Parenting – How to Avoid “Mood Matching”

Here are a few ways to avoid “mood matching” when your little one is having a tough time:

Give your good mood roots.

Take care of yourself so your joy reaches beyond the amount of sleep you got, an insensitive comment someone made, or whether or not your partner shoveled the driveway. Your demeanor is stable enough not to depend on the cleanliness of your bathroom or the weather. Know what makes you happy and be fiercely deliberate about pursuing it. Fill your spirit with the things you love, whether it’s bluegrass music, blueberry muffins, or Sunday football.

Ground yourself.

Use mindfulness to observe what “comes up for you” as your child is having a hard time. Notice any sensations in your gut, heart, or body. Take deep breaths, take a bathroom break, or step outside for a few minutes to focus back on peace. Know what calms you, whether it’s some Grateful Dead music, a chat with a friend, fresh air, or a cup of hot tea, and be ready to use it.

Remind yourself that development brings friction.

As children mature, there is a natural friction while they assert themselves. They often get emotional as they realize they can’t do everything, be everything, or get everything. They don’t comply when they are super-busy touting their independence, separateness, and grown-upedness as if shouting it from a rooftop with a megaphone.

Visualize a rock.

Picture yourself a bright boulder so heavy an excavator couldn’t scoop it up. As you deal with challenges, adventures, and difficulties (like a stuffed animal in the toilet or a spilled gallon of milk, for example), you’re unchanging. You’re the rock that picks up the sun’s rays and reflects them toward everyone else.

-Copyright Erin Leyba, LCSW, PhD

How to Support a Partner Dealing With Depression

As a mental health counselor and someone who has battled depression for most of her life, I’m no stranger to the toll it can take on relationships.

While it differs from person to person, at its core, the illness causes people to feel lonely, inadequate, and misunderstood—even isolated. Sometimes it’s because we don’t want to inflict our pain on the people we love. Other times, it’s because we’ve been hurt by (even well-meaning) others and don’t want to risk feeling even worse than we already do.


When someone with depression withdraws from loved ones without communicating why, it leaves a lot of room for misinterpretation. A partner may not understand why their S.O. is distant, distracted, or even angry. They may wonder what they did to offend the other person, or they may be frustrated that their partner is suddenly detached from them.

In addition to intense feelings of shame, sadness, and worthlessness, depression can manifest itself physically—including changes in sex drive, sleep; and appetite; energy loss; and even physical pain, such as headaches, stomach pains, and back or neck pain. This leads to more confusion for a partner, who may wonder why their loved one is often sick or generally disinterested in events and activities (including sex).

Expressing my feelings when I’m depressed has always been a challenge, especially in relationships. I’m afraid of coming across as whiny, ungrateful, or melodramatic. I have been blamed for the way I was feeling and told that I was a negative person. I have had a partner turn away from me as I was crying in bed, telling me he couldn’t tolerate me when I was “like that.” Mostly, I have been ignored, or told to take a pill or go see a therapist so I could “get fixed.”

We’ve been able to develop a course of action that works for both of us, resulting in communication, understanding, and support.

Two years ago, I began a new relationship. Because of my previous experiences, it was difficult not to repeat the same habits—I withdrew when I was feeling depressed, closing myself off completely, which took a toll on our relationship.

But eventually, we were able to talk openly about my depression and behaviors surrounding it. Over time, we’ve developed a course of action that works for both of us, resulting in communication, understanding, and support. What works for us may not work for everyone, but these are methods we have found to be helpful.

5 Tips That Worked for Us

1. Make communication your highest priority.

It can be as simple as switching your language from “Gosh, I’m so upset” to “I’m depressed” to let your partner know that it’s more than being annoyed about traffic or bills. Explaining your triggers, warning signs, and symptoms can help them better understand your illness and respond in a supportive and productive way.

2. Come up with code words.

For me, it can still be hard to say, “I’m depressed.” For some reason, those two words stick in my throat like cement. There are so many years of shame attached to them, and saying them sometimes feels like I’m giving in to the depression.

