Stopping Smoking for Good

Stopping smoking is a life decision that can have a profound effect on your health and experience in living. Stopping smoking can be done for no one else but for yourself. Those members of your family and friends who have been urging you to stop smoking love you and have your best interest at heart, but their urging alone is not enough if you are to succeed. If you are not motivated on your own and are only bending to their demands, then you will only end up resenting those people who love you and sabotaging your efforts at stopping smoking.

To succeed at stopping smoking, you must realize that you are the one in control of your decisions and life. More often than not, stopping smoking is a process rather than an event. As with all processes, the movement forward is built upon a foundation of successes and setbacks. The setbacks can be as valuable as the successes and are opportunities for learning more about yourself and your desires. Learning from your setbacks allows you to move closer to the success you desire.

It takes determination to stop smoking. An addiction is not easy to overcome. It is both a physical and emotional sacrifice you are making. The result of a sacrifice is to make something sacred. When you stop smoking, you perform a sacrifice that symbolizes to yourself and those around that your health and quality of life are sacred to you.

In some Native American tribes, it was called upon for young men and women to make a sacrifice to achieve recognition of adulthood. Often, that sacrifice involved a ritual of scaring the body. The emotional pain you may have endured on your journey to being a non-smoker can be as scaring to your psyche as any left upon the body and deserves to be honored and respected.

A scar represents pain and injury; it also represents a capacity to heal and grow beyond what has been. Scar material is always stronger than what existed before.

You probably began smoking as a teenager or young adult. By quitting smoking at this time, you have chosen a sacrifice that symbolically moves you beyond the immaturity of your youth. It may be viewed as a rite of passage into adulthood. That is to be honored.

For a sacrifice to have meaning it must be a personal choice made in the aloneness of your being. If stopping smoking is someone else’s decision, then you have not freely chosen it for yourself. As a result, you will have no resolve and the quitting experience will have no personal meaning for you leading you to a possible failure. True sacrifice is not an imprisonment, but rather, it is the ultimate expression of your free will to be honored and revered. And remember, not smoking is a habit too.

Log on for more information on stopping smoking for good and for listening to a free sample of his award-winning album “Dr. Walton’s Stopping Smoking.” For more information on Dr. Walton's private stop smoking sessions, log onto Stopping Smoking for Good. For more information on Dr. Walton, log onto LAtherapist.com.

Recovering from a Break Up

Men pride themselves on feeling powerful, competent and effective in their world. They receive a sense of fulfillment in feeling successful and doing well. Men take great pride in being independent and self-sufficient.

Then, they fall in love. They allow themselves to be vulnerable to another, they get close and sometimes they end up getting hurt and their hearts get broken.

Surprisingly, men generally are the first to fall in love and the last to fall out of it. Men have more difficulty handling their emotions than women. Simply because men have been trained to be more independent so they have developed fewer skills at handling their emotions. They become emotionally overwhelmed more easily and demonstrate it by shutting off emotionally and withdrawing, going into denial or becoming workaholics. All of this is a bid to cut themselves off from those overwhelming feelings of hurt and pain.

In the process, those feelings lie dormant and are actually never healed. When we don’t heal those feelings, we don’t allow ourselves to fall in love again and we miss out on one of the most rewarding, healing and satisfying experiences in our lives that of falling in love again.

The secret that women use for handling their feelings, that men generally don’t, is that women are able to think and feel at the same time. Men, on the other hand, are either in thinking mode or feeling mode. When men are in pain from a break up, they go right into feeling mode and become overwhelmed by those feelings resulting in shut down, paralysis, withdraw or angry bitterness. Men cannot make good decisions for themselves or anyone else under those conditions.

That we fall in love we will inevitably experience having our hearts broken. However, the pain we experience from the loss of a love can have meaning for us and actually enrich our experience in life. Out of the pain of loss, we can observe the true depth of our ability to love another. Without loss, we may never really know the depth of our ability to love.

Suffering is communication from the depths of our soul. Without it, our soul is dead; for suffering deepens and expands our experience in life and we are changed as we give meaning to the experience.

If you have recently gone through a break up, acknowledge that you are going through a crisis and become more compassionate and gentle with yourself. Remove any blame you may be putting on yourself for anything you may or may not have done or for trusting another or having been vulnerable. It’s important to know that we are able to trust and experience vulnerability. Those are important parts of being in a relationship.

