NewsBreak Original

Maya had just accepted a job. It wasn’t in the field that really interested her, but it was a good position with many positive features. Her new supervisor was flexible and had kindly pushed back the start date for the job by a week to accommodate her childcare situation.

Making a difficult decision can be overwhelming and paralyzing for some people. Decisions are difficult because we want a certain outcome but don’t know which choice will deliver it. And so we fret, ruminate, think and think and think some more, all in an effort to figure it out.

When we reach our forties and fifties, many women go through a powerful and profound change process. By this point in life, a lot of us have succeeded in creating a good life. We’re living comfortably, making a substantial income, and thriving in our careers. We’ve launched our children; they’re in college or finishing high school. Our relationship is solid, or we’re okay without one. We’ve done everything we were supposed to do, and gotten everything we were taught to want. But deep down, we’re just getting started.

It seems that we’re no longer willing or able to tolerate feeling uncomfortable. And furthermore, we’ve come to believe we shouldn’t have to tolerate any kind of emotional discomfort. Any situation that could possibly trigger uncomfortable feelings is now viewed as overwhelming, unnatural, and in need of correction.

Is there someone in your life who frequently critiques you and often points out what you’re doing or have done wrong...how you should improve? Is there someone close to you who gives you the feeling that maybe they don’t quite like you as you are?

When we think of virtues, we usually think of the classics: wisdom, compassion, humility, patience, fortitude, courage, kindness, gratitude, and the like. But there are a number of underrated, less-discussed virtues that are vitally important in creating a good life. One that rarely makes the top-ten lists is curiosity. When it comes to virtues, curiosity gets short shrift and sometimes has to defend its right to even identify as a virtue. But curiosity deserves our recognition and a place on the greatest-hits list of virtuous qualities. Not only is it vitally important for creating a good life, but also for maintaining lasting love relationships.

The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) recently reported a startling statistic on teen suicide: Emergency room visits for attempted suicide among teenage girls were up 51.6 percent in the first months of 2021, as compared to 2019.

Gwen was a working comedian when I first met her. She wasn’t famous yet, but it seemed that she was on her way there. I had never met an artist who pushed herself so hard. No matter how tired she was, she showed up at every audition and never said no to any possible opportunity. For her, that just might be the one that would launch her. When Gwen wasn’t auditioning, networking, or exercising (to keep herself camera-ready), she was writing material, making videos, and submitting them. And when she wasn’t doing that, she was waitressing and bartending to pay rent on her tiny studio apartment in a bad neighborhood.

Have you ever told a friend about a deeply upsetting experience and then had the friend tell you all the reasons why that experience won’t be upsetting at some point in the future? Have you ever been that friend who offers that advice?

When we think of virtues, we usually think of the classics: wisdom, compassion, humility, patience, fortitude, courage, kindness, gratitude, and the like. But there are a number of underrated, less-discussed virtues that are vitally important in creating a good life. One that rarely makes the top-ten lists is curiosity. When it comes to virtues, curiosity gets short shrift and sometimes has to defend its right to even identify as a virtue. But curiosity deserves our recognition and a place on the greatest-hits list of virtuous qualities. Not only is it vitally important for creating a good life, but also for maintaining lasting love relationships.

We are buried in “shoulds” when it comes to what we’re supposed to do with family members who treat us badly. We’re taught that we should feel grateful for family—no matter what. The fact that a relationship feels toxic or emotionally abusive is irrelevant; it’s family, so it’s sacred.

This past weekend I witnessed an event that was both utterly simple and utterly profound, an interaction that beautifully demonstrates what we really need to feel OK. I was sitting at an outdoor café, when what appeared to be a family of three: a mom, dad, and their 9-ish-year-old daughter (who was carrying a wrapped present) approached and stopped at the brownstone just next to the table where I was sitting. It looked like they were going to the same party as several other young families who’d entered the brownstone carrying presents in the last half hour. But at the bottom of the stoop, the little girl started crying. From the look of her face, which was red and splotchy, it looked like it wasn’t the first cry of the morning. The girl then laid down on the sidewalk, now sobbing, and screeched that she didn’t want to go to the party; she hated parties, she wasn’t going to know anyone there besides “Molly,” and no one was going to talk to her because no one ever did.

Ann, a client, was sobbing because her husband had “proven” that he considered her less important than other people; he valued and trusted others over her. On top of that, he had intentionally excluded her—because he didn't think she really mattered.

Sarah, Jon’s girlfriend of three years (and a client of mine) experiences Jon as “bafflingly defensive.” Jon reports that he has been called “defensive” by every woman he’s ever dated. Not surprisingly, he denies his own defensiveness, and blames his ex-girlfriends for being demanding, impossible to please, aggressive, and his favorite criticism: controlling.

Bill, a client, came to see me because his wife “never takes ownership of her own behavior.” Bill is married to a blamer. No matter what difficulty she experiences, there’s always someone or something else to blame for it, but not her. As he put it (with exasperation), “She is never, ever, ever, but I mean ever the problem!” Bill felt a lot of resentment and residual rage toward his wife as a result of this issue, but also felt unable to speak about it with her with any degree of honesty. When he did try and point out, gently, where she might be part of the problem, she would accuse him of not being empathic not supporting her, and not being a good husband. “All I want from you is to know you’re on my team.”

Pam, a client, was crying tears of happiness and relief, but also sadness. The man she’d been dating for six months had asked, “How do you feel about what’s happening in the news, given what happened to you in middle school?”