During times like this, my partner has worked out a way for us to continue communicating. He will ask, “Is it in the kitchen or the living room?”—meaning, how intensely are you feeling it right now? I’ll respond that it’s down the street, or at the door, or in bed with me.

Another way we increase communication is through more direct questions. When I say “I don’t feel well,” he will ask “Physically or emotionally?” This opens up the conversation for specifics, instead of one or both of us shutting down.

Accept that this is part of your relationship with your partner, instead of trying to change or cure them.

3. Don’t try to solve the problem.

Partners of those struggling with depression tend to feel helpless and may jump to problem-solving or giving advice. Often, someone who is depressed knows what they need to do to feel better; they don’t have the energy to do so in that moment. In these situations, it is very powerful to simply be with your partner. Accept that this is part of your relationship, instead of trying to change or cure them. Holding their hand, giving eye contact, and actively listening can help far more than offering suggestions for things they should be doing. Talking through thoughts and feelings can effectively reduce symptoms, and knowing that someone loves you when you’re feeling at your worst is both healing and empowering.

4. Provide basic comforts.

Drawing a warm bath, whipping up a meal or a cup of tea, or even giving a back rub can be life-changing for someone suffering with depression. Because depression often makes people feel unworthy or unattractive, words of encouragement are also vital. Finding other ways to be intimate when your partner is not feeling well shows sensitivity and relieves pressure from a partner who may feel inadequate.

5. Give reminders and encouragement.

People with depression may believe the things they are feeling are a result of who they are as a person, which can result in self-loathing. They may feel shame or guilt for not being able to better control their emotions. My partner will often remind me that my depression is not me, and that I am separate from it. He also reminds me that depression is an illness, and like any other illness, the one who is sick is not to blame. When he points out my strengths and past successes, it empowers me and reminds me that I will eventually feel better again.

The Bottom Line

While a partner may not be able to take away their loved one’s depression, they can provide the strong support system that is vital to a person’s mental health and sense of self. Through patience, understanding, and open communication, a partner gives their loved one a space to heal and feel safe to communicate what they are feeling. Having a relationship where one or both partners experience depression can be a challenge, but if both are willing to put in the time and effort, the result can be a strong, supportive relationship built on trust and understanding.

-Lauren Hasha

Myths and Facts about Grief

MYTH: The pain will go away faster if you ignore it.

Fact: Trying to ignore your pain or keep it from surfacing will only make it worse in the long run. For real healing it is necessary to face your grief and actively deal with it.

MYTH: It’s important to be “be strong” in the face of loss.

Fact: Feeling sad, frightened, or lonely is a normal reaction to loss. Crying doesn’t mean you are weak. You don’t need to “protect” your family or friends by putting on a brave front. Showing your true feelings can help them and you.

MYTH: If you don’t cry, it means you aren’t sorry about the loss.

Fact: Crying is a normal response to sadness, but it’s not the only one. Those who don’t cry may feel the pain just as deeply as others. They may simply have other ways of showing it.

MYTH: Grief should last about a year.

Fact: There is no right or wrong time frame for grieving. How long it takes can differ from person to person.

-Talkspace

A Sure-Fire Way to Silence Your Inner Critic

You can learn to dis-identify from the inner critic voice in your head.

Most of us have been conditioned from childhood to be our own harshest critics. That inner judge can shadow us, scrutinizing our every move and making us quite miserable. For years, I’ve been working on turning the inner critic into an inner ally who will refuse to disparage me in ways I would never disparage those I care about. I’ve made a lot of progress, but that critic can still surprises me with an unexpected visit.

This happened recently on my daughter’s last wedding anniversary. I started reminiscing about that special day. My daughter and son-in-law lived across the country but the wedding was in our hometown, so I was responsible for making all the arrangements. I worked hard at it, lining up everything from decorations to flowers to food to a limousine to pick them and take them to the airport.