Talk about your hurt with people who are willing to listen. You might even want to seek out a licensed therapist to help you through this time.

It’s important to let yourself know that you can and will make it through this time.

Stick to your daily routines. Continue to eat, sleep and exercise at the same times you always have. If you don’t exercise, now could be a good time to start. Always consult with your doctor first before starting any exercise routine. Exercise causes our bodies to release endorphins that serve to help us feel better.

Don’t seek revenge. It’s OK to fantasize about it, but it’s not OK to act it out. Angry behavior only leads to amping up the drive to act out more angry behavior. Don’t do it.

Don’t follow, spy on, or call the other person. This can keep you attached in a very unhealthy way and makes it much more difficult to let go of your hurt and angry feelings. Resist the urge to try to make them understand your hurt feelings or try to get them to see your point of view. This will only lead to more frustration and feelings of betrayal. Of course, don’t harm yourself. Doing so never gets them to come back.

Throw yourself into an activity or project that you love doing. As men, we’re doers. While we’re doing the activity we love we’re also processing our painful feelings and this can contribute greatly to our healing of those feelings.

Keep in mind that relationships are about growth, they’re not about happiness.

We, ourselves, are responsible for our own happiness. It’s our thoughts and how we choose to interpret them that affect how we feel about ourselves and the world around us. What we think affects how we feel.

When our heart’s broken by someone, we may feel that we’ll never love again. We may feel we were foolish in having trusted that individual. We may have felt that they were the “right” one for us and there will never be another. None of those thoughts is true. There’s not just one person out there for us; there are many right people out there for us. If someone is ultimately not with us, then they were definitely not the right person.

The only thing true about that relationship experience is that you probably learned something about yourself. Search yourself to find out how you’re different now from having known the other person. Have you changed what you want out of a relationship?

It’s our thoughts that determine our happiness, not the person we are with. When we experience a break up, we have a tendency to let go of the bad times and hold onto the good memories. This doesn’t serve us, especially when our heart’s broken and we’re in pain over the loss of the relationship. It may be a good idea to remember the bad times. Keep in mind the difficulties of this relationship and how your needs weren’t met.

For more information on healing from a break up, and to listen to free samples of Dr. Walton’s latest album, log onto “After Breaking Up: Healing the Heart and Finding Happiness.” For more information on Dr. Walton, log onto LAtherapist.com.

The Bachelor Party - A Survival Guide

Aah the bachelor party. Two rather potent words in their own right, but when use in combination they can strike debilitating terror into the heart in the bride to be, or at the very least really annoy her.

Traditionally, in our society, it is the bachelor party and not the bachelorette party that strikes a note of discord at the heart of even the most harmonious of engagements. We can generate for ourselves so much discomfort and distress over the bachelor party that it casts a shadow over the entire wedding experience for the wife to be. However, her discord with the bachelor party is not so much the fear that her fiancé is going to have sex with someone else during the event, but rather, she feels let down that he would even want to go.

Friends can also contribute the build up of her anxiety around the party by playing up to its mythical naughtiness right in front of her. The greatest fear for women over the bachelor party comes from her fearing what his friends might have in mind for the event. The friends know this and will often play it to the hilt to get a rise out of her. Why?

Well friends, and especially single friends, are feeling some anxiety about the impending change to their relationship with your fiancé. They may not be able to identify it or put it into words, but it’s there. It’s called abandonment. Somewhere deep inside, his friends may be experiencing a sense of abandonment as he moves away from them and towards involvement in a marriage. So, they distract themselves from their own bad feelings by doing a little teasing of someone else, that being you.

A little good natured teasing around the bachelor party, in very small measure, from his friends can be expected. If you experience it, then know that his friends are experiencing some anxiousness about the impending change in their relationship with your fiancé. Their teasing around the bachelor party is an unconscious attempt to get rid of their own uncomfortable abandonment feelings, while giving some of them to you.

If they are doing it to you, then they are most likely doing it to your fiancé as well. Their allusions in front of him about the bachelor party can cause him anxiety as well. And they will tease him to unload their anxieties for the very same reasons.

Good natured taunting about the bachelor party is not intended to injure, but rather it is a way of expressing their unease without having to admit to it. After all, your friends are supposed to be happy for you when you get engaged, right? And most friends are truly happy for you, but it is also possible that way down deep inside they might be experiencing a tinge of jealousy that they don’t understand or can’t express.

