple questions:

1. Do you find yourself waking up some mornings afraid to face the day?

2. Would you describe yourself as a person who has peace of mind?

3. Do you find it difficult to forgive others?

4. Do you ever deny your anger — perhaps because you do not know how to handle it?

5. Have you ever paid the price for getting even with someone?

6. Do you feel fearful of things, people, or events that are now history?

7. Are your fears, for the most part, realistic?

8. Do you live with guilt for things that were not your fault?

9. Is there something that’s making you feel especially guilty at this moment?

10. Do you feel you have the ability to choose anger, fear, or guilt in a given situation rather than just accept that emotion as it comes?

What do your answers to these questions say about you and where you find yourself at this moment? If you are feeling stressed to the point of burnout or on the threshold of emotional exhaustion, your answers may provide clues to what’s going on inside. As you reconsider each question, you may find that anger fear, or guilt are burdening your life and adding to your stress.

Every day we find ourselves confronted with overbearing, domineering colleagues, neighbors, and even family members who make unreasonable demands on our time, try our patience, and drive us crazy. They seem intent on lowering our self-esteem. They appear as wolves in sheep’s clothing, bullying us, forcing us to take more than our share of aspirins, driving our blood pressure sky high, making us bitter, withdrawn, and sometimes even crippling us emotionally.

So we get angry — a natural response to hurt and intimidation. But then we often become fearful, wondering if we’ve done the right thing by expressing our rage. After all, now we may have really opened Pandora’s box. So we back off, hide, or even deny our anger, become a captive of our fears, and begin to live with guilt for having taken a stand in the first place.

It seems that we’re always living with the big three: anger, fear, guilt.

Does any of this sound familiar? These are normal emotions, but there are times when our anger, fear, and guilt are not appropriate — when we hang onto them long after they should have done their useful work. In this chapter we’ll see how this contributes to our stress, which can lead to burnout and then to emotional exhaustion. This is when fear, anger, and guilt become emotionally and physically toxic. It’s important to know the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, fear, and guilt, because how you handle these three often poisonous emotions will be a major key to your regaining control of your life.

Next Tuesday: How to know the difference between healthy and unhealthy anger, fear and guilt.

SOURCE: Chapter 3: “The Poisons of Anger, Fear, and Guilt” in How to De-Stress Your Life by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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Talking Body Image on The Miracle Channel This Week

Monday, March 8th, 2010

This Tuesday and Thursday, Canada’s Miracle Channel is airing two shows I taped for The Bridge television series, during which I draw from two of my books on the subject of body image:

  1. Tuesday, March 9: The Body God Designed: How to love the body you’ve got while you get the body you want
  2. Thursday, March 11: Hope, Help and Healing for Eating Disorders: : A new approach to treating anorexia, bulimia, and overeating

In Canada you can watch on:

And in the U.S. you can watch on SkyAngel, channel 137.

For times, please check your local listings.

“Have faith in yourself. Have faith in this book. Have faith in a God who holds your future in his hands.” ~Hope, Help and Healing for Eating Disorders

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Positive Self-Talk: An Exercise in Emotional Health

Monday, March 8th, 2010

Each of us has a set of messages that play over and over in our minds. This internal dialogue, or personal commentary, frames our reaction to life and its circumstances.

One of the ways to recognize, promote, and sustain optimism, hope, and joy is to intentionally fill our thoughts with positive self-talk.

Too often the pattern of self-talk we’ve developed is negative. We remember the negative things we were told as children by parents, siblings, or teachers. We remember the negative reactions from other children that diminished how we felt about ourselves. Over the years these messages have replayed again and again in our minds, fueling our thoughts of anger, fear, guilt, and hopelessness.

One of the most critical avenues we use in therapy with those suffering from depression is to identify the source of those negative messages and then work with the person to intentionally “overwrite” them. If people learned as children that they were worthless, we show them how truly special they are. If while growing up they learned to expect crises and destructive events, we show them a better way to anticipate the future.

Try the following exercise.

1) Write down some of the negative messages that replay in your mind, ones that undermine your ability to overcome depression. Be specific whenever possible, and include anyone you remember who contributed to that message.

2) Now take a moment to intentionally counteract those negative messages with positive truths in your life. Don’t give up if you don’t find them quickly. For every negative message there is a positive truth that will override the weight of despair. These truths always exist — keep looking until you find them.