I always tell people that her wedding was one of the happiest days of my life, and so I was surprised that when I thought about it on her anniversary, the first thing that popped into my mind was that the post-ceremony luncheon was delayed for 45 minutes because the bread hadn’t arrive from the local bakery. The second thing that popped into my mind was how the limousine driver I’d hired to arrive at 3:00 p.m. to whisk the bride and groom away still wasn’t there by 3:20. I remembered how I stood by myself in the parking lot, fretting and worrying, instead of mingling inside with the guests.

The biggest surprise to me as I recalled that day, though, was that I was still blaming myself for these two minor glitches. I call them minor because no one else was bothered by them. As for the bread, the guests were mingling and chatting, happily drinking champagne and eating appetizers until the luncheon started. And my daughter and son-in-law weren’t anxiously waiting for the limousine: they were inside having a great time!

Yet, here I was, many years after the wedding, still hosting the inner critic with its familiar “shoulds”: “You should have called the bakery on the morning of the wedding and confirmed the time for the luncheon to begin. You should have called the limo company and made sure they had the time right for arriving.”

Dis-Indentifying from the Inner Critic

Realizing how ridiculous it was for me to still be blaming myself after all these years, I asked myself if there was a way to silence that inner critic for good regarding this special day in my life. I decided to try a technique called dis-identifying—that is, not treating the inner critic voice as an authentic, fixed feature of myself. Dis-identifying in this way can take many forms. Some people find it helpful to give the critic a name: “Oh, it’s Ms. Nag again.” Doing this keeps you from identifying with the voice as an immutable part of your personality.

A metaphor my husband likes to use is to imagine that the inner critic is a voice on a stage, and you’re in the balcony listening to it. I decided to try this. I imagined myself in the balcony. There was the critic, onstage, going on and on about bread and a limousine that I, in the audience, couldn’t care less about. In fact, it was boring to listen to.

Then I considered what (as an audience member) would have made for better onstage viewing and listening. The answer was easy: a focus on all the positives from the wedding. After all, they far outweighed the negatives in both number and intensity:

  1. The beauty and emotional impact of the ceremony itself, which the bride and groom had planned with the officiate who was none other than my husband—the bride’s own father.
  2. How my daughter had asked our town’s beloved high school music teacher to play the piano for the ceremony, which made the occasion special for so many people in the room.
  3. The tears that came to my eyes as my daughter danced her first dance with her father to a song she’d chosen: Louis Armstrong’s “What a Wonderful World.”
  4. My son’s carefully prepared—and hilarious—toast to the bride and groom.
  5. The gathering together of so many people who were dear to me.

Recalling all of this worked to silence the inner critic. Does any wedding take place without a single glitch? I don’t think so, and yet this was the impossible standard I’d been holding myself to all these years. I’d been clinging to an idea of how I thought things should be, and in doing so, had continue to feed the inner critic and pollute my treasured memories of that day.

By dis-identifying from the inner critic, I was able to look at the wedding from a different perspective. I felt good about how hard I’d worked to make it a special day for my daughter and son-in-law. And I also felt compassion for the mother-of-the-bride who, all dressed up, had stood alone in the parking lot for a half hour, while everyone else was inside, having fun.

Dis-identifying in this way immunized me from anything the inner critic might try to say that could interfere with the joy I felt as I remembered that day. In fact, a warm sense of emotional well-being led to a big smile coming over my face.

I hope you’ll try one of these dis-identifying techniques the next time your inner critic shows up. You’ll recognize that the critic is present because you’ll start to direct self-criticism and blame at yourself. When this happens, begin by reminding yourself that, although you can sometimes learn from past mistakes, beating yourself up over them serves no useful purpose and will only make you feel bad about yourself.

Then, dis-identify with that negative inner voice, either by giving it a name that’s not associated with you or by imagining it’s on a stage and you’re a neutral third-party in the balcony being forced to listen to its negative and boring chatter.

– © 2016 Toni Bernhard.

Never Good Enough

If you’re so displeased with yourself, both mentally and physically, it’s not so mysterious that you’re falling into two common cognitive traps: perfectionism and self-downing.

Feeling better about who you are as a person means talking to yourself respectfully and rationally. You wouldn’t speak so harshly to your worst enemy. Calling yourself names doesn’t help, and only makes things worse. Fortunately, there are some issues you can address to counteract this tendency.