So, the bachelor party and its planning becomes the safest vehicle for friends to discharge their anxieties around their feelings of abandonment while helping to reaffirm friendship bonds. It even allows those who were not chosen to be the best man to have a place in the wedding experience that is culturally accepted.

I want you to know that your feelings and fears around the bachelor party are legitimate and may need to be verbalized. If you are having difficulty over the party, let him know how you feel. If there are certain activities you find unacceptable, tell him so. Remember, the shroud of secretiveness around the party is an attempt to cause him some anxiety as well. He may actually feel the same way you do and would welcome your alliance.

Most engaged men do not relish the idea of a raucous bachelor party, however, they don’t want to look like wimp in front of their friends so they will go along with it. Bare in mind that some of the party is still out of his control. What he can control is the amount of alcohol he consumes. Men, limit your drinking. By limiting your drinking you can still enjoy the party while helping to build trust with your fiancé.

Trust is a biggest issue at stake around the bachelor party. If you feel you can’t trust your fiancé at the bachelor party, there may be seriously destructive issues underlying your relationship. If this is the case, you may want to explore these issues together with a licensed therapist before the wedding.

Many men view the bachelor party as a rite of passage among their friends. We live in a society with few remaining rites of passage, so trying to force your fiancé to refuse a bachelor party may very well cause him to feel resentment towards you. Remember, your fiancé has already pledged a commitment to you for building a life together. As silly as the party might seem to you, for him it may hold some meaning. If you decide to give your approval for his party, let go of it and do not punish him later for having attended it.

By all means, men should tell their fiancés about the plans being made for their bachelor party if they are going to have one. Be open. It’s the secretiveness that gets people into trouble. Friends like to tease the fiancé by whispering in front of her to get a reaction. Be the first to let her know about the party and talk out your feelings with each other. You can use this as an opportunity for improving the trust between the two of you.

This brings us to the point of having one last round before marriage. Most couples who have made a commitment to marry never feel that urge. They want to be married to their fiancé and have no interest in anyone else. For these people, the decision for monogamy was made back before the couple decided to get married.

Now, there are a few individuals and they tend to be men, but not always, who do desire to have one last fling before their marriage. In most cases, this desire is a symptom of panicking around a decision that will affect the rest of their life. It comes from the place that questions whether or not they are making the right decision. If you are really that frightened of marriage or are really not that sure, it’s perfectly fine to delay the wedding until a time when you are feeling more comfortable. Just knowing that the wedding can be delayed is enough for many of these panicking individuals to clear their heads to see that they are marring the right person.

However, if you are feeling compelled to have one last fling, you may have to take a look inside and honestly evaluate if you are really ready to make that commitment. Maybe this person is not the right one for you. It’s OK to not be ready and it’s better to know it before you get married.

For more information log onto LAtherapist.com or for more information on convenient self-help downloads, or to listen to free samples, log onto the "Dr Walton Series".

When Is It An Affair?

For something to be called a sexual affair, it requires three conditions and all three must be present.

1. There's more intimacy than in the primary relationship
2. There's sex involved
3. It's kept a secret

Men consider it an affair when sex is involved. An affair does not have to be physical for women to consider it cheating. It just has to be emotional.

The Internet has brought on a new issue for people who had no intention of cheating. They innocently cross the line as they divulge more and more of themselves to each other and find themselves involved in an emotional affair.

For an emotional affair, it requires all three conditions to be present.

1. Greater emotional intimacy than in the primary relationship,
2. Secrecy and deception from the spouse
3. Sexual chemistry

Emotional affairs can cause a good deal of marital strife. However, the affair that includes sexual intercourse typically does the most damage to the couple.

Affairs are an indication that there are problems in the dynamics of the marriage. And they bring with them an opportunity to rediscover the intimacy and closeness that was either lost or was never present in the primary relationship if the couple is willing to work through the violation.

Affairs generally start innocently enough. Most of the time, there is no intention to violate the trust of the primary relationship. At first, the pair meets and has a friendly exchange. They like each other and feel a sense of comfort with each other. As they get to know each other, feelings begin to develop. Most people stop at this point. The same mechanics are in operation when we are making a friend.

Then something takes a turn. They notice that they are beginning to form a bond that seems more than just friends. The relationship becomes secret. They stop telling their friends or families about the other attached individual. The secrecy helps to strengthen the feelings and the bond that is taking place with the other person. Now, things are beginning to go too far.