You may have a negative message that replays in your head every time you make a mistake. As a child you may have been told “you’ll never amount to anything,” or “you can’t do anything right.” When you make a mistake — and you will, because we all do — you can choose to overwrite that message with a positive one, such as “I choose to accept and grow from my mistake,” or “As I learn from my mistakes, I’m becoming a better person.”

During this exercise, mistakes become opportunities to replace negative views of yourself with positive options for personal advancement.

Positive self-talk is not self-deception. It is not mentally looking at circumstances with eyes that see only what y0u want to see. Rather, positive self-talk is about recognizing the truth in situations and in yourself. One of the fundamental truths is that you will make mistakes. To expect perfection in yourself or anyone else is unrealistic. To expect no difficulties in life, whether through your own actions or sheer circumstance, is also unrealistic.

When negative events or mistakes happen, positive self-talk seeks to find positive out of the negative in order to help you do better, go farther, or just keep moving forward. The practice of positive self-talk is often the process that allows you to discover the obscured optimism, hope, and joy in any given situation.

Are you depressed? Though no replacement for a formal diagnosis,  this survey can help you recognize the signs.

SOURCE: Chapter 2, “Emotional Equilibrium,” in Moving Beyond Depression by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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By the Grace of God: Jim’s Story, Is It Yours Too?

Friday, March 5th, 2010

Jim dreaded family reunions.

His wife, who practically forced him to go, handled all the details. He went, if only so the kids could see their grandparents, aunts, uncles, and cousins. There were so many reasons, however, not to go: It was expensive; it took up vacation time at work; he never spent time doing what he wanted to do but what everyone else thought was important; somebody usually wasn’t speaking to somebody else at the reunion; and people expected more from him than he wanted to give. Reunions were chaotic and messy. What should take 15 minutes took an hour. It was a struggle getting three sets of parents, a set of grandparents, and eight kids to do anything!

These reunions tore up his insides, and he just wanted to go back home — to peace and quiet — from the moment he arrived.

But what disturbed Jim the most was spending time with his younger brother, Steve. As long as they were with a group of people, it was okay, but if they ever happened to be alone in a room, things became uncomfortable. Jim preferred to convey an adult image of calm and reasonableness and create an impression of competence and control. Steve knew better.

Growing up, Jim had treated Steve very badly.

As the older brother, Jim found Steve irritating and bothersome, and he resented the way Steve always seemed to catch a break from their folks because he was younger. Jim made up for it by being hard on Steve himself. Looking back over the years, Jim had come to realize he’d been a jerk.

Whenever they were together, alone together, he always had the urge to say he was sorry. He hated family reunions because he never could bring himself to do it.

If we were perfect people with perfect relationships, we wouldn’t need grace. Truth wouldn’t be difficult to accept, for it wouldn’t contain the wreckage of sinful lives. In a flawed world, however, in order to accept ourselves and others, grace is imperative. Sin constantly binds up relationships with harmful actions, both large and small.

Grace allows relationships to flow.

Grace untangles the knots of bitterness and blame.

With our own sin and the sin of others, there are plenty of both to go around. But where do you get grace and how do you apply it? The answer is that grace comes from God. Like love and forgiveness, the concept of grace goes against our very nature.

Grace is freely given and cannot be earned.

Once we truly understand that we are fallen people, living in a fallen world, it can be difficult to accept that God loves us. We know the truth that he does, but we still feel we need to earn it somehow. We think if we can just act better and be better, we can hurdle over regret, blame, and shame on our own. All of this effort is in vain, however. We cannot jump far enough or high enough to get around the consequences of sin.

Only God can lift us up through grace.

“For by grace you have been saved through faith,” Paul said, “and this is not your own doing; it is the gift of God — not the result of works, so that no one may boast” (Ephesians 2:8-9).

Grace isn’t a right to earn; it’s a gift to accept.

Can you relate in some way to Jim’s story? Do you have a strained relationship with a family member? They seem to be at the root of so much hurt in this world. Perhaps nowhere is grace needed more than within the family. For it is within the family that many people feel “safe” to act their worst. They would never think of addressing a friend, colleague, or coworker in the way they talk to a spouse, parent, or sibling.

This is where grace comes in. God, through grace, re-establishes his relationship with us by granting us what we don’t deserve. He loves and forgives us, and he remains faithful to us. He controls the relationship by granting us grace. He doesn’t allow our poor performance to bring the relationship down.

SOURCE: Chapter 2: “Acceptance,” God Can Help You Heal by Gregory L. Jantz, PhD., founder of The Center for Counseling and Health Resources Inc.

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