Perfectionism has many aspects, including the valuable desire to “do better,” “look better,” and generally keep to high standards. So far, so good. However, since even Olympic gold medalists fall short of perfection most of the time, we’d better accept that perfection simply doesn’t exist. Striving toward betterment is great. The quest motivates us, and keeps us on a good path for the long run. But the idea that you can and should attain perfection will crimp your style, stunt your growth, and make you miserable. The solution, fortunately, is within your power: Talk gently and rationally to yourself about your goal and give up the need for perfection.

Secondly, the self-downing habit is a facet of perfectionism that also makes you do less well and contributes to your feeling badly about yourself. Why include a rating of your entire self (your very being) for having trouble in one of your classes? You’re making your performance at this task, at this time, a measure of your worth as a person—and you don’t have to.

It’s much better to keep your high standards, and give up the idea that you have to be perfect. Scratch the idea that if you’re not a sparkly Brangelina, you are therefore totally undesirable and incapable. You’ll start to do much better in many ways when you get off your own back and focus on what you can control.

-Talkspace

3 Foolproof Ways to Prevent Work Burnout, Backed by Science

Over-working leads to burnout, here’s a better way to get things done.

Our culture is obsessed with productivity. But research shows that stressing ourselves out over an ever-expanding to-do list actually works against us—no matter how “productive” we may feel. After all, we’re seeing 50% burnout rates across industries.

Not only does workaholism double the risk of depression and anxiety, it actually lowers productivity and decreases work performance, according to research by Steven Sussman at the University of Southern California. It also leads to sleep problems and shortened attention spans, both of conspire to get in the way of our ability to do good work. Workaholism is bad for employers as well: it leads to stress-related accidents, absenteeism, higher employee turnover, lower productivity and higher medical costs.

So why have we gotten caught up in a frantic approach to productivity? As a Stanford University research psychologist who has spent years looking into this literature, I believe the problem lies in our constant focus on the future – we believe we always have to look ahead in order to succeed and be happy. This belief leads us to forego personal happiness in the present and spend our days hunched over our computers, grinding our teeth and reassuring ourselves that the eventual payoff will be worth it.

But the truth is that nonstop focus on our work leads to the opposite of what we want: we are stressed, tired and never satisfied because there’s always something more to be done. Two simple changes could make us much better off.

1. Detach When You’re Not Working

First, detaching from work can actually make us more productive. Sabine Sonnentag, a professor of organizational psychology at the University of Mannheim in Germany, has found that people who do not know how to detach from work during their downtime experienced increased exhaustion over the course of one year and became less resilient in the face of stressful work conditions. By contrast, gaining some emotional distance from highly demanding work tends to help people recover from stress faster and leads to increased productivity.

“From our research, one can conclude that it is good to schedule time for recovery and to use this time in an optimal way,” Sonnentag shared with me. Recommended activities include exercise, walks in nature, and total absorption in a hobby that’s unrelated to work—whether that’s shooting hoops with friends, doing some woodcarving in the garage or learning to make dim sum. Positively reflecting about your job after work hours can also help replenish you, according to research by Sonnentag and Wharton Professor Adam Grant. In other words, thinking about the good sides of your work at the end of your workday – in particular about the ways in which you are benefitting others – results in higher well-being and happiness. If your work directly benefits others (e.g. you are a firefighter or a nurse), this exercise will be straightforward. If, however, you don’t feel that your work product benefits others substantially, you can still think about how your work is impacting others in a positive way. For example, it is benefitting your family. Or your attitude at work is benefitting your colleagues. Research shows that, when we are engaged in any kind of prosocial or kind action, we become happier.

2. Calm Down Rather than Amping Up

Our addiction to caffeine and other stimulants is another big issue. In the name of productivity, we have learned to keep our adrenaline levels high with copious amounts of coffee. Caffeine is a drug – albeit a socially accepted one. It is a stimulant. When we drink coffee, it raises cortisol (the “stress” hormone) above its natural levels.  Cortisol is naturally occurring in our body – it helps us wake up in the morning and have energy to start the day. However, raising it to unusual levels through coffee is the reason we sometimes feel so jittery after consuming caffeine.