As the relationship progresses, they look for more and more excuses to spend time together. They share their feelings and hopes with each other. They may still try to convince themselves that they are nothing more than friends. However, their behavior reveals a different story.

Finally, there are sexual ideas forming in both of their minds. It may not be spoken about at first, but over time, it usually comes out. Sex is thrilling and they already have a code of secrecy. Who would know? It’s the secrecy that makes it possible for this final step.

If it’s an unattached woman having an affair with an attached man, she often will think/hope in the back of her mind that once they have sex, he will leave his primary relationship for her. This rarely happens. When the affair ends, 90% of the time, he’ll go home and she’ll end up having a broken heart.

Affairs are not a realistic way of having a relationship. They are very romantic, but they are not based in reality. The times when the pair meets up are exciting and highly stimulating. They share dinner, interludes, secret events and may even travel together. However, they are not living together in day to day life. They are feeding the passion with a fantasy and not with the reality of daily life. They are not dealing with the more mundane aspects of a relationship such as the kids, the mortgage, the visiting in-laws, tuition, disciplining of children and maintenance of the home.

Affairs are one of the most damaging predicaments that couples face. They are equally difficult to treat and overcome. In fact, it is estimated by one survey that 50% of all couples who enter therapy do so as the result of an actual or suspected affair.

For the individual who discovers their partner has been cheating it can be devastating. Some individuals go through a legitimate experience of Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. In any case, there is a profound sense of loss and pain. In some cases, it can be worse that the experience of death. With the death of a partner, they were taken away by the circumstances. We have traditions and customs to handle such losses.

With and affair, the partner chooses to leave for someone else of their own free will. We don’t have any traditions or customs to support the grieving one left behind. Often, their friends and families don’t know how to help or what to say. Other times, the offended individual hides the fact that their partner had an affair. They are embarrassed, shamed or confused. As a result, they don’t make themselves available for what support they could receive from family and friends.

During this time, the offended individual has to deal with feeling of loss of specialness, loss of self-respect and loss of faith. It feels like the carpet has been pulled out from under them. They may even doubt their ability to judge reality accurately and are unprepared for the emotional and physical changes that could possibly occur as a result of the affair. It’s very disturbing, especially for a partner that was completely trusting.

At this time, it is important to get into couples counseling with someone who knows how to work with couples in crisis from an affair. In therapy, they should be learning how to better communicate with each other both talking and listening. It is important that the affair no longer be a secret but the offending partner tell the injured party as much as they are willing to ask or hear.

The betrayal by a secret does the most damage to the trust in the relationship. It is therefore important that secrets around the affair be eliminated at the timetable of the offended partner. Open communication does the most good in any relationship. It is particularly difficult when dealing with the emotions around an affair.

The injured partner must recover a sense of security and move past the hurt, anger, and worry. The partner who had the affair must tolerant of the injured partner’s ongoing emotional response and relentless “need to know” about the affair.

Retaliation is a common reaction to the discovery of an affair. Don’t do it. It only compounds the problem of the primary relationship. It will only drive a bigger wedge between the couple and make it more difficult to work on the issues that were present before the affair. It also adds more guilt, suspicion and anger into the mix of the relationship.

There are generally only three reasons for an affair.
They are:

1. Passive aggressive anger
2. A way to exit the relationship
3. An effort to work out childhood issues of closeness and abandonment

Men are typically motivated to have an affair as a result of their own psychological issues. Women, tend to find motivation for an affair due to perceived marital shortcomings. In either case, it is a dysfunctional way of dealing with communication and intimacy in the relationship.

The strongest predictor for a man to have an affair is his attitude and value of monogamy. For women, the strongest predictor is satisfaction and happiness in her marriage.

As long as the couple both have a genuine interest and desire to save the relationship, there is a good chance the relationship can survive and grow into something even better than what they had before. However, the lover must be completely given up. Both partners must be willing to share responsibility for their own actions and what they can do to make the relationships work. They must be willing to work on new ways of behaving that eliminate secrecy and improve communication. They both must be genuinely willing to recommit to the relationship and learn to give the kind of love to their partner that the partner needs.

When communicating with each other, there should be no accusing, no criticizing and no uncontrollable anger. Be pleasant, do not threaten and never be disrespectful or judgmental of each other. To help the relationship thrive, remember this anachronym: CHAT. It’s like a four legged chair. If we are missing one of the legs, it’s not very stable. We need to experience each one of these in a good relationship.