This means we wind up depending on anxiety to fuel ourselves to get through our overscheduled days. Other people may rely on stimulants like sugar, energy drinks and even potentially addictive drugs like Adderall to help themselves stay up and focus for long hours.

Then, over-stimulated and unable to calm down when we come home, we turn to depressants like alcohol, sleeping pills or anti-anxiety medication to achieve balance. The constant back-and-forth between stimulant-induced anxiety and depressant-induced drowsiness places an enormous burden on our already exhausted nervous system.

Cutting back on stimulants and cultivating calmness in your life – through yoga, walks in nature, and tech-fasts, for example – can help you turn down the dial on your adrenaline-filled life. By balancing these calming activities with the more high-intensity demands of your life, you will end up managing your energy better, having more emotional intelligence and making better decisions.

3. Breathe

Research that I led with veterans (arguably some of the most stressed individuals in our society when they return from war) shows that learning conscious breathing (sudarshan kriya yoga) can help significantly reduce our stress and anxiety levels—sometimes in minutes. Breathing is among the most neglected solutions to stress, since it mostly happens on its own while we’re not paying attention to it.

But research suggests that you can change how you feel using your breath. By taking deep breaths into your abdomen and lengthening your exhales so they are longer than your inhales helps your nervous system relax – your heart rate and blood pressure may even decrease. Having a more relaxed nervous system will actually help provide you with more energy. Instead of wearing yourself out quickly with adrenaline, by remaining calm and engaging your parasympathetic nervous system, you will be able to restore yourself and manage your energy throughout the day without crashing.

There is little evidence that leading an adrenaline-fueled life makes you more productive. However, there is plenty of evidence to show that a chronically stressful lifestyle damages your physical health and your cognitive faculties. So if you’re really interested in becoming a more accomplished and happier person, stop driving yourself up the wall with productivity hacks—and commit to learning how to take a breather.

–Emma M. Seppälä Ph.D. Based on a section of her new book, The Happiness Track: How to Apply the Science of Happiness to Accelerate Your success (HarperOne, 2016)

Alternate Nostril Breathing:

Place the index and middle finger of the right hand on the center of the eyebrow, and place the thumb on the right nostril, and the ring finger and pinky on the left nostril. The left hand rests on the lap, palm facing up. Take a deep breath in and, closing the right nostril with your thumb, breathe out through the left nostril. Then take a deep breath in through the left nostril, close the left nostril with your ring finger and pinky at the end of the inhale, and exhale through the right nostril. Take a deep breath in through the right nostril and, closing the right nostril with the thumb, exhale on the left side, and start over. Do this with your eyes closed for about five minutes. Notice the effects on your body and mind.

Fear v. Anxiety

Most of us make some distinction between fear and anxiety. Sometimes it’s merely a matter of linguistics. We say we have a fear of something (flying, aging) and anxiety about something (flying, aging).

Sometimes we distinguish the two by our bodily experience. I’m sure you’re aware that the neurobiology of fear is different than the neurobiology of anxiety. The sudden re-arrangement of your guts when an intruder holds a knife to your back (fear), is different from the mild nausea, dizziness and butterflies in your stomach as you’re about to make a difficult phone call (anxiety).

Anxiety is also the word of choice to describe lingering apprehension, or a chronic sense of worry or tension, the sources of which may be totally unclear.

But the notion that “fear” always connotes something bigger and stronger than “anxiety” breaks down in real life experience.

You can have a short-lived fear response to the bee buzzing around your face, and you can wake up at three in the morning awash in anxiety that won’t let you get back to sleep.

In everyday conversation, we use the language of emotions that we’re comfortable with and that fits our psychological complexion. I’ve worked with clients who don’t report feeling anxious or afraid. “I’m incredibly stressed out…” is their language of choice. “Stressed” is the code word for “totally freaked out” for people who are allergic to identifying and sharing their own vulnerability.