C – Cherished
H – Heard
A – Admired
T - Touched

For the time being, added security needs to be brought to the relationship. This can be done by the offending partner:

Calling the partner more often throughout the day
Carrying a cell phone that is always turned on
Limit out of town travel for the time being
Offer complete travel itineraries and phone numbers
Talk about their day in detail
Spend more time together
Answer any questions that are requested by the offended partner

As trust develops, these requests will slow down and eventually stop. There will be many setback on the road to a healthier relationship. Sometimes, it will seem like it has been left far behind and then all of a sudden the offended partner seems to have an emotional flair up out of the blue. This is normal and does not indicate that it is insurmountable. It is just part of the healing process and is to be honored.

How can you avoid all of this? Simply don’t have the affair. If you feel the temptation, get yourselves into couples counseling immediately. Open up to better communication skills and greater intimacy. The earlier you get yourself into counseling the better. Most people wait to enter into counseling until it’s too late. It’s much easier and more effective to deal with issues and have a great outcome when you enter into therapy at the very first sign of trouble.

It’s economical too. After all, it’s a lot cheaper than a divorce.

For more information log onto LAtherapist.com or for more information on convenient self-help downloads, or to listen to free samples, log onto The Dr. Walton Series. Check out Dr. Walton's latest album and listen to free samples, log onto After Breaking Up: Healing the Heart and Finding Happiness.

Alcohol and Alcoholism

Alcoholism is a chronic, progressive and potentially fatal disease characterized by significant impairment that is directly associated with persistent and excessive use of alcohol.

There is disagreement about how to define alcoholism. Basically, it is defined by:
Length, amount and pattern of drinking
Social problems because of drinking
Psychological dependence
Physiological dependence
Medical diseases caused by alcohol such as liver damage

Dependence on alcohol is defined by tolerance and withdraw symptoms. There are two types of dependence: Psychological and Physical.

Psychological dependence is based on the degree of psychological discomfort experienced when alcohol is unavailable.

Physical dependence is based on the presence of physical symptoms in the absence of alcohol after prolonged heavy drinking. Some of those physical symptoms are:
o Increased heart rate
o Sweating
o Elevated blood pressure
o Tremors

Withdraw symptoms are generally the opposite of the drug’s direct effects lasting a few hours to a few days

What are the signs of Addiction?
Signs of alcohol addiction are:
• Tolerance and withdraw
o 50% more needed for high
o withdraw symptoms when stopping
o take more to avoid withdraw
• Loss of control
o larger amounts
o persistent desire or effort to cut down
• Time involvement
o a great deal of time spent thinking about, obtaining & using
• Social dysfunction
o avoiding work from hangovers, going to work high, driving
o avoid social events because of use
• Knowledge of adverse effects
o continues use despite family dysfunctions and arguments

An alcohol addiction begins with an individual experiencing short term gratification from drinking alcohol much as it does for most people. It causes us to feel that the substance can be good for us. This first experience is usually a positive one. As a result, we gain a sense of comfort with it when we are out socially.

The individual that runs the risk of having a problem with alcohol takes a turn from the general population at this point. This individual begins to use alcohol as a form of self-medication. They begin to use it to ease anxiety and stress. They begin to increase their use of alcohol and as a result, their tolerance to alcohol begins to increase resulting in even more alcohol use.

Problems such as memory loss, sneaking extra drinks, guilt about drinking behavior all begin to appear. In the process, they do not recognize that there is a problem beginning. Denial is freely used by the individual who becomes lost in the world of alcoholism. At this point, they feel they can stop anytime they want to… they just don’t want to.

Now, the blackouts begin. The alcoholic rationalizes it’s use and blames others for the problems it is creating in their life. More and more alcohol becomes the center of the alcoholic’s life. As it progresses, the alcoholic experiences reverse tolerance where instead of taking four drinks to become drunk, it only takes half a drink.

The tolerance drops and intoxication may be day long. They have physical effects such as tremors and not attending work more frequently. Usually they feel they have hit bottom and become willing to accept suggestions for treatment. Marked by physical and moral deterioration, they will drink poison if alcohol is not available.

Many times job performance is the last thing to be affected by the illness because of the need to maintain economic support and to continue the illusion that everything is fine.

The alcoholic personality exhibits:
• Exaggerated self-importance
• Charming & Charismatic
• Grandiose behavior
• “I” as opposed to “we” thinking
• Denial
• A rigid, judgmental outlook
• Lack of solid logic in thinking
• Black and white thinking
• All or nothing thinking
• Obsessive thinking and thought patterns
• Impatience
• Childish behavior
• Irresponsible behavior
• Irrational rationalization
• Projection
• Overreaction

There are some predictors for possible problems with alcohol. Those are:
• Solitary drinking
• over-permissive norms of drinking
• lack of specific drinking norms
• tolerance of drunkenness
• adverse social behavior tolerated when drinking
• alcohol used to reduce tension and anxiety
• alcohol used apart from social affiliate functions
• alcohol use separated from overall eating patterns
• drinking with strangers, which increases violence

Here is a self-evaluation questionnaire developed by the National Institute of Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism.
• Do you drink alone when you feel angry or sad?
• Dose your drinking ever make you late for work?
• Dose your drinking worry your family?
• Do you drink after telling yourself you won’t?
• Do you ever forget what you did while you were drinking?
• Do you have headaches or have a hangover after you have been drinking?

If you can answer yes to any of those questions, then you may have a problem with alcohol. Understand that chronic alcohol use can lead to dementia and organic brain disease.

What is safe & Moderate Drinking?
The USDA defines moderate drinking as no more than one or two drinks per day for men, and no more than one drink per day for women. One drink is considered to be 12 oz of beer, 5 oz of wine, or 1.5 oz of liquor.

Who can drink?
Those who already drink in moderation and do not have a history of substance abuse or psychiatric disorder or have a direct relative with a drinking problem

Who Can’t Drink?
• Children & adolescents
• alcoholics
• Those with family members with alcohol problems
• Women pregnant or trying to get pregnant
• on medications
• planning on driving or requiring full attention

Frequently, families will deny the problem and try to hide the problem from public view. When one or both parents are alcoholic, the family becomes chaotic and then organizes roles to leave out the alcoholic. Eventually, they will attempt to leave the alcoholic or have the alcoholic leave the family.

If someone you love has a problem with alcohol, concern, sympathy, cajoling, threatening, and other natural responses will have little effect on their behavior. The best way to intervene between an alcoholic and the bottle is to do an intervention that confronts the addict. An intervention organized by a trained professional is probably the best way to go.

The intervention presents the reality to the addict in a way they can hear it. An intervention is two or more persons who are close to the addict and have witnessed his behavior under the influence. It is made up of two or more of the following: spouse, employer, parents, siblings, children, close friends, co-workers, clergy, therapist, drug/alcohol counselor or other significant persons.

The goal is to break down the addict’s defenses so that reality can be seen long enough for the addict to accept it. Present facts about the addict’s behavior and consequences of that behavior in an objective, nonjudgmental and caring way. Pile up the episodes of the effects of the addict’s behavior describing them in explicit detail. Have those they love/respect express the anguish his/her actions have caused them. This should shock them into facing the truth about their condition.

At the end of the intervention, they are then presented with several treatment options that have been worked out in advance with a qualified drug/alcohol counselor, therapist or physician.

Good resources for more information on alcohol and drug addiction/treatment can be found at:
•AA – mutual support to stay sober found at AA.org
•Al-Anon – for individuals affected by an alcoholic found at Alanon.org
•Alateen – ages 12 to 20 found at Alateen.org
•ACA – Help for growing up with alcoholic parents found at Adultchildren.org
•Cocaine Anonymous found at CA.org
•Narcotics Anonymous found at NA.org

For more information log onto www.LAtherapist.com. For free clips and self-help audios, log onto the Dr. Walton Series at www.HypnoCD.com

Overcoming Depression

Everybody experiences moments or even a few days of being down in the dumps and/or sad from time to time. This is a very normal experience we all have occasionally. People often refer to getting the blues as being in a depression.

However, clinical depression is a distinct experience from getting the blues. There is a difference between getting the blues and clinical depression. Anyone can get the blues.
It's a temporary, and normal, reaction to stress or difficult situations and times.

The blues come and go they usually don't affect our sense of self-worth or cause us to experience physical symptoms such as weight loss or gain or have suicidal thoughts.

As opposed to the blues, clinical depression is much longer lasting and is more intense affecting not only our mood, but our thinking, our bodies, our abilities to perform our jobs and our social interaction.

Clinical depression brings on feelings of inadequacy, generalized loss of interest of pleasure, social withdrawal, feelings of guilt or brooding about the past, irritability, excessive anger, decreased activity, effectiveness or productivity.