Whatever your emotional vocabulary, no one signs up for anxiety, fear and shame, or for any difficult, uncomfortable emotion. But we can’t avoid these feelings, either.

I am convinced that the more we can look these uninvited guests in the eye, with patience and curiosity, and the more we learn to spot their wisdom as well as their mischief, the less grip they will have on us.

Only when we experience our emotions as both potential stumbling blocks and wise guides–not either/or–can we begin to live more fully in the present and move into the future with courage, clarity, humor, and hope.

-Talkspace

Margaret Cho Wants You to Embrace Your Darkness

Using creativity to cope and connect

Margaret Cho has been finding ways to entertain us for decades. From her stand-up routines, such as The Notorious C.H.O.; to her books, such as I’m The One That I Want; to her roles in films such as Face/Off, Cho continues to come up with new ways to explore and share her artistry.

A major reason why Cho continues to be so prolific is the same reason why she is so beloved by her fans — she is willing to tackle and speak out on difficult issues. Cho has been an advocate for LGBT rights, has opened up about her having experienced sexual abuse, and about her sexuality, as well as her consequent struggles with an eating disorder, addiction, depression and suicide. In doing so, Cho has given voice to people who feel alone and invisible in their struggles with social and emotional issues.

And with her new album, American Myth, Cho is continuing her message: Don’t run away from your darkness — embrace it.

Cho explains how this is a central approach to her life and art. She told me, “People should be conscious that pain and suffering are essential to living. We need it as much as we need happiness and joy and pleasure. There would be no contrast in your existence if the bad and dark parts didn’t exist.”

For Cho, this stance is personal. One of the painful issues with which she has struggled over the years is depression. People who struggle with depression — even only sub-clinical depressive symptoms — may experience significant loss of physical, social and role functioning. And the loss of functioning associated with depression appears to be comparable to or worse than that of other chronic medical issues.

“I think I’ve always had it. It’s something that sounds familiar when people talk about their experience of depression,” Cho explained. “But I’ve never been diagnosed or medicated or anything. It’s not weeks; it’s more just like it’s parts of days.”

Cho describes her depression as feeling like existential dread, also referred to as existential angst. “There’s always been this existential dread that I’ve had, not knowing what the future is going to bring,” Cho explained. “And not knowing how you may have done something in the past that’s upsetting, or regret something that you’ve done.”

Like many others who experience depression, Cho also experiences rumination, which is to compulsively and repeatedly think about something. Rumination can be useful if one is attempting to deliberate over possible solutions to a problem. But it can also take the form of obsessing and amplifying a problem without arriving at a solution.

“It becomes something amplified in your mind to obsess over. The tiny slights that build up – like someone doesn’t email or text you back,” she explained. “Something that you obsess on, and then you realize that the other person has no idea that you’re going through this crazy thing. And it’s just strange how certain facts or details about your life become amplified.”

Managing one’s negative experience can be difficult enough, but Cho felt that while she was growing up there were many social signals that she and her feelings didn’t matter. This first came with observing the underrepresentation of Asian-Americans in popular culture. Research suggests that even subtle forms of racism can result in negative psychological consequences.

In Cho’s case, she described the feeling of invisibility — like she was not there and she didn’t matter — that can arise from these forms of racism.  “I think you feel betrayed and shocked when you realize that you’re not what’s being represented or you don’t feel included. It’s just this strong feeling of invisibility. And it can be very hard to explain to other people.”

-Michael Friedman, PhD, Brick By Brick

Challenging Irrational Thoughts

Sometimes we tend to believe our own automatic negative thoughts instead of challenging them and paying attention to the evidence. For example, I am always checking my partner’s phone because I am suspicious that he is cheating on me. I can’t sleep at night because I’m worrying about him being with someone else. My thoughts are completely dominating my emotions and I am not focusing on the evidence in front of me:

1. He frequently demonstrates his love for me with his words and actions

2. He does not have a history of cheating on me or anyone else.

3. He has never broken a promise to me.

4. He has solid values and morals.

5. He’s never been flirtatious with other women and only pays attention to me when we’re out.

So that is an example of taking a step back, looking at the facts, and challenging your own irrational thoughts to make sure that you’re not just going along with them and letting them dictate your emotions. With practice, this becomes easier and easier and you might find that you are much more able to see things realistically rather than anxiously. Does this make sense? What do you think about this coping strategy? Is it something that could be applied to your life to help you manage your worried thoughts a little bit better?