In children, it is observed in impaired school performance
and social interaction. They are usually irritable and cranky as well as depressed. They can also suffer from low self-esteem and poor social skills and are pessimistic.

Many people often don't recognize that clinical depression is a serious illness. They will frequently see it as character flaw in the individual, or something that you just need to buck up and get over.

It's not uncommon to hear someone tell them to just snap out of it. It's no easier for someone with clinical depression to just snap out of it than it is for someone with a broken leg to just get over it and walk. Clinical depression is a condition that needs to be treated professionally for the best recovery results.

Some depressions are a result of chemical imbalances in the brain and can be treated with anti-depressant medication.
Others respond to treatment in a one-on-one situation in psychotherapy along with improved nutrition and exercise.
And others could benefit from a combination of all of them.

In any case, clinical depression does not generally go away on its own and it requires some from of treatment for the best results.

Statistically, women are two to three times more likely to develop clinical depression than men. Over the course of a lifetime, approximately 6% of the general population will develop clinical depression.

It generally has an early onset beginning sometime in childhood, adolescence or early adulthood. There is a strong correlation that it is more common among first-degree biological relatives of people clinical depression than among the general population.

Men have a difficult time admitting that they are experiencing depression. They have been taught to hold onto their feelings through the culture of the society. They also generally have a biological disadvantage to identifying their feelings and putting them into words.

Their brains are designed to think linearly in order to triage easily and come to fast solutions. Therefore their brains somewhat sacrifice the ability to observe extended connections and draw connections to their feelings. The result is that men have a more difficult time placing words to their feelings.

They feel feelings as strongly as women, they just don't know how to identify them as easily. Hence, when men go into depression they tend to isolate more than women. They also tend to experience anger more when depressed than women. Men have been socialized in a way that anger is considered one of the few acceptable expressions of emotion. Therefore, it is not uncommon for men to appear grumpy or angry when they are depressed. They also are more action oriented than women, so they go into action by isolating, or throwing themselves into their work.

Men are taught to go it alone and tough it out. To seek out help is to appear weak. They are least likely to reach out for help when they most need it and could most benefit from it.

The suppression of these feelings and their internalization of them by men can lead to host of physical symptoms that can be made worse by their reluctance to care for themselves during these times due to a lowered sense of self esteem.

Women, on the other hand, have more access to their feelings as a result of their brain structure as well as the benefit of a culture that supports their expression of feelings. Women more easily recognize when they are feeling depressed and are more likely to reach out to other women or therapy for help over men.

However, women have a tendency to internalize and blame themselves, which may impede them to reach out for help. They have also been taught to sacrifice themselves for others and may then ignore their own feelings and not reach out for help.
There is also a tendency for women in depression to focus on the negative, which makes the symptoms of their depression worse and cuts them off from reaching out for help as a hopeless endeavor.

To help move yourself away from depression:

Check automatic thoughts. What is the evidence its true, what's the evidence its not true. Make a more reasonable statement by combining the two.
Volunteer and take the focus off yourself, get out of being internally focused.
Buy self flowers. Scents such as vanilla and baked bread have an uplifting effect.
Exercise.
How would you treat yourself if you were a friend?
Schedule pleasant events
Sometimes, it is anger turned inward to protect others around them from their feelings so they attack their mood with depression.
Meditation, exercise and proper nutrition are very helpful
Separate out facts from feelings, just because you feel something doesn't make it a fact. Sometimes our thoughts and feelings can lie to us about what is real.
Learn how to communicate with others better by reading books or going to therapy.
Get a therapist who you feel comfortable talking with.
Seek medical attention for your depression

I generally recommend seeing a psychiatrist for treating the medical aspect of depression. They are specifically trained to help you choose the best medication available for your condition if you choose to use medication. Milder forms of depression can be treated with psychotherapy alone, but more sever forms generally require a combination of both medication and psychotherapy for maximum benefit and recovery.

If you know of someone suffering from depression and you want them to seek help:

Be straight forward to tell them about the behaviors you are observing.

Do not stigmatize them by calling them crazy, or defective in some way.

Tell them that they are not alone and that many other people who have sought treatment for depression have been helped.

Do not judge them rather emphasize the benefits they might gain from receiving help, such as an improvement in their mood and feelings, improvement in their thoughts and greater success in their relationships and at work.

Give them hope.

From time to time, bring up the options and benefits for help.
Pass along articles that you find. Do this at a very measured pace. If you bring it up too often or are too forceful about it, it will only lead the person who is experience depression to isolate more or become more resistant to any form of treatment or help.
Show interest in their entire life, not just in whether or not they get treatment.

To help a resistant partner get help for depression, it is important for them to see the benefits of such help for themselves as well as for their family. It is important for the individual's family and or partner to have empathy for them and their experience.

Try to view their experience through their eyes without blaming them or telling them to snap out of it. It may be helpful to set a therapy appointment or doctor's appointment together. Don't blame them as the problem or refer to them as the sick one. This would only lead them to avoid receiving any kind of help in a bid to prove that they are OK on their own.

However, if someone staunchly refuses treatment, there is only so much you can do as long as they are not a danger to themselves or others. You can only do what you can do.

Talk therapy, usually referred to as psychotherapy, can be very helpful for all forms of depression. Marriage and Family Therapists, Clinical Social Workers, Psychologists and Psychiatrists are all qualified to treat depression through talk therapy.

The goals of therapy are to:
Improve mood and stability
Decrease irritability
Increase motivation and interest in life
Improve memory
Improve sleep in quality and pattern
Improve outlook on life
Improve energy
Improve clarity of thought and cognition
Improve sexual desire
Eliminate suicidal thoughts
Improve functioning at work, school and home

Psychiatrists are the only ones who are licensed to dispense medication and they generally limit their practices to handling the medical side of depression leaving the talk therapy side to MFTs, Social Workers and Psychologists.

For more information on depression log onto www.LAtherapist.com. For free samples and self-help audios, log onto the Dr. Walton Series at www.HypnoCD.com

The Importance of Feeling Our Feelings

Half the information we get from the world comes from our thinking, the other half comes from our feelings. When we cut ourselves off from our feelings (narcissism), we are cut off from half the information available to us in our world. By cutting off from our feelings, we cut off from the messages of our internal self.

No one outside of ourselves can control our feelings. Others may influence our thoughts and thinking, but our feelings emanate solely out of the core of our being. They are completely created within us. Our feelings are completely our own. They give us a sense of independence from others and define us as separate individuals. When we cut ourselves off from our feelings, we take away from our sense of independence. ‘

We lose our sense of personal independence when we cut off from our feelings because our only remaining information source, thinking, is vulnerable to the influence of the world around us. Thinking can be influence by others. When we are cut off from our feelings, we can only express our feelings through anger or maudlin sentimentality. Any other expression seems to threaten our sense of security. Those two expressions of feelings are then viewed as the only acceptable expression of feeling.

We can cut off from our feelings because they feel messy or they make us feel vulnerable or, for some reason, we were punished for feeling and expressing them when we were children. As a result, we cut off from our feelings to protect ourselves from feeling bad. Protecting ourselves by restricting feelings that make us feel bad, we become more dependent on our thinking for information about our world. Being more dependent on our thinking, we become more protective of it, which can lead to hostility with others if we feel they are threatening our sense of independence by influencing our thinking.

When thinking becomes the sole way of relating to the world, any feeling other than anger or sentimentality seems to threaten our sense of stability. We then shuttle our messy feelings farther and farther away from our awareness to protect ourselves from the discomfort they carry with them. The vulnerability we feel from our feelings is then seen as a threat to our independence. As we depend on thinking more and more, we grow more and more vulnerable to the influence of others affecting our thinking. This causes us to increasingly withdraw from connection with others. Thus, our efforts to protect ourselves by cutting off from feelings actually causes us to feel increasingly more vulnerable in the world as it causes us to withdraw from connection to others.

This vulnerability and the resulting disconnect from our world can be completely reversed by open up to our feelings. When we open up to our feelings, we are able to experience and express a greater range of emotion. We are then able to process information through our feelings as well as through our thoughts. Our feelings are generated solely within ourselves. No one else is in control of or responsible for our feelings. They are solely our own and allow us to feel a sense of independence over ourselves in our world.

Understanding and experiencing our range of feelings gives us more information about our world and in turn, because they emanate solely from us, we feel a greater sense of independence and differentiation from others. We don’t feel so vulnerable to others when we are able to recognize and value our feelings.

For more information on getting in touch with your feelings, log onto LAtherapist.com or for more information on self-help downloads, and to listen to free samples, log onto The Dr. Walton Series at HypnoCD.com.