-Ivanna Colangelo, LMFT

20 Rules to Live By

14. Be kind, not nice.

1. Bring your sense of humor with you at all times. Bring your friends with a sense of humor. If their friends have a sense of humor, invite them, too. Remember this when going to hospitals, weight-loss centers, and funerals, as well as when going to work, coming home, waking up, and going to sleep.

2. If it’s worth crying over, it’s probably worth laughing at. Cultivate a sense of perspective that permits you to see the wider and longer view of the situation; this will help you realize that although your situation is upsetting, it might also one day become a terrific story.

3. Other people don’t care what you’re wearing.

4. Don’t be a sissy. This is especially important if you are a woman. Girls can be sissies, but behaving like a simpering, whining, fretful coward as an adult is unacceptable no matter what your gender happens to be. If you are anxious, scared, and feeling powerless, you don’t need to change your behavior; you need to change your life.

5. Don’t lie. Cheat the devil and tell the truth.

6. There is one exception to the rule above: Never say a baby looks like a sausage wearing a hat. The parents will not forgive you. This is a situation in which telling the truth is not wholly necessary. If it’s not possible to tell the whole truth for fear of causing undue pain, just say the baby looks “happy.”

7. Never use the passive voice. Do not say, “It will get done.” Say, “I’ll do it” and then offer a solid, unwavering deadline. Always make your deadline.

8. The pinnacle is always slippery; no peak is safe. Only plateaus offer a place to rest. Are you ready to stay on a plateau or are you climbing? Decide and pack your bags accordingly.

9. As we age, love changes. As a youth, you fall for an unattainable ideal. When you’re more mature, you fall in love with a person: “Sure, he has only one eye in the middle of his forehead,” you’ll rationalize, “but he never forgets my birthday.”

10. Power is the ability to persuade stupid people to do intelligent things and intelligent people to do stupid things. This is why power is dangerous.

11. Sherlock Holmes said, “Work is the best antidote to sorrow, my dear Watson.” Listen to Mr. Holmes.

12. Everybody wants a shortcut to love, prosperity, and weight loss, although not necessarily in that order. Apart from being born into an adoring family, getting good genes, and inheriting the mineral rights, however, there are no short cuts. The rest of us have to work at it.

13. Help the dramatically self-pitying to understand that they are not, by definition, sympathetic or interesting. Encourage them to address topics other than themselves.

14. Be kind, not nice. Kindness is both intentional and meaningful. Acts of kindness requires generosity, emotional and otherwise. Perfunctory and superficial niceness is, too often, mere window dressing.

15. Only poor workers blame their tools. It’s not the fault of the computer, the school, the train, the government, or poor cell phone reception. Take responsibility.

16. You know how sometimes you don’t think you’re asleep—you’re half listening to a conversation or the television—only to discover you were unconscious? One part of your head would swear it’s awake, but when you actually snap out of it, you realize you were wholly elsewhere? Sometimes that happens in life. Sometimes the only way you know you’re truly in love, in the entirely wrong profession, being a moron at parties, or a great poet is when you snap out of it.

17. You can always stop what you’re doing.

18. You should either be doing something useful or you should be playing. You should not be thinking about playing while at work or thinking about work when you’re out having fun. Compartmentalizing your life is not inevitably a bad thing. It’s easy to waste pleasure by feeling guilty and waste potentially effective time by feeling resentful.

19. Be aware that a safety net, if pulled too tight, easily turns into a noose. Don’t trade independence for security without being aware of the consequences.

20. Someday you will die. Until then, you should do everything possible to enjoy life.

-Gina Barreca, PhD
Excerpted from IF YOU LEAN IN, WILL MEN JUST LOOK DOWN YOUR BLOUSE? published by St. Martin’s Press (March, 2016)